“Are, too.” Willow laughed.
God, she wouldn’t let go would she? “You are a total ball buster,” Aubrey muttered.
Willow laughed harder. “Ha, you sound just like Nick. I love to give him grief.”
Her comment hadn’t even fazed Willow. Figured. “I think you love to give everyone grief, including me.” She was being way too sensitive. She needed to get over herself. “Can’t you just accept my explanation and leave it?”
“That you and Flynn are now in a relationship, and according to Perez Hilton, you’re madly in love and gonna make babies? Sure, I can accept it.” Willow paused. “It’s a bunch of crap, but I can accept it.”
Good. Aubrey couldn’t say anything else for fear someone on the plane was eavesdropping, and then the truth would spread faster than a wildfire through the driest, plagued-with-drought forest. “Thanks for being so understanding,” she mumbled.
Maintaining a fake relationship was hard. Worse, she was being forced into this. She enjoyed her time with Flynn, she couldn’t lie, but if she made one tiny mistake, what then? Would Harvey fire her on the spot? She was putting everything at risk. Her job, her reputation, her newfound friendships, and even possibly her…
…heart.
“Hey.” Willow rested her hand on Aubrey’s arm, making Aubrey turn to face her once more. The genuine concern written all over Willow’s face brought the guilt on big-time over her earlier remark. “If you need to talk about anything, you know I’m here for you, right? I totally get that maybe you don’t want to say something here. Really.”
Aubrey sighed. “I’m sorry I’m being so sensitive. Everyone’s watching Flynn and me so closely, and it’s driving me crazy. I just wish we could keep our relationship private.”
Willow frowned. “So you’re not going to give me all the dirty details? That’s a damn shame.”
They both dissolved into soft laughter, Aubrey’s heart easing the slightest bit when she realized that maybe Willow did want to be her friend. And that she wouldn’t drill her too hard for any more information she couldn’t know about.
Aubrey hated keeping secrets. She could keep quiet because the necessity came with the profession, but when those secrets involved her…? Yeah, she hated that. She needed someone to confide to, unload on. Her mom used to be her confidante, but that had had to end when she’d become a teen and her mother had turned into the queen of all man haters.
She had no siblings to confess to. Of course she’d had friends in high school and then college, but she’d moved away when she’d graduated. Her hometown was a small place on the Oregon coast. She hadn’t been back since she’d taken on the job with the Hawks.
The new friends she’d made since starting her job were all men…football players, every last one of them. She couldn’t confess her deepest, darkest secrets to those guys. No way.
Willow probably had her all figured out anyway. She’d witnessed a supposed fake relationship first hand with Jared and Sheridan. Heck, she’d probably think there was some sort of epidemic going around among the Hawks players.
And no way could Aubrey tell Willow how scared she was of losing her job. She was putting everything on the line. Everything.
“Is Flynn nervous about the game?” Willow asked out of the blue.
“What? No, I don’t think so.” Aubrey shrugged, feeling silly. “I don’t know. We haven’t talked much about it.” They’d had sex two nights ago. They’d talked yesterday, but he’d been busy with practice and told her he’d call her later
, which he had.
The phone conversation had lasted almost an hour. He’d told her about practice, how he’d spoken to Harvey and ensured she would be traveling with the team to Denver, just like all the wives and girlfriends were. How authentic that would look in the public eye—he’d specifically pointed that out, which had, for whatever stupid reason, hurt her feelings a little.
Today, he’d hardly talked to her, but he had come to her before they’d boarded the plane, dropping a sweet kiss on her lips and looking at her as if the sun rose and set on her head. After that, though, he’d sort of ditched her, which actually made her feel relieved, because spending so much time with Flynn was…hard on her. Besides, he had a team to be with. He couldn’t worry about his new girlfriend and her little feelings. That was just her expecting too much from him.
“Nick’s all wound up and anxious to play. No one on the team is saying a word for fear the entire game will be jinxed, so you know what I’m referring to,” Willow said cryptically.
Absolutely, Aubrey knew what Willow referred to. The unspoken goal. The ultimate dream. Yeah, she knew Flynn was wound up, too, but for different reasons. He’d probably get no time out on the field in this Saturday’s game. And if they made it to the ultimate goal, Flynn would get little-to-no field time there, either.
The end of the season just brought him closer to uncertainty. Now that she’d gotten to know him better, she realized that the stress of it all, the unknowing, was starting to truly affect him.
“Flynn probably won’t spend much time on the field,” Aubrey pointed out, her voice soft, her thoughts…full of Flynn. “He hates that.”
Willow frowned. “I’m sure he does.” She sighed. “I don’t even know what to say to him. If I admit I’m sorry, he’d probably hate that. But it’s how I feel. He deserves a chance to prove himself, and he won’t find that here, under Jared. He’s on top of the world right now. Playing the best season of his life.”
“I know. I get it. So does Flynn.” He’d said so himself that night after they’d had sex the second time. Lying together in their postcoital bliss, in each other’s arms, Flynn had talked—more like unloaded. About all the disappointment he dealt with that came from his father, how his expectations were hard to meet. Everyone in Flynn’s life held the same goal as he did—to make him the best damn football player anyone had ever seen.
But sometimes that was hard to prove, if the man never got a chance to play.
…