Chapter 2
Levi
The slow, low hum of a violin is a lullaby to my nervous system, which is already on the fritz since the season is now in full swing. The blonde in front of me talks easily, sipping her wine and reaching over to place her hand on mine. Her touch featherlight.
Around us, other couples are dressed to the nines, reminding me that I’m also wearing the dreaded cousin of a penguin suit.
I pull my hand out from under her grip and tug at the knot of my tie.
It feels like a noose, slowly tightening.
This restaurant is my tomb, and the melody is the sedation that’s going to put me to sleep before I die.
Not to be dramatic or anything.
This is my show, they should’ve let me choose the dates.
There’s no way I would take a girl to a fancy restaurant on date three or four—or whatever this is.
I’d take her to an escape room and then walk around downtown, ending the night with an ice cream or something not quite so stifling as having so many layers around my neck I feel like I’m choking.
I take a sip of my water—this place didn’t even have beer on the drink menu—and try to pay attention to the words coming out of Kris’s mouth.
A necklace with the number nineteen glints at the hollow of her throat.
When the show suggested giving out my number on necklaces as a way of choosing the girls to move forward to the next round, I thought it was a great idea.
Really true to football players in general who can’t wait to get their numbers on their girl.
As soon as I started giving them out, though, that thought changed. The gesture was insincere. I didn’t even pick the necklaces out. Boxes with the Wildcats logo were shoved into my hands after I had the first dates with all of them, and I was instructed to hand them out.
This girl is wearing my number and I can’t muster up an ounce of attention to digest what she’s saying.
I close my eyes briefly, brain wandering.
The scene unfolds like normal. It started with the orange glow of the sky as I neared their apartment.
Then pushing past emergency personnel and spotting the angry flames leaping from second floor windows and eating their way up the side of the building.
Quickly, my memory narrows on Tab and the thoughts that had taken over.
Will she be found? Where is she? What if something awful happened to her?
Minute after agonizing minute passed until two firefighters carried a body through the doorway. That’s all it took. I’ve barely been able to think about much else since, especially not a fake as shit dating show.
My leg jumps up and down as I try talking myself out of sending the text I’ve been dying to. I want out of this. For good.
Somewhere in the corner of the room, a camera is probably picking up on how disinterested I am. When this series airs, people’s opinions of me will be flying everywhere. They always do, but it’s usually from sportscasters and fans. This is a whole different ball game.
My love life.
I wait for what seems like a lull in the conversation before I excuse myself. The way Kris’s lips turn down makes me think I interrupted her, but really, she hasn’t stopped talking since we sat. How am I supposed to get a word in edgewise?
I’m sure there’s a mad flurry from the cameraman to shoot me walking into the bathroom, but I don’t dare look around.
They better not actually follow me in here.
To think I was excited when McNally pitched the idea to me over a year ago.
He used words like heartthrob, good for the team, and give people a piece of you.
But this feels more like an invasion than a tiny sliver of my life.
With everything going on, it’s been too much.
I open the door, then lean my back against it, staring up at the fancy chandelier in the middle of the room. A chandelier in the bathroom. This is definitely not my type of place. These are not my people. This is not my girl.
There’s nothing wrong with her, really. Either of them. They’re both gorgeous. They’re flirty. Smart. One of them is a lawyer, and the other works in PR. Which begs the question why they’re on this show. I spot a velvet settee in the corner and have a seat, bowing my head to stare at my lap.
My hands have done a lot of amazing things. Caught touchdowns, lifted big weights, and held Tab’s soot-covered body. I’ll never forget the way she looked up at me, eyes bright where everything else was dark. Her pink lips dusted in gray, except for the creases. “Am I going to die?” she’d asked.
A chill runs up my spine. Yes, my hands have done a lot of good things, but maybe the best of all was bringing her hand to my lips and kissing it. Two seconds later, they put her on oxygen and wheeled her into the ambulance while I watched and Reid texted Micah the update everyone wanted.
How she was even alive, no one knows. They couldn’t find her in the chaos. They had already doused most of the flames when they ran across her body.
I can’t get over it. The look on her face, the state of her body. It irrevocably changed me.
I pull out my phone and text Micah.
Me: How’s she doing?
He knows by now who I’m talking about, and he doesn’t like that I’m interested.
Micah: Aren’t you on a date?
Me: Hiding in the bathroom.
Micah: Great idea. Hide and everything will go away.
Micah: She’s fine, btw.
Me: A little more info than that maybe?
Micah: She’s fine, Newb.
Micah: Ha. My phone knows this is your name now. It started capitalizing it.
I clench my jaw, squeezing my phone until my knuckles ache. He acts like her caretaker, or a guard. I start typing out another text, but I’m interrupted when the door opens. My head snaps up, making sure it isn’t the production crew coming in.
Worse, it’s Kris.
I sit up straighter. “What are you doing?”
She walks toward me, her heels clicking off the marble floors with purpose. “Levi Soucy.” A smirk tears her lips apart. “Are you avoiding me?” She hikes up her dress and straddles me on the settee, sitting on my thighs. “Or was sex in the bathroom part of your plan?”
