Scoring His Obsession Paperback

He’s the star running back with a possessive streak. I’m the
small-town girl who just wanted to sell dog tutus. Falling for him? Not part of
the game plan.

After fleeing to Nashville to escape my past, romance wasn’t on my radar.
Especially not with Micah Freeman—the impossibly hot NFL superstar.

Laughing gas and my social media queen roommate mix one night, and suddenly, I’m going viral for claiming Micah Freeman is my husband. Funny, right? Well, apparently, he ran with it because the next thing I know, he’s storming into my life like he owns it.

Now he’s showing up at my pet boutique demanding I go on a date with him, and
making it very clear he won’t take no for an answer.

Micah’s used to getting what he wants on and off the field. And what he wants
now, is me.

He’s intense. Protective. Possessive.

As our worlds collide—NFL fame, skyrocketing business sales, and a relationship born from chaos—can we survive the spotlight, my past, and his all-consuming feelings?

One thing’s for sure…this isn’t just a game anymore.

This spicy sports romance is packed with steamy tension, protective alpha vibes, and a jealous football player who will do anything to keep his woman. If you love small town girl meets NFL heartthrob, forced proximity, and over-the-top alpha heroes, get ready to fall hard for Micah and Raeann!

Chapter One

Raeann

The stylist tugs at my hair, the straightener somehow working magic to make it curly. I watch in fascination as near-perfect ringlets hit my shoulders. How does it do that? It’s a straightener, not a curling iron. Or an enchanted wand. New York really is made of different stuff.

Cassie—the stylist, who seems to be about my age—is oblivious to my wonder as she chats animatedly about meeting this celebrity and that celebrity. She seems different from me. More worldly. If that wasn’t enough to tell us apart, her makeup game is on point, right down to the way she drew her eyeliner. I suddenly and completely understand that Taylor Swift lyric now: Draw the cat eye sharp enough to kill a man.

I’m lucky if I remember to put on color corrector before I head down to the shop in the mornings.

More honey-blonde curls fall next to the others, and before long, I look like I’m about to walk a red carpet. My hair hasn’t been this cooperative…ever. I’m usually a low pony type. A set it and forget it type of thing. Plus, it helps keep my hair out of the way when I’m sewing.

That’s it. I need a Cassie in my life. If Pet Threads takes off, maybe I can even afford one. A cook, too, because Lord knows I’m about as good at cooking as I am at makeup and hair.

The longer I stare at myself, the more the rolling in my stomach intensifies. As if she can hear my inner turmoil, Athena licks the tips of my fingers. I stare down, and her doe-brown eyes latch to mine and melt my soul. If a dog could be a life partner, there’s no doubt she would be mine. “You’re a good girl, huh?” I ask, scratching her head before reaching over to straighten the dress I made her.

“She really is a beautiful dog,” Cassie says, her voice a sigh, like it’s said with a handful of wistful memories. “A golden, right?”

“She sure is, and she’s the cutest golden retriever ever,” I agree. Modesty goes out the window when it comes to Athena. I’d plaster her face everywhere if I could with the title: Cutest Dog Alive.

Cassie finally sets the magical straightener down on her workstation and rubs some product in her hands. Squishing her palms together in fast circles, she beams at me through the dressing room mirror. “You ready?”

She doesn’t give me time to answer, but my gut reaction is to say no. Nothing about what’s happening this morning—including the criminal wake-up call—is something I’m prepared to do. This isn’t my life. I don’t have dressing rooms with my name on it, or makeup people, or assistants asking if I’ve eaten. Or a really insistent one who keeps popping in to tell me how much time I have left before we’re on air.

Cassie threads her fingers up through my hair and does some shaking that can only be described as straight up spell casting because when she carefully pulls her fingers free, I’m most definitely not Raeann Gorman anymore. Cassie has somehow turned me into a sex goddess.

I swallow. In the mirror, wide green eyes stare back at me. Carefully, I drift them toward Cassie. She’s still picking and plucking to make my hair fall perfectly. “Do you think I have time to make a phone call?” I squeak out.

Cassie moves to stand behind me, her eyes lifting to peer at my hair in the mirror. She tugs on a few more strands. Her voice comes out absentmindedly, as if Raeann the person is not her entire focus. Raeann the face and hair is. “You can do whatever… you… want.” She pauses. “There.” Beaming at me through the mirror, she squeezes my shoulders. “Now he won’t even recognize you if he’s already seen the video.”

