“I’ve been emailing you since six o’clock last night, Lincoln James,” she growled.
My eyes widened at that rebuke, and I had to cover my mouth to keep the snicker inside.
Linc rolled his eyes.
“I was busy, Elouise,” Linc drawled. “Then I got hungry and I honestly can’t keep the time differences straight in my head. I can’t remember if it’s night or day there. I needed to talk to Conleigh and figure out what exactly was going on with this development. I called as soon as I had something concrete to tell you.”
“If you’d read even one of your emails…” she growled again, sounding a little less angry now.
“You know I never check them early,” he pointed out. “Not to mention that you know I’m not going to call you unless I think it’s an emergency. And this wasn’t one.”
“So, you say,” she muttered darkly. “But, from what I can tell, this has turned into a big deal in the last couple of hours. You’re the most eligible bachelor in sports and all of a sudden you have a girlfriend that you got pregnant. That’s a big deal, whether you seem to think it is or not. Plus, with that loss still heavy on everyone’s hearts” —I nearly groaned when I saw Linc’s face darken— “you’re popular news right now.”
“Wonderful,” Linc muttered.
I bit my lip, suddenly feeling awful that I’d let Phoebe run her mouth and hadn’t immediately nipped the problem in the bud before it got to that point. Honestly, I hadn’t been thinking much at all. I was just trying really hard to get out of the bind I was in, and Phoebe’s offhanded comment seemed the quickest way to do that at the time.
Shoot.
“Though, out of everything, you’re considerably lucky. People range from excited to worried, but there doesn’t seem to be any negativity being spread.” She paused. “The only person I think might have a problem with this is your newest sponsor,” she murmured. “FaithSports will likely have quite a large problem with it. And since you had to sign that clause stating that you wouldn’t become involved in a scandal, they’ll likely drop you.”
Linc winced. “Shit. Shit, shit, shit.”
Out of all the sponsors that the man had, he was going to get upset over his newest one?
I was confused. “What’s the big deal with that? Just apologize.”
Elouise grunted negatively. “That can’t happen. This is the one sponsor that Linc’s been vying for since he started his career in the NFL. This one is big to him.”
I looked over to Linc with raised eyebrows, waiting for an explanation.
“FaithSports is an organization that helps athletes like me—they gave me a scholarship when I was in college—a chance. They help athletes from single-parent households like the one I grew up in and make sure that they have every available opportunity to strive for greatness. They’ve helped thousands of kids exactly like me get college degrees, making their hopes and dreams come true. They mean a lot to me, and I’ve been trying to team up with them for a long time, but they’re very selective about who they allow to work with them. The last person that they partnered with was Furious George Hoffman from the Longview Lumberjacks. Together they raised over ten million to help kids…and I want to help, too.”
I was now at an all-time low.
Son of a bitch.
Son. Of. A. Bitch!
I had really screwed up, and it was going to take me putting myself out there to fix what I’d broken.
“What if I gave a statement?” I rushed out.
The woman who hadn’t shown a care in the world that a woman kept chiming in on what likely should’ve been a private phone call, started to disagree almost immediately.
“That’s a no-go,” she said. “After the last time, they’re not going to let this one go.”
The “last time” that Elouise was speaking of had been another football player, Merriweather, the same man that had hurt Linc on his first official game played against his old team, badly, had been caught in a scandal very similar to the one that Linc and I now found ourselves in. Only, two weeks after the ‘pregnancy’ had been announced, the woman had been found dead in her home with scant clues as to who had murdered her. And, she had been pregnant.
All fingers had pointed in Merriweather’s direction, yet nobody had been able to pinpoint the crime on him, and he’d been playing ball ever since.
In fact, he was currently on one of four teams left in the playoffs in the running for the national title.
Also, everyone knew he’d done it.
Merriweather was an asshole—apparently a murderous one.
“Balls,” I muttered.
“My best solution right now is to just live your life. Only time will prove that you’re not pregnant,” Elouise explained. “But…I do have a suggestion.”
I was almost scared of what this suggestion would be, and I had a feeling that I was sure the hell not going to like it.
“What’s that?” Linc asked with curiosity tinging his voice.
“I suggest that you appear to be dating,” she said hesitantly.
The automatic shout of “No!” halted on my lips when Linc said, “Oh. That’s a good idea. I think it’d work even better if she was my fiancée.”
My mouth fell open in surprise. “We can’t do that! Your dad and my stepfather are going to kill me when they find out it is all a lie!”
Linc grinned. “I’ll email you, Elouise, and let you know what we nail down. Sound good?”
I groaned when she agreed, and then pursed my lips when I looked at Linc to see him staring at me expectantly.
“You owe me,” he said.
That was true…but I didn’t owe him this!
No good could possibly come from this, I just knew it.
“Come on,” Linc cajoled. “You told me at lunch that you didn’t hate me.”
It was the lip that he curled downward into a pitiful pout that had me wavering.