My hands start to move of their own accord—because what else do you do when a woman sits on your lap?—but then she breathes out, “Yes, touch me.”
And it’s so fake. It’s so fake I can’t even convince myself it’s anything else.
I retreat and hold her at arm’s length. I search her dress for the microphone, and I place my palm over it, hoping to give us some privacy. “What are you doing?”
“Giving people a show. Something you’re not doing.”
The accusation in her tone pulls at my stomach. I sit up, forcing her off me. “This is all a show to you?”
“Isn’t it a show to you, superstar? So a guy like you can get some scripted pussy? I’m sure you’re not hard up for it. I mean, I’m offering it to you.” She starts to tug at her dress again, pulling it high enough that I can see she’s not wearing panties.
A smile forms on her lips as if she’s won, but then I place my hand over her microphone again. “Would you stop?”
She chuckles. “You think messing with the mic will make a difference? What do you think everyone assumed when I followed you in here?”
“I came in here to be alone.”
“Well, according to the show, you and I arranged to meet in here because you like fucking in public.”
I swallow hard. She’s right. That’s all anyone will think. This woman is devious. “Why are you even on this show? Aren’t you the lawyer?”
“I’m the PR girl, and you are desperately losing the audience’s attention.”
“I’m not doing this for the audience,” I snap, moving away from her. I didn’t want to do this at all. If I wasn’t bound by contracts, this is the last place I’d be right now.
“Oh, come on,” Kris protests. “Don’t kid yourself.
” She reaches around the side of her dress and unzips.
Then she pulls the straps down until the fabric pools at her feet, revealing a black lace bra that would have previous Levi begging to get his mouth on it.
“The show owns you and the show owns me. We might as well have some fun.”
I kneel to pick up her dress and maneuver it back onto her slight frame. She scoffs when I feed her arm through the strap. “You’re making a mistake.”
I zip her dress back up. “We’re going to go back out there and sit at the table to finish our meals and forget this ever happened.”
“This is ridiculous.”
“It’s not that you’re not…desirable—”
“Oh, save it.”
She rearranges her dress to make sure it’s in place and then marches toward the exit, pausing with her hand on the door.
Slowly, she turns to glare at me. “Whatever your reason is for doing this, you’re failing at it.
Miserably. If your dates with the other girl are anything like mine, you come across as a jackass, pompous, dickhead football player who can’t be bothered by anything.
Have fun with that media firestorm when the show airs, and don’t call me when you’re in the thick of it.
” She swings the door open as if it personally offended her and disappears.
My shoulders deflate like a slow tire leak. How have I not noticed before that this is a lot of work? The games. The conversations. The awkwardness afterward. And it’s not even just the show. It’s my dating life in general.
I breathe in deep and stare at the velvet cushion longingly.
My phone is still lying there, and I check it for messages again, hoping Micah sent me something else, but he hasn’t.
I’ll have to take matters into my own hands.
It’ll piss him off, but I feel connected to Tab.
That moment we shared was like a time stamp in my life’s timeline.
An instance I keep coming back to again and again.
I scroll through my contacts and land on McNally. Pressing on his name, I call him before I can talk myself out of it. He answers on the second ring. “I think I’m done with this,” I say. “This woman just accosted me in the bathroom and threw herself at me.”
“Oh, I hope they got that on camera.”
My shoulders stiffen. “I was in the bathroom.”
“They don’t follow you into the bathroom?”
“Why? So everyone can hear me take a leak?”
“Soucy.” An exaggerated sigh comes from the speaker.
He’s so smarmy. Like a snake oil salesman.
He could’ve picked so many other players on the team, but I’m beginning to think he chose me for a reason.
Because he thought I would be into it. Because he thought I was too stupid to see what this would actually do to me.
“I have you by the balls. You’re under contract to finish taping the show, so you’re going to go out there, give one of those girls your final necklace, and then we’ll bring you all on to talk about it afterward. You’re almost at the finish line, son.”
“Don’t call me son.”
“What I can call you is mine. At least until the contract is settled. Final necklace. Then after-show taping.”
“Then that’s it,” I warn. “I’m done.”
He chuckles. “Have a good night, Soucy.”
The line goes dead.
God, I hate that guy. But he owns my ass. He’s not wrong about that.
I inhale again—long and slow—then let it out.
I had no idea not being true to myself was so exhausting.
Like each step forward is another weight added to my shoulders.
The steps to the dining room add up to a Mack truck, but when I sit and smile, that one takes the biggest chip out of me.
I want to tell this girl that she’s insane, but I can’t really do that now, can I?
Then that necklace glitters at her throat, and shame hits me. I really am a fuckup.
Time to play the part.
I lift up my water glass. “To us.”
She clinks it with hers, eyeing me suspiciously under the guise of a genuine smile. “To us.”
I force down what happened in the bathroom and slip into a different skin. It never felt like this before, but now it does. As if I’m wearing a costume for everyone to see. Smile. Charm. Add a wink here and there. When did my life get so fake?
Lock in, Soucy. Soon, it’ll all be over.