My heart jumps in my chest, and I swallow the acid rearing up in my stomach. Athena moves to a sitting position and puts her paw on my thigh. I rub it as Cassie loads up her cart, but my mind plays the video on repeat, almost as many times as it’s been watched worldwide, which is a bald-faced lie because it isn’t possible to watch the video as many times as there are people who’ve seen it.

I reach for my phone and immediately press on Tab’s name. It picks up on the first ring, her voice calling out all the way from back home. “Oh my God, where are you? On stage? Have you met Paula yet? What does she smell like?”

“One, I’m in my dressing room.” I have to talk over a squeal because this is not a friendly phone call with my business partner and best friend. This is a DEFCON level two emergency. “Two, I can’t believe I let you talk me into this. I should’ve said no,” I whisper furiously. “I don’t belong on this show. You should see what Cassie did to my hair. It’s voodoo shit, Tab. Voodoo.”

“First of all, who’s Cassie? Because if she thinks she’s taking the spot as your number one best friend, she’s crazy. I will cut a bitch.”

“Excuse you.”

“Ugh. Number two best friend. It’s just weird you make me say I come in second to a dog.”

Athena’s tongue lolls out of her mouth, and her cute muzzle looks like she’s smiling. I pat her paw.

“Because Athena doesn’t record me in my most vulnerable moments and put me on the internet for everyone to see and then,” I exaggerate before taking a deep breath, “make me come on TV to discuss it.”

“Well, that’s ludicrous,” Tab says. “Athena doesn’t have opposable thumbs, so of course she wouldn’t record and then upload your video to the internet. If she could, she would, though.”

I lie back in my chair. In the mirror opposite me, my eyes narrow like I can shoot lasers from here all the way to Tennessee and hit my number two best friend square in the forehead. “Sounds like you want to start a fight this morning.”

“Me?” Tab asks defiantly. “You’re the one acting crazy.”

I think about the past few days. The panicked phone calls to Tab. The anxiety texts. Okay, maybe I’m not squeaky clean in this either. “It’s the New York air. They’re all crazy up here.”

“Yeah, all that success.”

“It’s the smog.”

“I thought that was in California?”

“Oh, like the Big Apple doesn’t have pollution?”

“No, because the money tampers it. Fame. Dreams. Taylor Swift lives there, you know. You should look out for her.”

I resist the urge to tell Tab about Cassie’s deathly eyeliner straight out of the pop star’s song for fear of devolving the conversation into a best friend hierarchy fight again, so instead, I lead with, “I saw a homeless guy outside my hotel this morning with a brand-new Yankees cap on. Does that count?”

A quick knock sounds on the door behind me. My breath hitches.

“Ooh, that sounds serious. Is that how show biz knocks? I need to up my game. No more timid knocks for me.”

“Come in!” I call out, ignoring my best friend.

The time-conscious assistant walks in wearing a new accessory: a headset. “You’re on in five. Shall we start walking?”

“I have to go,” I tell Tab, suddenly wishing I was back in Tennessee with her, getting ready to open up the store.

“You’re going to kill it. Be yourself. Everyone loves you. Show the world why you have two best friends.”

My lips quirk into a smile. “Will do. Love you, Tab.”

“Love you, too.”

I end the call and set the phone on the vanity. When I stand, Athena does too. She’s right by my side as I walk toward the technology-wearing assistant. He’s most definitely younger than me. He looks like he’s barely out of high school, let alone college.

The youngin’, as my grandfather would call him, leads me through a maze of hallways until we’re suddenly in an open space and I can hear Paula talking. She sends to commercial, and important-sounding people tell her she’s off camera. Mr. Too Young To Be Having A Fancy TV Job moves me around a dark wall, and suddenly, Paula is walking toward us. A host of makeup artists dab her with brushes, and one specific person fluffs her hair. A hair fluffer. Imagine that.

“Raeann Gorman,” she says brightly, holding out her hand.

A famous person has never said my name before. Well, that’s a little lie. When my video was going viral, a bunch of famous people said my name when they continued to show it on shows like this. I guess the correct thing to say is that a famous person has never said my name to me in the flesh.

I shake her hand, hoping mine isn’t sweaty. “Nice to meet you.”

“Aww, listen to you. Your cute little southern accent. They’re going to love you.”

They? Who’s they? Like an existential they? Are we talking about the world at large? Or a subset of people that she wants to please?

My question gets answered immediately when someone says, “Who’s that?” rather loudly.

I turn to find an entire audience staring at me. My social battery drains out of me from head to toe in the matter of seconds.

“Oh, dear, you look petrified.” She moves next to me, blocking my view from all the people, and puts her arm around my shoulders. “Nothing to be scared about. Just two friends having a cup of coffee together.”