I frowned. “I don’t hate you, Linc. But, I don’t particularly like being in the spotlight, which because of your job and who you are, is exactly where I’ll be.” I looked down, then without meeting his eyes, I whispered my biggest fear. “I also don’t want to be screwed over in the end. You may not intend to hurt me, but I just know that you will.”
He glowered. “I’d never, ever hurt you.”
I crossed my arms over my chest. “Your words hurt me when I thought we were going to have something. You didn’t mean to hurt me, but you still did. That’s what I’m saying. It’s inevitable. You won’t even mean to do it, but it will happen. And I don’t think pretending to be your fiancée will help anything. The media isn’t stupid—they’ll know if we’re faking. They follow you around enough that they’ll notice if I’m not around. It’s not something we can just say and not do.”
He crossed his arms. “I never said that I didn’t want to have a relationship with you, because I do. You may not be my fiancée, but you’ll damn well be my girlfriend.”
I snorted. “I won’t be your girlfriend.”
I couldn’t.
I’d barely recovered from having him pull out of my life so abruptly last time. If he did it again, I would for sure never recover.
Which was why I’d never let him get that close again.
A person knew their limits, and my limit was Linc James—or at least what he made me feel.
“Linc…” I stood up.
He did, too.
I felt a shiver run down my spine.
“It’ll be fine,” he promised, coming closer.
I didn’t believe him.
But that smile of his did me in every time.
All he had to do was curl those perfect lips upward and aim that smile at me, and I was putty in his hands.
“There are ground rules,” I relented.
He whooped in excitement. “You’ll do it?”
“I’ll be your pretend girlfriend,” I amended. “And nothing more than that.”
He studied me for a long few moments, and then that stupid smile of his slowly lit up his face again.
“We’ll see,” he challenged.
I shook my head. “We won’t see anything. I’m giving you three months. I have one more final to take tomorrow, and I’m off for the summer. In the fall, we have a public break-up, and by that point, they’ll be able to see that we’re not having a child together…deal?”
I offered him my hand, and he took it, but didn’t let go as he said, “I’m going to try really hard to change your mind.”
I smirked at him. “You won’t.”
Chapter 8
Wait for someone that tells strangers about you.
-Text from Conleigh to Linc
Linc
Day 1
“I have to go to an end of the year banquet,” he said. “I need you to come with me.”
“Why?” she asked, sounding tired.
I looked at my watch and frowned. “Why do you sound like something the cat dragged in?”
She snickered. “Because I am?”
“Con…” I hesitated. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” she murmured. “I just came into work after studying all night long for my final.”
“I thought that you had the day off?” I muttered. “We were supposed to go on our first date today.”
“Our first fake-date,” she corrected me. “And I’m sorry, but I’ll have to cancel. They called me into work because that stupid stomach flu is going around the ER employees. They offered me a bonus if I came, and since I can always use the money, I agreed. Only, I’m tired as hell from staying up all night, hungry because I didn’t get a chance to eat lunch before I went in, and mentally worn out from staying on alert to avoid stupid Tyson who was following me around all shift.”
I found my heartbeat accelerating at hearing about that little prick doing anything to her—even following her around or looking in her direction.
“Oh,” I sighed. “I’ll cancel my reservations then. Do you have time to talk about the banquet, or do you need to go?”
She murmured something to someone who must have been near her, and then I heard what sounded like wind. Was she outside?
“Sorry, I went out the ambulance entrance. Give me two shakes to get around the building. They have a helicopter here waiting for a transport.” She huffed, sounding out of breath.
The wind in the background sounded murderous, and I wondered who the pilot was that was flying them out.
Ezekiel was a pilot for the local flight crew, Angel Transport. Zee was also one of the original members of the club, right along with Bayou—our club president.
Zee was a jack of all trades and had three jobs. Full-time he worked for both Angel Transport as their helicopter pilot, and he was also a member of the bomb squad that was utilized—should the need ever come up—by all the law enforcement agencies in the surrounding area. He also worked part-time, picking up shifts at the sheriff’s department—usually on weekends—to keep up his peace officer’s license.
Oh, and let’s not forget on the days he wasn’t working he painted, tattooed and was generally an artistic motherfucker.
The roar of the wind grew quieter on the other end of the line, and I assumed that she’d made it around the building.
Needless to say, Zee was an overachiever.
My assumption was answered moments later when she said, “Okay. There. What’s up?”
“There’s a banquet I have to go to this weekend, and I was hoping you’d be able to go with me,” I repeated my earlier comment.
“Oh,” she paused. “Is it formal?”
Why did I get the feeling that she was repeating “please don’t be formal” in her head while she waited for my reply?
I grinned. “Formal.”
She growled in frustration.
“Linc,” she whined. “You know I don’t wear dresses.”
I knew what I was about to say was a low blow, but it was a hundred percent true.
“You wore a dress for Tyson McFuckface,” I countered, sounding hurt.
And I had been hurt…at the time. But it was more than obvious to me now that she’d only worn the dress because of me, and not McFuckface like she’d implied.
“Shit,” she breathed. “I’ll have to find someone to help do my hair.”
