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"Heck no," I said. "I know nothing about football. You'd lose if I was coaching." They'd look good doing it though.
"Okay, it's your turn. Remember what we practiced. Just be yourselves. Don't rush. Don't fall." I handed Bam a football signed by all the guys, to tuck under his arm.
"Can I toss this to some cutie in the audience?" he asked.
"Sure, but don't hurt anyone," I said. That and several more signed balls would go to kids in the cancer ward of the hospital. Others would go to lucky women in the crowd.
Interactive was what we were going for, this time around. Memorable. Social media worthy. Viral worthy.
The crowd would eat it up.
"Here goes nothin'." Bam led the way to the stage.
I held my breath.
CHAPTER 12
CHASE
By the time I flopped down into a chair after the parade, I felt like I'd played a full game of football. The catwalk part was fine. I even managed not to fall on my ass. Bonus.
What Ashley hadn't mentioned was that just about everyone in the crowd wanted to meet us guys afterward.
I'm not talking about a quick hello and a handshake either. They all wanted to talk like we were old friends. Poor Ollie had it the worst. He had women flocking to fawn all over him.
Even Bam looked overwhelmed.
Once I saw Hawk and Bec hand in hand, and the way they were left alone, I did the same with Ashley. A few people took photos of us together, but that was all. Hopefully they'd end up on social media, for Kris and Brandi to see.
"That went well," I said. "At least, I think it did."
Ashley looked exhausted, but managed a smile. "It went amazing. You guys were fantastic. The customers were eating out of your hands. The orders of mint green shirts went through the roof." She wrinkled her nose.
"There's no accounting for taste, I suppose." I grabbed the coffee I'd bought from the cafe in Lacey's and took a sip. I hadn't expected much from department store coffee, but it wasn't bad.
She snorted. "There really isn't." She pulled out her phone and started to scroll. "I know it's rude to be on this while we're sharing a coffee," she said, "but I'm dying to see what the response online is."
I waved my hand. "Go ahead. I'm curious too."
After a moment, she grimaced.
"What?" I asked.
She turned the phone around and showed a photo of us holding hands. From the angle it was taken, the photographer made it look like I had my hand on her ass.
"I thought I saw Harvey Danbury in the crowd," I said. "It must have taken him ages to get just that shot." The man gave dirtbags a bad name.
She turned the phone back around. "I suppose it could be worse," she said.
"Much worse," I agreed. "But that depends what story he put with that."
She read from the phone. "Chase McKinney with an employee of Lacey's.He makes it sound like you just walked up to someone you hardly knew and grabbed me."
"Yeah, that sounds like him," I said. "It's easy for me to say, but try to ignore him. If you give him anything, he'll make it into something ugly. He lives for headlines and clickbait. So do his readers." And he had a lot of them, for some reason. I guessed people didn't have anything better to do.
"At least we got noticed," she said. "Will Brandi be pissed?"
I blinked. For a moment I'd forgotten about her, and why we were doing all of this.
