Free Player: A Secret Baby Sports Romance by Aubrey Irons

doesn’t look as happy as I think she should be as she makes a face and drags her eyes back to me.
    I’m ecstatic though - the rush of realizing I’m not about to get raked over the coals on some paternity test somehow acting as the greatest hangover cure in the history of the world.
    Bam . I dodged a fucking bullet there, and as the grin spreads wide across my face, I can feel my body and my head feeling better already.
    “There’s, uh- there’s more,” she says quietly, interrupting my elation.
    I spread my arms wide, still grinning like an idiot. “Well cheer up, princess! What else matters?”
    “This.”
    And right then, as she holds her hand up to my face and as the morning sun glints like an accusation off the huge rock on her finger, the bottom drops right back out.
    And just like that, I’m rightback to hangover, nightmare hell - the whole world spinning around me as I drop back against the sliding door.
    “What the fuck is that.”
    It’s a stupid question, because even a guy like me knows exactlywhat a ring on that finger is.
    “What do you think it is?” she mutters out, shaking her head and looking away. “Look at your hand.”
    “Why, what’s on my-”
    Oh, shit.
    A gold, gleaming band that looks suspiciously like…
    It starts to come back then - the shots, the dancing, the limo driver who’s hand I palmed a wad of cash into and promised season tickets to. I remember kissing her against the railing by the Bellagio fountains, and something about wishes, and some extremely sloppy-drunk talk about us being best friends.
    Oh holy Christ.
    “That’s not- I mean-”
    I look away from the ring on my hand, pinching the bridge of nose in my fingers and squeezing my eyes shut - like that fucking ring and what it means might disappear if I close them hard enough.
    “Real?” She spits out with a huff. “Side table, inside.”
    I open my eyes to see her nodding glumly at the table just inside, and I quickly stumble back in and grab at the piece of paper laying there.
    And that’s when the world goes still, as my eyes lock on the very real, very not-dreaming marriage license in my hand.
    “Well, shit .”
    Natalie groans from her chair behind me. “Yeah, ‘well shit’ is right, Austin - oh, or should I call you number thirty-three?”
    I cock an eyebrow, a grin halfway teasing my lips. “Oh, so you know me now?”
    “You really could have said something, you know,” she snaps.
    I grin. “I did. I offered you five hundred grand to marry me, and you said yes.”
    Her eyes narrow. “To fake marry you!”
    I glare at her. “Well, yeah, no shit. But I think that was a two person job, princess.”
    She scowls at me. “Well I’d have never in a million years said yes if I’d known who you were.”
    “Oh, please, enlighten me.”
    She rolls her eyes. “Because you’re you! ” She flings a copy of the LA Times at me from the patio table, and I catch it in time to see some ridiculous opinion piece about my car crash with the junior commissioner’s daughter, along with some line calling me a “infamous philanderer.”
    “I mean is there a girl you haven’t slept with in this country?”
    I toss the paper over my shoulder and smirk. “You?”
    Natalie’s face crumbles as she drops it into her hands and shakes her head. “Oh God, I’m going to be ill,” she groans. “I can’t believe we slept naked in the same bed, I probably have something now.”
    I roll my eyes, glaring at her. “Alright, simmer down.”
    Her shoulders start to hitch, her breath coming faster and faster as she rocks herself in the chair.
    “Hey, hey!” I frown as I crouch next to her. “Stop, just breathe.”
    This whole thing has spiraled way out of control, and suddenly, I hate Derek for even suggesting this ridiculous plan. The plan was something for show. Now? Now I’m legally married to little miss princess here - apparently the only girl in the damn world who actually and actively wants nothing to do with