That gets her attention. She spins in her chair to face me, one perfectly shaped eyebrow raised. “Are you on your knees right now?”
“I’m desperate.” I clasp my hands together in prayer. “Jackson and I are together. For real. All we need now is someone with credibility to write about it, so people stop treating us as some circus act.”
Sarah studies me with those sharp eyes that miss nothing. “Bullshit.”
“I’m serious!”
“You’re many things, Drew Larney, but serious about relationships isn’t one of them.” She turns back to her computer. “Nice try, though. Points for the knee thing.”
Fuck.Time to play dirty. “What if I could offer you exclusive access to the hockey team’s locker room?”
Her fingers freeze over the keyboard. “I’m listening.”
“Post-game interviews. Behind-the-scenes content. You’d be the only journalist allowed in.” I lean closer, lowering my voice. “Do you know how often Gerard walks around completely naked? Because it’s a lot. Like, concerningly so. The man has no concept of what clothing is. And the rest of the team isn’t much better. Wall-to-wall ass and dong, Sarah.”
She’s trying to act unimpressed, but I catch the way her eyes gleam. “And all I have to do is writeonearticle about you and Jackson?”
“Say you’ve observed us together and we’re genuinely couple-y.”
“Couple-y isn’t a word.”
“Sarah, please.” I’m still on my knees, and my left one is starting to cramp. “I’ll owe you forever. I’ll name my firstborn after you. I’ll?—”
“Fine.” She holds up a hand. “But I have conditions.”
“Anything.”
“First, this exclusive access better be worth it. I want real interviews, not just ‘how did the game go?’ bullshit. I want human-interest stories—what makes these players tick.”
“Done.”
“Second, I’m not attaching my name to something fake.”
I consider telling her the truth. That I’m desperately in love with my straight best friend, and this is the only way I’ll ever get to be with him. That every time he smiles at me, I die a little inside. That I’m a pathetic mess who’s using a fake relationship to live out my fantasies.
“It’s not fake,” I lie instead. “We’re together. Hand to God.”
“Third, when you inevitably break up—because let’s be real, this won’t last—I get to write that story too. The inside scoop on what went wrong.”
The words sting more than they should. She’s right, of course. This has an expiration date. But something about the clinical way she predicts our inevitable end twists like a knife between my ribs. “Deal.”
“Good man. When do you want the article to run?”
“Monday’s paper?”
“I can make that work.” She pulls up a new document. “Now get out of here. I have work to do, and you’re distracting me with your whole ‘desperate on your knees’ energy.”
“You loved it.”
I leave the library feeling simultaneously victorious and doomed. Sarah will write the article, and I’ll get to pretend Jackson Monroe is mine for a few precious months.
My phone buzzes, scaring the crap out of me. Thankfully, nobody saw me jump ten feet into the air.
Jackson
How’d it go?
Me
