CHAPTER 11 LINCOLN

I drop my mouth to hers.

I was silent on the ride home with Sam as I contemplated what to do. How can we be together after what went down tonight?

But the moment I stepped into the house and saw her, I knew it couldn't be the end.

God, I love her. So much.

I can't be the one to end it.

And she wants to fight for this…for us. Whatever that means.

If she's prepared to fight, then so the fuck am I. I'm not going to give up on us.

Clearly our fathers also want to fight, only it's against each other instead of for each other. And clearly her father hates me with a passion he's not afraid to hide.

But maybe I've been approaching this all wrong from the start. What if we're forced to work together because of our jobs, and in doing so, we prove to the world that our father's fight isn't our fight?

What if they can watch us growing closer through the stories she tells?

She shows how I'm not the piece of trash her father seems to think I am.

I show that she's not the manipulative woman my father sees her as.

It's an angle I hadn't thought to use. We've been so busy with our careers and filling every free second with each other that we haven't had the time to think through how we move beyond this rut.

And maybe that's the answer. Or maybe Ellie will have additional ideas that we haven't thought of.

I pull back and rest my forehead to hers. "I was so scared that was it for us, Jo."

She shakes her head a little as her forehead rolls against mine. "It couldn't be. I know I keep saying this has an inevitable end, but what if it doesn't?"

"What if it doesn't?" I echo back in a whisper, and my lips crash down to hers again.

She tightens her hold on me, and I wish we could just stay like this forever—just the two of us wrapped in each other.

But reality will always find its way in, and it does so with the annoying clang of my phone notifying me that I have a new message.

I pull back and sigh.

"You should get that," she says, wrinkling her nose.

"I have a feeling shit's going to hit the fan," I admit.

"I know. Deal with what you have to deal with, and I'll be here holding your hand in secret."

"God, I love you," I say, and I press another soft kiss to her lips.

"Right back atcha, Coach," she says, pulling back and giving my arm a little squeeze.

I slide my phone out of my pocket to read the message.

Ellie: Damage control meeting tomorrow morning, eight o'clock, my office. Please.

I flash the screen at Jolene, and she watches as I type out my reply.

Me: Damage control meeting tomorrow morning, eight o'clock, my girlfriend's place. Please.

"Girlfriend?" she says aloud.

I laugh. "Yeah, girlfriend. I guess."

"Sam?"

I shake my head. "She's going to meet the real thing tomorrow. Good thing the real one and the fake one share an address."

We head to bed after I shoot over the address to Ellie, and since I railed her in that office earlier tonight and we're both exhausted after the rather interesting events that took place tonight, we both fall straight to sleep.

Without setting an alarm.

And eight o'clock apparently comes quickly when you're up late after a charity event where your father nearly got into a physical altercation with his mortal enemy.

I'm awakened by the sound of pounding on the door. "Get up! You have a guest!"

It's Sam's voice, and I jolt with a start as I sit up too fast. "Shit. Jo, Ellie's here."

"Shit," she murmurs, and then she bolts upright, too as my words register.

We both hop out of bed, and I wasn't thinking ahead or planning to spend the night here, so all I have is the tux I wore to the ball. I pull on the pants as Jolene digs through her drawers to find some clothes for herself as I pick up my dress shirt from last night.

She's really digging in there, and then she pulls a shirt out from the bottom and she tosses it to me.

I catch it and know what it is before I even unfold it.

"You still have this?" I murmur.

She presses her lips together and lifts a shoulder, and it's somehow absolutely adorable.

My chest warms and my heart seems to grow a little bigger as it fills with everything I feel for this woman.

It's my old shirt bearing the name of our high school along with a Tiger, our mascot.

I left it at her house once after we'd gone swimming back when we were teenagers, and she never returned it.

I'm a little broader now than I was back then, but I slip it on. It still fits.

I catch something in her eyes as she studies me with it on, something warm like the feeling I have in my own chest.

She gets dressed quickly as I head out to meet with Ellie, who's standing in the kitchen with Sam looking confused.

"You sleep in different rooms when you spend the night?" she asks, and she looks embarrassed as soon as she says it. "Never mind. Not my business. So let's break down what happened last night." She opens a tablet and starts poking at it.

"I have something I need to tell you," I say before she gets started.

She pauses and glances up at me. "Am I going to be mad?"

"Depends."

She narrows her eyes at me. "Okay. Let's have it."