Another assistant who I haven’t seen before pops up next to us. “Two creams, one sugar,” she verifies.

I nod. Truthfully, I don’t drink coffee, so I ordered it like Tab does. I didn’t want to be seen as some small-town girl who doesn’t do what the cool kids do. “I can do that.”

“Two minutes,” the time-conscious assistant says.

“Thanks, Mike.”

Paula starts moving me toward a short set of stairs that lead to two modern chairs facing each other. Athena pushes her head into my palm, and I stroke her absentmindedly.

“The dog!” Paula suddenly says, stopping us.

“She’s right here.”

Athena pops her head around the hem of my dress and stares at Paula. “Oh, goodness. Look at her. Good. We’ll have her sit next to you.” She moves her stare from Athena to me, and I can’t help but smile back. She doesn’t seem fake at all. Her eyes are genuine. Even though people fuss around her, she appears unfazed.

An assistant points out my white chair while I ascend the steps. I get myself situated, and Athena sits to my left. A few of the important-looking people appear pleasantly surprised when Athena just stays there. They walk away with content smiles on their faces, like they weren’t sure how it would go having an animal on set. Athena isn’t only an animal, though, that’s for sure. I’m pretty sure she’s part human.

“You’re doing great,” Paula says, flashing another genuine smile my way. She now has cards in her hands. “Remember, we’re two old friends.”

“Thirty seconds,” technology assistant Mike warns.

It would be easier to think of ourselves as two old friends if someone wasn’t counting the seconds down to us having a conversation.

I take a deep breath, letting my eyes flutter closed for a few short seconds. It’s only a few minutes. Talk about the video a little bit and then, of course, Pet Threads. It’s all worth it. It’s been worth it, I say like a mantra. 

I never wanted to be in the spotlight, but I can’t say it hasn’t helped the business. Millions of eyes on my most embarrassing moment meant millions of people introduced to Pet Threads. The two went hand-in-hand. In a way, Tab and I are lucky.

“Ten seconds,” Mike warns again, and I don’t think it’s my imagination that his voice has gotten deeper, more serious as the time runs closer and closer. When he greeted me this morning, he almost sounded normal.

At once, a bunch of things happen. Paula’s hair and makeup people leave us alone together on the tiny stage. It gets real quiet, then super loud when someone stands in the crowd, hyping up the audience. They’re all on their feet, and Paula is beaming now, her smile more fake than before, but still beautiful and glaringly white, like she has a perfect row of chicklets in her mouth.

I’m still ogling her teeth when she says, “We’re back with Raeann Gorman! You might not recognize the name, but you’ll sure recognize the face and that cute country twang. That’s right. We’re talking to Miss ‘But I Love Him’ on the show this morning. First, let’s show a clip of the video.”

My stomach twists. Paula gestures toward the TV that’s now rising between us out of a piece of wood furniture. My puffy red face is bigger than I’ve ever seen it, and an ice pack is pressed to my jaw while Tab’s giggle rings through the speaker.

“What did you just say?” she asks.

“Micah Freeman,” I slur. It sounds more like Mi-ah Reeman, especially since my voice is coming at me from all sides in this huge space.

“What about him?”

A leading question if I ever heard one. To hear Tab tell the story, I’d been going on and on for a good five minutes before this, so she finally decided to pull out her phone and take the video.

“We in ’ove,” I state, my face contorting to a scowl the more Tab laughs.

“You’re in love?”

I nod incessantly. “I dunno…” the phone volume muffles for a moment when Tab switches hands, “… you’re ’aughing. We’re married.”

“You’re married to Micah Freeman? The Tennessee Wildcats’ running back?”

“Yes!” I pout, crossing my arms over my chest. “Is nah a ’aughing madder. He ’oves me.”

In the video, Athena licks my face. They pause on that frame where you can clearly see her dressed in my Pet Thread pajama design.

A part of me is pleased. The other part of me that’s vain enough to care that one of my eyes is open and the other is being licked by a dog for millions of people to see is humiliated. You can even see the trail of drool Athena left behind. Damn Tab and her insistence that she always get the latest iPhone for promotional material. All those camera pixels are screwing me right now.

When I return to my body, the audience is laughing. I smile good-naturedly because it is funny. It’d be funnier if it wasn’t me, but I’ve laughed at a few dental videos myself. This is a higher power getting back at me, for sure.

“They must’ve given you the good stuff,” Paula jokes.

“The best,” I reply, nerves thrumming through my veins.

“You didn’t know what was happening?”

“No clue.”

She laughs again. Genuine, like she’s not laughing at me, which I appreciate.