I frowned. “Do your hair, but not help you find a dress?”
She paused. “I’ll need someone’s help with that part, too.”
I chuckled. “I’ll ask one of the guys who their wife uses. How’s that?”
“I have friends and all, but they’re just about as useless as I am when it comes to girly stuff,” she murmured. “I think Pru might be worse at it than me. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her with her hair down before, to be honest.”
“Pru?” I asked. “The girl that you work with?”
“Yes,” she answered, sounding surprised. “You remember me talking about her?”
I did. “Yes, ma’am.”
The sound of the wind picked up again, and she groaned. “Ack. I just got sand in my eyes.”
I held the chuckle in, thinking that she might not find her situation as amusing as I did.
Moments later, the roar picked up even more, and the only thing I could hear was Conleigh’s low cursing as if from a distance.
It was at least a minute later before the sound was far enough away that she was able to speak again.
“You okay?” I asked once I could hear her.
“Yes,” she groaned. “I think I got something bad in my eye. It really hurts.”
I felt my stomach flip at the thought of her being hurt.
“Go back inside and have someone look at it,” I urged.
“I will,” she murmured. “This day has been just peachy. I swear to God, had this final been my first final, I would’ve quit. I thought nursing school was hard with all the ‘pick the best correct answers’ but swear to God…these are even worse. And honestly, I think the teacher does it just because he can.”
“Teacher sounds like a douche,” I admitted.
“He is,” she agreed. “And he hates you.”
I frowned. “He hates me?”
“Yes,” she snickered. “In class, he always uses you as an example. Like if we’re giving patient A—which is always you—a blah, blah, blah, what would we do in this situation kind of thing. Not to mention on the days that you win, he really comes back in a sour mood. I really do think he hates you. No joke.”
I started to laugh. “Football is a big sport. Some even call it a religion.”
She scoffed. “I’ll see you later. I gotta go get this looked at. It hurts super bad.”
After we said our goodbyes, I contemplated what to do next, wondering if we were too new to be visiting each other at work yet.
Probably.
Maybe.
My phone vibrated in my hand while I was still contemplating my next move. I pulled it out and snorted at what I read on the screen.
Zee: Your girl couldn’t stop looking at me.
Linc: Fuck you. And, just sayin’, you shouldn’t be texting and flying. Especially with a critical patient.
Zee: Not a critical patient. A heart. But same thing. And I’m not texting you, the awesome flight nurse that I work with who is the best ever is texting you for me.
I grinned at that.
Zee: I also didn’t embellish in the least. She’s totally hot, and one day I’ll capture her charms.
I rolled my eyes at that.
Good luck with that, buddy. Zee was a commitment-phobe, and on a good day, he barely even said hello to women.
There were times that I wondered if he was gay with the lack of attention he paid to women, but then there were other times when I’d see his eyes lingering on a certain curvy woman who came to the clubhouse once in a while with her friends told me he did indeed find women attractive.
&nbs
p; Not responding to the message, I shoved my phone into my pocket and decided on my next move.
***
I walked up to the security desk and smiled at the oldest security guard on the planet and tried not to walk around the desk to help him when he came to his shaky feet.
“Excuse me,” I said. “But could you point me in the correct direction?”
The security guard, whose nametag read ‘Mr. M,’ nodded his head. “Sure, son.”
“I’m looking for my girl. She’s a nurse in the ER. How would I find her?” I asked, raising my bag of food. “I brought her lunch.”
Mr. M smiled, and I saw a row of straight white teeth that were obviously dentures. They even moved when he started to speak again.
“Right through that door, Linc James. By the way, I think I about shit my pants when you were hurt a few years ago. If I’d been able, I’d have crawled right through that dern TV and ripped that ol’ Merriweather a new one with my bare hands.” He paused. “The code is 0911.”
My eyes widened slightly as he spewed information, much faster than I would’ve expected for a man his age.
Then the grin formed on my mouth. “Thanks, sir.” I offered my hand to him. “And I’m okay now.”
The old man put his frail palm in mine and had a surprisingly strong grip. “Tell Conleigh hello for me when you see her. She’s one of my favorites. Always shares her cookies with me.”
I grinned and dropped his hand. “No cookies in here, though there is cake. I think there might very well be enough for you, but I’ll let her bring it out.”
Mr. M grinned. “She shares her special cookies with me, boy. Go on now, I have to go back to work.”
I didn’t point out that he hadn’t been doing any work when I’d walked in, but instead chose to nod my head and go in the direction he’d pointed me, punching the code in all the while wondering what the hell kind of special cookies Conleigh was giving the old man.
Walking through the door, I came to a stop and took stock of the room that I found myself in.
The area was a large white room with curtains parting hospital beds along the far wall. A nurses’ station was directly to my left, and to my right were the trauma rooms—and the only reason I knew what they were was due to the fact that they were labeled Trauma Room 1 and Trauma Room 2 right beside the door.
Talkin' Trash (The Bear Bottom Guardians MC Book 2) Page 6
