Player (A Secret Baby Sports Romance)(50)

“Honey, it’s the life.” Virginity shrugs. “Get paid, girl. Work what you got, right?”

She looks me up and down again with a raised brow. “I didn’t think this was Austin’s type but, hey, if it works, right?”

I frown. “Type?”

“Oh, hoe, spelled capital S-L-U-T,” she says with a wry grin before smiling at me. “But you look classy - put together.”

I laugh as I take a large sip of champagne. “Thanks?”

And just like that, I’m in. And these women aren’t actually that bad, as I suddenly find myself in the middle of a bizarrely personal conversation about IUD’s. Jaded, obviously, and morally questionable, but hey, they have points.

“Game faces, ladies,” Lana murmurs suddenly, smiling and tossing her hair back as a camera crew starts to make it’s way over. Practice has apparently ended while I’ve been engrossed in intimate details of Virginity’s choice of birth control, and I look up to see the players pulling off helmets and slapping each other on the back as they walk off the field.

And there, on the side of the field, is Austin…surrounded by a gaggle of giggling, fawning cheerleaders. I narrow my eyes as I watch him sling an arm over one girl’s shoulders, laughing at something she says. Another one in a small little cheer skirt and a high ponytail moves into his other side and strokes his arm, batting her eyes at him. A camera guy moves in and starts snapping pictures of the clichéd big macho quarterback with the two giggling cheerleaders in his arms.

I’m scowling without even knowing how or why, quickly draining my God knows what number glass of champagne as I glare daggers at the two girls fawning all over my fake husband. I realize my hand is in a fist as my face goes dark.

“Oh, girl.”

I snap my head up to see Virginity, shaking her head at me.

“You’re gonna have to let that go.”

I quickly smile, pushing the emotion from my face and casually running a hand through my hair. “What?”

She cocks a brow at me. “Caring,” she says with a shrug. “This is about looking after you, not him. Smile, look pretty for him, and let him do him.” She shrugs and smiles at me again. “Like I said, get paid, and do you.”

I glance back at Austin, still smiling for the fucking cameras with the two girls. “That’s him ‘doing him’?”

“Yep.” She shrugs. “Of course, you can get smart with it too.” She nods back at the gaggle of wives behind us. “Lana’s only fucked Josh a couple times, but she’s got that shit locked down, you know?”

I frown. “Locked down?”

Virginity grins. “Get knocked up, honey.” She shrugs. “I don’t care what sort of prenup you sign, that’s a guaranteed cash-flow for at least another eighteen.”

I wrinkle my nose, shaking my head.

“Yeah, sad, but it’s the way it is, honey,” Virginity says, polishing off the last of her champagne. “Welcome to the game.”



I’m on yet another glass of champagne, standing there on the sidelines glaring at Austin, but I just don’t care.

Because I’m mad.

And it’s the bubbly that’s even making me admit that to myself, but it’s true anyways.

I’m mad, and I feel like I’m being mocked - like I’m being made a fool of while my “husband” flirts and gets handsy with a bunch of cheerleaders with me standing right here like some trophy wife cliché.

I know we’re not a “real” couple - I know what we are is set up. But it’s the principal of it. Because this might be a fake marriage, but that doesn’t mean I have to sit here and be real humiliated.

“Oh you are so bad, Austin!”

The sound of one of the giggly little cheerleaders’ high-pitched, flirty voice has me grinding my teeth, and I turn to see her laughing as she leans up to kiss Austin on the cheek.

I almost crush the champagne flute in my hand, glaring at Austin once more and feeling so stupid.

“We all knew what we were getting into, it just goes with the territory.”

And I did too. Okay, I might not have known who Austin was exactly when I said yes sitting at that picnic table - or hell, when I said it again to some preacher in a Vegas chapel when we were drunk. But I knew what the score was. I knew this was basically the same game I’d been born to play - the one where I follow in my mother’s footsteps of being a conversation piece for some man.

Elegant, demure, sidelined.

I’ve done “sidelined.” I did it for two years with Vince, and I’ll be damned if I jump from one situation like that to another.