I cringe at the screen, which garners another round of cheering from the audience. “For the record, I’m not married to Micah Freeman.”

“You don’t say?”

I laugh. “Like I said, the good stuff.”

Paula asks a few questions about my procedure and the good stuff, and we all have a good chuckle. About the time I think we’re going to move the conversation to Pet Threads, she asks, “Did you ever hear from Micah Freeman? Or his team?”

I can’t help but bark out a laugh. “God no. He’s a three-time Pro Bowler.” I’m sure he has enough crazies around him that they don’t need to throw me into the mix.

“You sound like you know your football.”

I shrug, being a little coy. No one likes a know-it-all. “You couldn’t get away from football in my house growing up. My father was a high school football coach and my grandfather is a diehard Wildcats fan to this day.”

“Aww,” Paula says. “That is so adorable. Well, I’m sure Micah was pleased to find out he has such loyal fans.”

“I promise I’m not crazy,” I joke, then tension making my hands shake.

“Is that what you would tell him if he was here right now?”

“That and Go Wildcats!”

The crowd cheers, and I pet Athena absentmindedly to try to calm myself down. This is actually going well. Despite wanting to puke all morning, I might actually pull this off if we’re nearly done.

“Well, let’s see what he has to say!” Paula yells, and my face falls before my mind can even comprehend her words.

She gestures toward the TV, and a handsome face appears on the screen. Relief floods through me that they’re not going to have him running out of the back or something. “Hi, Raeann, this is Micah Freeman. I hear you’re a fan. Thanks for supporting the Wildcats.” The Wildcats growl sounds, and then the picture blips out.

There goes his adorable dimples and his perfectly manicured facial hair. Soulful brown eyes, brown hair swept to the side. That overly cocky smile. I mean, if I had to pick a fake husband during a medically induced haze, it was going to be him.

“He said your name!” Paula says excitedly.

“He said my name,” I confirm. Thankfully, that’s all he said. From the moment I recovered from the good stuff and Tab played me the video she put up on social media, I wasn’t that worried. It was a cute slice of life snippet that showed Athena rocking an adorable outfit that we sold in our stores. It wasn’t until the views started pouring in and everything seemed to steamroll that I got anxious. Fears of being seen. Fears of being thought that I was stupid or crazy or some other awful, terrible thing. I have enough anxiety with my simple life. I don’t need to add to it by worrying about what everyone else thinks of me. “That was cool of him. Thanks, Micah.”

“Well, you can thank him in person. Micah Freeman, come on out!”

My stomach drops immediately and I’m free-falling through a rush of horror.

This isn’t happening. Please be a joke.

It’s not.

Micah Freeman jogs out of the same place I was in only a few minutes ago, except his entrance is effortless. He waves at the crowd, a charming smile on his face. Paula’s team brings another chair to the stage next to hers while they greet each other, and I’m too stunned to move. Nothing works. My feet. My hands. I might as well be moss growing on a fallen tree limb in a dark, dense forest.

The moment I’ve dreaded since the video went viral just sucker punched me on live TV.

Micah releases Paula from a hug before rounding the coffee table and walking toward me. By some grace of something otherworldly, I get to my feet without falling over. He hugs me, and I stand there, his wide torso completely enveloping me, his strong arms like stone. I remind myself to breathe, but then I get a whiff of his cologne and I almost die on the spot.

He smells so good. Like rain showers in the jungle and earthy sandalwood. Like nature and eau de man had to come together to make something not from this world.

“Nice to meet you.” His sexy baritone reverberates in my ear and echoes through my whole body.

I don’t think I utter a single word. I don’t even think my face reacts enough to smile. He lets me go, pulling away. His gaze lands on mine, and I’m once again struck utterly dumb. The corner of his lip tips up, accentuating that dimple, and if smoldering was a look, I get the full force of it. His brown eyes, captivating and intense, pin me in place—so much so that I can barely breathe. His stare wanders down and back up, and I swear his eyes shift in front of me. His smile melts, replaced by a feather in his jaw that thrums, nearly matching the beat of my heart.

I’m still in shock when his attention is torn away. “Oh, hey there,” he coos.

I glance over to see what he’s focused on, and Athena is on her hind legs, tail wagging as her paws find Micah’s chest.

“So cute,” he murmurs.

The crowd is loving it. He pats her on the head. But then I see the slight shift in her.

Her feet turn in.

She latches.

Then she starts going to town on Micah Freeman’s leg.

Oh. My. God.

This cannot be happening.

“Athena!” I say sharply.