Jolene walks into the kitchen before I get a chance to say anything. "What did I miss?" she asks.

I clear my throat. "This remains between us, right?"

She nods. "Of course."

I walk over to Jolene and lace my arm around her waist. "Jolene and I are…um…"

"I'm his girlfriend," she gushes, and I laugh.

"Yeah. That," I say.

Ellie looks confused, and she glances over at Sam. "What?"

"It's a long story, but we were together years and years ago, and then our families became enemies. We recently reconnected, but there's too much at stake for us to go public with it, so Sam agreed to be my date in public to throw off suspicion."

"To throw off suspic—" Ellie cuts herself off with a heavy sigh. She doesn't even look surprised at this point, and I can't imagine what sorts of things she's had to deal with in her career representing football players. "Right. Okay. So your dads don't get along, which is one thing, and on the other side of the page, you can't publicly entangle with someone from the media because of your position and you can't publicly entangle with a coach or you'll be accused of having a biased opinion. Does that cover it?"

"Mostly," Jolene says. "There's also this whole factor about me being a woman in sports reporting and how going public with a coach will confirm suspicions people already have that I used my body to get the job."

She twists her lips as she thinks that one over. "Maybe. Maybe not." She turns to Sam. "And you? What are you getting out of this?"

"A gorgeous new wardrobe and sticking my hot new boyfriend in my ex's face by way of the tabloids while simultaneously supporting my best friend." She shrugs, though truth be told, she looks a little tired. She switched her hours to weekdays from nine to three, and she's been working five days a week instead of three to cover the switch in her hours. She needed her weekends free to be able to attend events with Lincoln, and it looks like it's starting to catch up with her. "Except Jo and I had to have a public fight not so long ago so everyone would believe us, and I didn't love that part of it."

"Right. So what's the goal here?" Ellie asks. "We eventually tell the families? We wait for the first season to blow over and hope nobody will care about the new coach's love life? Or we just keep this secret forever?"

I glance at Jolene to let her field that one, but she just shrugs at me with wide eyes.

"I guess we're not really sure about that," I finally say. "Aside from the media angle, I just don't see how our families will ever be okay with this."

"Let me ask you a question," she says, and I nod as if to tell her to go ahead. "Why are you two together?"

Jolene gives me the same sort of look telling me to field it.

"I love her. I've always loved her. My entire life, I've tried to recreate what I had with her, but I never got it back until I got her back," I say.

"Whoa," Ellie says. "So that's romantic AF. And you?" She glances at Jolene.

"Same." She shrugs. "He's it for me. But my dad obviously hates him and would never approve of him."

"The same way my father feels about her and her father," I add.

"Okay. Well, my suggestion is that you two team up and do some good for the community. Show you're working together for the greater good. Your families can't argue with that, but we'll see you growing closer. A project…hmm…" She trails off as she paces a little, thinking out loud. "And you two…" She glances between Jolene and Sam. "I'm recommending you patch things up publicly." Her eyes move to me. "And you…you'd be better off publicly single, to be honest. What happens when someone eventually finds you out?" She looks over at Jolene. "Or what if you two eventually go public and everyone thinks you betrayed your best friend because she was with him first?"

"Oh," Jolene says. "I didn't really think about that. We were more concerned about diverting attention right now versus what comes next."

"Well, we can't go back now, so we control this narrative however we have to with our current events as they are," Ellie says, all business.

Damn, I like working with her.

"I'll get moving on a project that'll force you two together. First a public make-up between you two, and in a couple weeks, a break-up. I think. Let me mull this over and draw up a plan. Now as for last night's damage control." She pulls open a power point that I imagine will cover all the ways we can mitigate damage to my reputation, but the first slide shows us screenshots of the headlines in the news right now.

My name is being torn through the media right now because of what Jolene's father said, and I can see the horror on Jolene's face as Ellie shows us headline after headline.

Manipulator. Liar. Piece of Trash.

The words are used over and over, and they're painting me in the worst possible light.

My stomach twists, and Jolene looks like she's going to be sick. Even Sam looks upset over what we're seeing.

But the damage has been done, and all we can do is work to fix it. We're taking the right first steps by confessing the truth to Ellie—I hope.

But still, it does beg the question yet again: Can Jolene and I survive this?

And further, will we ever be able to tell our families the truth about us?

Time will tell, but I'm starting to think it's going to be impossible.