Silence.
Everything had gone weirdly quiet. My brain hit pause while the rest of the world kept blaring. Rachel was saying something beside me, but nothing registered.
My eyes stayed locked on the Jumbotron.
There he was: Sawyer James. A six-foot-something wrecking ball with a grin that could melt the coldest of hearts, and he’d just blown me a kiss. Not just any kiss—a smirky, smug, too-charming-for-his-own-good kiss. To me. On national television. After getting knocked senseless.
Rachel’s voice finally broke through the static in my head as the screen shifted back to the game highlights. “Was that what I think it was?”
I didn’t answer, mostly because I didn’t trust my voice not to come out as a squeak. I could practically feel the dozen cameras zooming in on my face, so I pasted on my brightest smile,even though internally, I was definitely having a full deer-in-headlights moment.
“That’s right, folks!” the commentator said. “Sawyer James, offensive lineman for the San Francisco Rebels, just blew Ellie Miles a kiss from the field!”
Rachel smirked and pushed her auburn hair over her shoulder. “Okay, so that definitelywaswhat I thought.”
I pressed two fingers to my temple and sat down. “I’m hallucinating, right? That was just some sort of weird, mass hallucination.”
“Nope. Very real andveryviral.”
“Oh, God.” I dropped my head into my hands. “This is going to be everywhere.”
“Most definitely.” She sat down and kicked her boots up like we were at a sleepover instead of a professional football game. “But it’s not all bad.”
“I got kissed during an armed standoff,” I said slowly, because I still couldn’t quite believe it. “And now, he’s blowing kisses on the jumbotron.”
Rachel shrugged. “Well, if you ask me, that’s some pretty impressive dedication on his part.”
“You’re impossible.”
“I’m strategic.” She pulled out her phone and started typing—classic Rachel, unable to turn off publicist mode for even one day.
“Wait.” I narrowed my eyes. “Was your whole ‘come on, El. Let’s go to the game. You need a break before your tour picks back up,’just code for ‘I’m trying to set you up with Sawyer James?’”
She gave me a guilty little smile and lifted a finger. “Okay, hear me out.”
“I’m scared.”
“We let the narrative run. We steer it. Ellie Miles, America’s pop princess, finally moves on from emotionally constipated C-list actor Harold Douche-Face with a hot NFL player who may or may not secretly be a cinnamon roll. Boom.” She paused, then waved her hands in a dramatic rainbow arc. “Media gold.”
“You already pitched this to my agent, didn’t you?”
“After the footage dropped, we may have exchanged a few texts. I was waiting to talk to you after the game, but now seems like as good of time as any.”
“I haven’t even talked to Sawyer since that night.”
“Like I said, now seems like as good a time as any.”
“The last time I talked to him, I was bleeding and in shock, and he was…” I waved my arms around. “I don’t even know. Very large. Very protective. Very...unhelpfully charming.”
“And now, he’s your new PR opportunity.”
“I can’t date someone just because he saved me and looks great in tight pants.”
“But youcanpretend to date him. I mean, you already kissed him.”
“He kissed me as a distraction!”
She pointed at me. “But you kissed him back.”