But it’s too late. Everyone sees. Everyone points and laughs while dread settles in my stomach.

“Whoa, it’s not that kind of show,” Paula chuckles.

All the while, Athena looks back at me, her tongue lolling out of her mouth. It only takes her a moment to see my trepidation, and she jumps off and sits by me again, nudging my palm with her head.

“I guess it runs in the family,” Micah jokes, his brown gaze cutting to mine again.

Then I die of embarrassment, never to be resuscitated.

ylist tugs at my hair, the straightener somehow working magic to make it curly. I watch in fascination as near-perfect ringlets hit my shoulders. How does it do that? It’s a straightener, not a curling iron. Or an enchanted wand. New York really is made of different stuff.

Cassie—the stylist, who seems to be about my age—is oblivious to my wonder as she chats animatedly about meeting this celebrity and that celebrity. She seems different from me. More worldly. If that wasn’t enough to tell us apart, her makeup game is on point, right down to the way she drew her eyeliner. I suddenly and completely understand that Taylor Swift lyric now: Draw the cat eye sharp enough to kill a man.

I’m lucky if I remember to put on color corrector before I head down to the shop in the mornings.

More honey-blonde curls fall next to the others, and before long, I look like I’m about to walk a red carpet. My hair hasn’t been this cooperative…ever. I’m usually a low pony type. A set it and forget it type of thing. Plus, it helps keep my hair out of the way when I’m sewing.

That’s it. I need a Cassie in my life. If Pet Threads takes off, maybe I can even afford one. A cook, too, because Lord knows I’m about as good at cooking as I am at makeup and hair.

The longer I stare at myself, the more the rolling in my stomach intensifies. As if she can hear my inner turmoil, Athena licks the tips of my fingers. I stare down, and her doe-brown eyes latch to mine and melt my soul. If a dog could be a life partner, there’s no doubt she would be mine. “You’re a good girl, huh?” I ask, scratching her head before reaching over to straighten the dress I made her.

“She really is a beautiful dog,” Cassie says, her voice a sigh, like it’s said with a handful of wistful memories. “A golden, right?”

“She sure is, and she’s the cutest golden retriever ever,” I agree. Modesty goes out the window when it comes to Athena. I’d plaster her face everywhere if I could with the title: Cutest Dog Alive.

Cassie finally sets the magical straightener down on her workstation and rubs some product in her hands. Squishing her palms together in fast circles, she beams at me through the dressing room mirror. “You ready?”

She doesn’t give me time to answer, but my gut reaction is to say no. Nothing about what’s happening this morning—including the criminal wake-up call—is something I’m prepared to do. This isn’t my life. I don’t have dressing rooms with my name on it, or makeup people, or assistants asking if I’ve eaten. Or a really insistent one who keeps popping in to tell me how much time I have left before we’re on air.

Cassie threads her fingers up through my hair and does some shaking that can only be described as straight up spell casting because when she carefully pulls her fingers free, I’m most definitely not Raeann Gorman anymore. Cassie has somehow turned me into a sex goddess.

I swallow. In the mirror, wide green eyes stare back at me. Carefully, I drift them toward Cassie. She’s still picking and plucking to make my hair fall perfectly. “Do you think I have time to make a phone call?” I squeak out.

Cassie moves to stand behind me, her eyes lifting to peer at my hair in the mirror. She tugs on a few more strands. Her voice comes out absentmindedly, as if Raeann the person is not her entire focus. Raeann the face and hair is. “You can do whatever… you… want.” She pauses. “There.” Beaming at me through the mirror, she squeezes my shoulders. “Now he won’t even recognize you if he’s already seen the video.”

My heart jumps in my chest, and I swallow the acid rearing up in my stomach. Athena moves to a sitting position and puts her paw on my thigh. I rub it as Cassie loads up her cart, but my mind plays the video on repeat, almost as many times as it’s been watched worldwide, which is a bald-faced lie because it isn’t possible to watch the video as many times as there are people who’ve seen it.

I reach for my phone and immediately press on Tab’s name. It picks up on the first ring, her voice calling out all the way from back home. “Oh my God, where are you? On stage? Have you met Paula yet? What does she smell like?”

“One, I’m in my dressing room.” I have to talk over a squeal because this is not a friendly phone call with my business partner and best friend. This is a DEFCON level two emergency. “Two, I can’t believe I let you talk me into this. I should’ve said no,” I whisper furiously. “I don’t belong on this show. You should see what Cassie did to my hair. It’s voodoo shit, Tab. Voodoo.”

“First of all, who’s Cassie? Because if she thinks she’s taking the spot as your number one best friend, she’s crazy. I will cut a bitch.”

