Free Third and Long: A Sports Romance by Caitlyn Maxwell

hand.
    I’m busting at the seams. She said yes! Now comes the hard part.
    “Actually, there’s one catch,” I say.
    She crosses her arms and taps her foot impatiently. The look she’s giving me nearly scares me off the plan entirely.
    “I need you to pretend to be engaged to me.”
    When Tamber slaps me, she puts her whole body into it, a real wind up pitch. And boy do I deserve it.

 
     
    CHAPTER NINE
    Tamber
    Of fucking course I said no. What am I an idiot? I barely know anything about the guy. He’s hot, rich, and good at football, and all three of those are accounted for on his Instagram account. Everything else? No idea.
    I have no idea what his parents are like or if he has any siblings. There is no way in the world that I would ever pretend to be someone’s fiancée, let alone someone I just met.
    He deserved every single one of my five fingers. No one plays me like that, making me feel all safe and secure before dropping a bomb like that on me. He must have apologized for ten minutes straight before Cam finally came looking for him out there on the track.
    Logan missed quite a bit of practice while he was out there figuring out how to ask me to be his pretend fiancée for the weekend.
    For the weekend. That’s it. A free vacation to a billionaire’s mansion. Friends pretending to be lovers. Talk about distractions.
    It turns out that his parents are sick of his playboy antics. They want to marry him off to a nice upper crust girl from New York. I googled her. She’s absolutely stunning. He’d be an idiot not to go for her.
    Yet for some reason he absolutely refuses to even consider the idea. So he thinks that if I pretend to be his fiancée, meet his parents, and spend a few days at their house, then they’ll drop the whole thing. Seems like the worst plan in the world to me. Then again I’m someone who’s had my life planned out since junior high.
    After he stopped smarting from the pain of my slap, he swore up and down to respect the boundaries of our friendship. I spent five minutes accusing him of trying to get me into bed through the most convoluted circumstances. He swore again and again that he had no intention of trying anything on me over the weekend.
    The whole reason he wants me to be the girl that he brings to meet his parents is that I’m respectable. He complimented my work ethic and my attitude eight different ways. His parents seem to have incredibly high standards, and would outright dismiss most girls that Logan has dated over the years.
    Right before Cam took him away to go practice, I asked him why he simply didn’t refuse his parents’ arrangement with the Prescott family. It’s not like we’re in the Middle East or the 12th century. Arranged marriages aren’t a thing anymore.
    He rambled on about politics in the billionaire life. He could be completely disowned by his family as an embarrassment if he doesn’t do what they want. According to Logan, they might disown him anyway if he goes into professional football.
    By the way he crushed Ole Miss into the ground. Last week he threw four touchdowns with three of them going to Cam. Earlier this evening he threw five total with four going to Cam. A new school record. He absolutely bent the opposing defense to his will. In all things Logan gets what he wants. It’s in his nature.
    However, rather than focus on his performance, the sports media will no doubt be talking about his character concerns, his inability to stay away from the party scene, and speculating about how all of that will affect his position in the draft. The difference is that this time that picture of me stumbling tipsy out of Marquise Steakhouse will definitely be included in the discussion.
    So that leaves me with two options: stick around in Rome where my picture will be the epicenter of celebrity gossip or take off to a fabulously expensive mansion for a few days.
    As Gwen told me: The Party Girls are going to be too hungover to work on a Sunday, and