Page 256 of The Romance Adventure

Harley gazes at me intently, her lips parted slightly.

I lean over the center console and say, “Thank you for clearing that up.”

“If you must know, I was jealous of those women. I don’t like them touching you, draping themselves over you like how Harper uses her stationary bicycle as a clothes rack.”

“I hate it, just so you know. But I don’t hate you. Not even a little bit.”

She straightens slightly as if surprised. “Is that so? Could’ve fooled me.”

“No, you’re the one who acts like you hate me.”

Lips pressed together, she shrugs a little as if reluctant to admit that I’m right. “I guess this is a start.”

“I’d like to think this is the start of more than a something-ship, Harley.”

The space closes between us as someone knocks on the window of the SUV. I ignore it, feeling Harley’s breath on my skin. Then the squealing un-mating call breaks into the moment. My heart sinks. I go still, sensing women snapping pictures with their phones.

“This is going to be a problem,” Harley says.

The real problem is that I set too strong a boundary between Harley and me and not a strong enough one with the fans. I think I’ve made progress with the former, but what am I going to do about the women swarming my SUV, waving their arms wildly, and pawing at the window like I’m the last meal on earth?

Harley

CHAPTER 11

Having worked at the Gastrodome for six months, I’ve seen rabid football fans, but I’ve never had to compete as a player’s biggest fan.

Glancing over at Ryan, frozen in the driver’s seat, the cocky, confident charmer shifts uncomfortably. “I’m sorry. I guess word spread and⁠—”

“It was bound to happen at some point.”

“Does it happen often?”

The women are all but rocking the vehicle like we’re trapped in a city riot.

He winces. “Not quite like this. It could be that since I backed out of the wedding with Jayda, they’re trying to catch me on the rebound.”

The sassy, bratty side of me concocts a plan to put an end to this that’s completely outside the scope of something I’d do for a PR at my former job. It’s far more extreme. Then again, so are these fans as they shout Ryan’s name, two of them in tears with mascara tracking down their cheeks.

“Trust me?” I ask.

“Yeah, of course. Well, mostly. You have a look in your eyes.” He gazes at me as if captivated like we’re not surrounded by obsessed fangirls and it’s just us.

I grin. “How badly do you want this to go away?” I ask, waving my hand at our surroundings.

“On a scale from one to throw them a slab of raw meat as a distraction and hope they run after it?”

I wrinkle my nose. “They’re not guard dogs. Let’s scale back a little.”

“We could use doughnuts as a decoy.”

“My thoughts exactly.” I explain my plan. “But it’s just part of the Romance Game. Pretend, but I imagine it’ll do the trick.”

One of the women, in hysterics, sprawls herself across the hood of the SUV.

“Or we could just leave,” I say.

“But they’ll follow. They’re bound to turn up in Coco Key unless we nip this in the bud.”