“Excuse you.”

“Ugh. Number two best friend. It’s just weird you make me say I come in second to a dog.”

Athena’s tongue lolls out of her mouth, and her cute muzzle looks like she’s smiling. I pat her paw.

“Because Athena doesn’t record me in my most vulnerable moments and put me on the internet for everyone to see and then,” I exaggerate before taking a deep breath, “make me come on TV to discuss it.”

“Well, that’s ludicrous,” Tab says. “Athena doesn’t have opposable thumbs, so of course she wouldn’t record and then upload your video to the internet. If she could, she would, though.”

I lie back in my chair. In the mirror opposite me, my eyes narrow like I can shoot lasers from here all the way to Tennessee and hit my number two best friend square in the forehead. “Sounds like you want to start a fight this morning.”

“Me?” Tab asks defiantly. “You’re the one acting crazy.”

I think about the past few days. The panicked phone calls to Tab. The anxiety texts. Okay, maybe I’m not squeaky clean in this either. “It’s the New York air. They’re all crazy up here.”

“Yeah, all that success.”

“It’s the smog.”

“I thought that was in California?”

“Oh, like the Big Apple doesn’t have pollution?”

“No, because the money tampers it. Fame. Dreams. Taylor Swift lives there, you know. You should look out for her.”

I resist the urge to tell Tab about Cassie’s deathly eyeliner straight out of the pop star’s song for fear of devolving the conversation into a best friend hierarchy fight again, so instead, I lead with, “I saw a homeless guy outside my hotel this morning with a brand-new Yankees cap on. Does that count?”

A quick knock sounds on the door behind me. My breath hitches.

“Ooh, that sounds serious. Is that how show biz knocks? I need to up my game. No more timid knocks for me.”

“Come in!” I call out, ignoring my best friend.

The time-conscious assistant walks in wearing a new accessory: a headset. “You’re on in five. Shall we start walking?”

“I have to go,” I tell Tab, suddenly wishing I was back in Tennessee with her, getting ready to open up the store.

“You’re going to kill it. Be yourself. Everyone loves you. Show the world why you have two best friends.”

My lips quirk into a smile. “Will do. Love you, Tab.”

“Love you, too.”

I end the call and set the phone on the vanity. When I stand, Athena does too. She’s right by my side as I walk toward the technology-wearing assistant. He’s most definitely younger than me. He looks like he’s barely out of high school, let alone college.

The youngin’, as my grandfather would call him, leads me through a maze of hallways until we’re suddenly in an open space and I can hear Paula talking. She sends to commercial, and important-sounding people tell her she’s off camera. Mr. Too Young To Be Having A Fancy TV Job moves me around a dark wall, and suddenly, Paula is walking toward us. A host of makeup artists dab her with brushes, and one specific person fluffs her hair. A hair fluffer. Imagine that.

“Raeann Gorman,” she says brightly, holding out her hand.

A famous person has never said my name before. Well, that’s a little lie. When my video was going viral, a bunch of famous people said my name when they continued to show it on shows like this. I guess the correct thing to say is that a famous person has never said my name to me in the flesh.

I shake her hand, hoping mine isn’t sweaty. “Nice to meet you.”

“Aww, listen to you. Your cute little southern accent. They’re going to love you.”

They? Who’s they? Like an existential they? Are we talking about the world at large? Or a subset of people that she wants to please?

My question gets answered immediately when someone says, “Who’s that?” rather loudly.

I turn to find an entire audience staring at me. My social battery drains out of me from head to toe in the matter of seconds.

“Oh, dear, you look petrified.” She moves next to me, blocking my view from all the people, and puts her arm around my shoulders. “Nothing to be scared about. Just two friends having a cup of coffee together.”

Another assistant who I haven’t seen before pops up next to us. “Two creams, one sugar,” she verifies.

I nod. Truthfully, I don’t drink coffee, so I ordered it like Tab does. I didn’t want to be seen as some small-town girl who doesn’t do what the cool kids do. “I can do that.”

“Two minutes,” the time-conscious assistant says.

“Thanks, Mike.”

Paula starts moving me toward a short set of stairs that lead to two modern chairs facing each other. Athena pushes her head into my palm, and I stroke her absentmindedly.

“The dog!” Paula suddenly says, stopping us.

“She’s right here.”

Athena pops her head around the hem of my dress and stares at Paula. “Oh, goodness. Look at her. Good. We’ll have her sit next to you.” She moves her stare from Athena to me, and I can’t help but smile back. She doesn’t seem fake at all. Her eyes are genuine. Even though people fuss around her, she appears unfazed.

