Page 103 of Bluffed By the Offense

She smiles at me, taking my hint and walking out after brushing one more sweep of her brush over Marcus’s nose.

“Jealous?” he asks, that smirky smirk pulling at his dimple.

“Hardly,” I say.

I give myself an inner high-five for not rolling my eyes.

“You don’t need to be,” he says, almost as if he’s really my boyfriend and I’m actually jealous.

If I were, the look he’s giving me would quell the feeling immediately. He’s got this You’re all I see look in his eyes. It’s intense and possessive. And fake.

I remind myself I’m not anything to Marcus Delaney but a means to an end. And he’s the same to me. My means to getting more eyes on Porch Light. Even if he’s got a sweet side, I know what we are and what we aren’t. And I’m not all he sees—not by a longshot.

A runner of some sort comes to the greenroom door and knocks. “Marcus and Cass, they’re ready for you.”

I check with Winona, “Are you going to be okay?”

“I’m fine. I’ll be watching on that screen. You’ve got this.”

She sends me an assuring smile and Marcus puts his hand on my back.

Marcus and I are escorted through a hallway, past offices and down to a door. The employee stops us just outside the studio. The small window in the door gives a glimpse of a large room with directors’ chairs and camera equipment around the perimeter.

At the center of the room is a set with a couple couches and a coffee table. The hosts of Good Day Nashville are seated on one of the couches. Gwen is swishing her powder brush over one of their noses.

“How do you get a job like that?” I mutter to Marcus.

He laughs quietly. “I mean, how do you get a job throwing a ball for a living?”

I turn and look at him. “Marcus Delaney, are you mocking the sport of football?”

He just smiles.

Another studio employee comes over to us and hands us lavalier microphones that are attached to transmitter packs that clip to the back of our clothing. She fusses around getting us mic'd up.

Then she leans in and speaks into each of our mics. “Check. One. Two. Three.”

Through the door, I catch a guy on the other side of the room sending her a thumbs-up. She skitters away to whatever’s next.

A voice comes over the speakers. “Weather segment is finishing up in thirty. We’re going to commercial.”

The red light over the door turns off and the woman who came to get us out of the greenroom pops the door open and leads Marcus and me onto the set to the couch opposite the hosts.

Marcus waits for me to sit, and then he sits next to me so our thighs are touching. Maybe he can’t help it. He takes up so much room. But we’re on a couch. There’s plenty of space. I guess he’s just selling the whole image of being a couple newly dating and obsessed with one another.

“Marcus, could you sit back a little,” a man behind one of the cameras says. As soon as Marcus sits back, the same man says, “Great.”

The voice over the loudspeaker says, “And we’re on in three, two, one …”

The host, Lauren Hutchins, greets us as if we just happened to stop into the studio. “Welcome Marcus Delaney, quarterback of our beloved Tennessee Thunder, and the beautiful founder of Porch Light, a community charity in Waterford, Cass Carter.”

“Thank you,” Marcus and I say in unison.

Then we spontaneously smile at one another as if on cue.

The other host, Bradley Greenfield, turns toward the cameras. “You asked for it, Nashville and fellow Tennesseans. You wanted us to invite these two onto our show, and we listened. We’re so glad to have Marcus and Cass here with us on Good Day Nashville.” He turns to us. “Your romance has been the subject of headlines across the state and even at a national and international level on social media ever since that first photo shoot.”

I just smile, trying to play the part while also trying not to lose my latte from nerves and the acute awareness that we are pulling off a fib the size of a Bass Pro Shop showroom. The whole state is watching while I play my role in this farce.