An assistant points out my white chair while I ascend the steps. I get myself situated, and Athena sits to my left. A few of the important-looking people appear pleasantly surprised when Athena just stays there. They walk away with content smiles on their faces, like they weren’t sure how it would go having an animal on set. Athena isn’t only an animal, though, that’s for sure. I’m pretty sure she’s part human.

“You’re doing great,” Paula says, flashing another genuine smile my way. She now has cards in her hands. “Remember, we’re two old friends.”

“Thirty seconds,” technology assistant Mike warns.

It would be easier to think of ourselves as two old friends if someone wasn’t counting the seconds down to us having a conversation.

I take a deep breath, letting my eyes flutter closed for a few short seconds. It’s only a few minutes. Talk about the video a little bit and then, of course, Pet Threads. It’s all worth it. It’s been worth it, I say like a mantra. 

I never wanted to be in the spotlight, but I can’t say it hasn’t helped the business. Millions of eyes on my most embarrassing moment meant millions of people introduced to Pet Threads. The two went hand-in-hand. In a way, Tab and I are lucky.

“Ten seconds,” Mike warns again, and I don’t think it’s my imagination that his voice has gotten deeper, more serious as the time runs closer and closer. When he greeted me this morning, he almost sounded normal.

At once, a bunch of things happen. Paula’s hair and makeup people leave us alone together on the tiny stage. It gets real quiet, then super loud when someone stands in the crowd, hyping up the audience. They’re all on their feet, and Paula is beaming now, her smile more fake than before, but still beautiful and glaringly white, like she has a perfect row of chicklets in her mouth.

I’m still ogling her teeth when she says, “We’re back with Raeann Gorman! You might not recognize the name, but you’ll sure recognize the face and that cute country twang. That’s right. We’re talking to Miss ‘But I Love Him’ on the show this morning. First, let’s show a clip of the video.”

My stomach twists. Paula gestures toward the TV that’s now rising between us out of a piece of wood furniture. My puffy red face is bigger than I’ve ever seen it, and an ice pack is pressed to my jaw while Tab’s giggle rings through the speaker.

“What did you just say?” she asks.

“Micah Freeman,” I slur. It sounds more like Mi-ah Reeman, especially since my voice is coming at me from all sides in this huge space.

“What about him?”

A leading question if I ever heard one. To hear Tab tell the story, I’d been going on and on for a good five minutes before this, so she finally decided to pull out her phone and take the video.

“We in ’ove,” I state, my face contorting to a scowl the more Tab laughs.

“You’re in love?”

I nod incessantly. “I dunno…” the phone volume muffles for a moment when Tab switches hands, “… you’re ’aughing. We’re married.”

“You’re married to Micah Freeman? The Tennessee Wildcats’ running back?”

“Yes!” I pout, crossing my arms over my chest. “Is nah a ’aughing madder. He ’oves me.”

In the video, Athena licks my face. They pause on that frame where you can clearly see her dressed in my Pet Thread pajama design.

A part of me is pleased. The other part of me that’s vain enough to care that one of my eyes is open and the other is being licked by a dog for millions of people to see is humiliated. You can even see the trail of drool Athena left behind. Damn Tab and her insistence that she always get the latest iPhone for promotional material. All those camera pixels are screwing me right now.

When I return to my body, the audience is laughing. I smile good-naturedly because it is funny. It’d be funnier if it wasn’t me, but I’ve laughed at a few dental videos myself. This is a higher power getting back at me, for sure.

“They must’ve given you the good stuff,” Paula jokes.

“The best,” I reply, nerves thrumming through my veins.

“You didn’t know what was happening?”

“No clue.”

She laughs again. Genuine, like she’s not laughing at me, which I appreciate.

I cringe at the screen, which garners another round of cheering from the audience. “For the record, I’m not married to Micah Freeman.”

“You don’t say?”

I laugh. “Like I said, the good stuff.”

Paula asks a few questions about my procedure and the good stuff, and we all have a good chuckle. About the time I think we’re going to move the conversation to Pet Threads, she asks, “Did you ever hear from Micah Freeman? Or his team?”

I can’t help but bark out a laugh. “God no. He’s a three-time Pro Bowler.” I’m sure he has enough crazies around him that they don’t need to throw me into the mix.

“You sound like you know your football.”

I shrug, being a little coy. No one likes a know-it-all. “You couldn’t get away from football in my house growing up. My father was a high school football coach and my grandfather is a diehard Wildcats fan to this day.”

“Aww,” Paula says. “That is so adorable. Well, I’m sure Micah was pleased to find out he has such loyal fans.”

“I promise I’m not crazy,” I joke, then tension making my hands shake.

“Is that what you would tell him if he was here right now?”

“That and Go Wildcats!”

The crowd cheers, and I pet Athena absentmindedly to try to calm myself down. This is actually going well. Despite wanting to puke all morning, I might actually pull this off if we’re nearly done.

“Well, let’s see what he has to say!” Paula yells, and my face falls before my mind can even comprehend her words.

She gestures toward the TV, and a handsome face appears on the screen. Relief floods through me that they’re not going to have him running out of the back or something. “Hi, Raeann, this is Micah Freeman. I hear you’re a fan. Thanks for supporting the Wildcats.” The Wildcats growl sounds, and then the picture blips out.

There goes his adorable dimples and his perfectly manicured facial hair. Soulful brown eyes, brown hair swept to the side. That overly cocky smile. I mean, if I had to pick a fake husband during a medically induced haze, it was going to be him.

“He said your name!” Paula says excitedly.

“He said my name,” I confirm. Thankfully, that’s all he said. From the moment I recovered from the good stuff and Tab played me the video she put up on social media, I wasn’t that worried. It was a cute slice of life snippet that showed Athena rocking an adorable outfit that we sold in our stores. It wasn’t until the views started pouring in and everything seemed to steamroll that I got anxious. Fears of being seen. Fears of being thought that I was stupid or crazy or some other awful, terrible thing. I have enough anxiety with my simple life. I don’t need to add to it by worrying about what everyone else thinks of me. “That was cool of him. Thanks, Micah.”

“Well, you can thank him in person. Micah Freeman, come on out!”

My stomach drops immediately and I’m free-falling through a rush of horror.

This isn’t happening. Please be a joke.

It’s not.

Micah Freeman jogs out of the same place I was in only a few minutes ago, except his entrance is effortless. He waves at the crowd, a charming smile on his face. Paula’s team brings another chair to the stage next to hers while they greet each other, and I’m too stunned to move. Nothing works. My feet. My hands. I might as well be moss growing on a fallen tree limb in a dark, dense forest.

The moment I’ve dreaded since the video went viral just sucker punched me on live TV.

Micah releases Paula from a hug before rounding the coffee table and walking toward me. By some grace of something otherworldly, I get to my feet without falling over. He hugs me, and I stand there, his wide torso completely enveloping me, his strong arms like stone. I remind myself to breathe, but then I get a whiff of his cologne and I almost die on the spot.

He smells so good. Like rain showers in the jungle and earthy sandalwood. Like nature and eau de man had to come together to make something not from this world.

“Nice to meet you.” His sexy baritone reverberates in my ear and echoes through my whole body.

I don’t think I utter a single word. I don’t even think my face reacts enough to smile. He lets me go, pulling away. His gaze lands on mine, and I’m once again struck utterly dumb. The corner of his lip tips up, accentuating that dimple, and if smoldering was a look, I get the full force of it. His brown eyes, captivating and intense, pin me in place—so much so that I can barely breathe. His stare wanders down and back up, and I swear his eyes shift in front of me. His smile melts, replaced by a feather in his jaw that thrums, nearly matching the beat of my heart.

I’m still in shock when his attention is torn away. “Oh, hey there,” he coos.

I glance over to see what he’s focused on, and Athena is on her hind legs, tail wagging as her paws find Micah’s chest.

“So cute,” he murmurs.

The crowd is loving it. He pats her on the head. But then I see the slight shift in her.

Her feet turn in.

She latches.

Then she starts going to town on Micah Freeman’s leg.

Oh. My. God.

This cannot be happening.

“Athena!” I say sharply.

But it’s too late. Everyone sees. Everyone points and laughs while dread settles in my stomach.

“Whoa, it’s not that kind of show,” Paula chuckles.

All the while, Athena looks back at me, her tongue lolling out of her mouth. It only takes her a moment to see my trepidation, and she jumps off and sits by me again, nudging my palm with her head.

“I guess it runs in the family,” Micah jokes, his brown gaze cutting to mine again.

Then I die of embarrassment, never to be resuscitated.

*PRINT BOOKS ONLY

Digital Signature is for customers outside the US who still want a signed copy, but do not want to pay shipping from the United States. These copies ship from a printer in the UK. They have a page digitally signed by E. M. Moore.

Signed By Author is for those who want a personally signed copy by E. M. Moore. They ship from her home in the US. International customers can still purchase these copies, but shipping will be calculated automatically and will be more expensive.