I wouldn’t say I’m famous.

I wouldn’t even classify myself as terribly well-known yet. I’ve snagged a pack of condoms at the CVS on Fillmore without the paparazzi reporting on it. I’ve bought salmon at Whole Foods without any speculation on whether I’ve started an all-fish diet. (The answer is no, because I like steak too much.)

Once your name is slapped on the back of jerseys, though, you give up full-time anonymity. You take the chance that someone might recognize you anytime you leave the house. But, I have this theory. People don’t always recognize you when you’re walking around town because they don’t expect to see you grocery shopping or buying your own prophylactics. You can blend in more easily.

Even so, I do take the necessary precautions. Grabbing a Giants ball cap from my car, I pull it low on my forehead and cover my eyes with shades, even though the sun is slipping behind the water. I walk from my mom’s house along the beach and into town, jagged rocks and sand on one side of me, the main drag on the other.

When I reach the shops along the waterfront, I stop at a lamppost and survey the scene on the other side of the street.

Violet’s salon hangs out next to a wine shop on one side and a bicycle store on the other. Her block is also home to a dress boutique, an ice cream parlor, and one of those stores that sells horrendous T-shirts with sayings like “Old Guys Rule” and “Gone Fishing.” Heroes and Hairoines shuts its doors at six on Wednesdays, and as I stare at the floor-to-ceiling windows of the salon, an hour before closing, I can safely say my mom was exaggerating.

But only by a smidge.

The line doesn’t snake out the door, but a parade of tourists—and perhaps locals, too—crowds the front, snapping shots of the salon even at dusk.

I grab my phone, steeling myself as I open Google News, searching for my name. I aim to avoid personal searches, since they yield about the same level of satisfaction as eating cardboard for dinner does.

I lean against the lamppost by the water as a seagull lands by my side, squawking for food. “I don’t have any. Go find Ford,” I tell him. But this bird is one of those seagulls that doesn’t speak English, so he doesn’t move.

Quickly, I learn that Ford was right. The local online media has picked up on last night’s auction news, dubbing us The Quarterback and the Hometown Girl in one article, The Renegade and the Stylist in another. My favorite headline is one from a local gossip rag calling us The Baller and the Babe.

That’s some honest reporting right there. Violet is a total babe. I read the brief mention.

Damn. The press jumped all over the event like paratroopers from a plane. I hop over to Twitter to see what fans are saying, and a quick search reveals exactly why Violet’s shop is suddenly on the map in a whole new way.

I scoff at the last one, muttering, “Three-point-five GPA in college, thank you very much. And it was not inflated. But, Violet’s hair is pretty.”

As I scroll some more, I find cell phone shots of a woman standing outside the salon, pointing her thumb at it, wearing an Armstrong jersey. There’s one from last night of us answering questions on stage. Then a photo of us kissing. Then another. Then another. I zoom in on one, like the pervert I am. In this shot, I’m holding her face, my lips are crushed to hers, and her arms circle my neck. Spreading my thumbs on the screen, I enlarge the photo even more, zeroing in on her hands on the back of my head. Her fingers are threaded through my hair, and she’s clutching me tight. That does not look like the way a woman holds a man who kisses her weirdly.

That looks like a woman who wants to be kissed. Who wants to be touched. Who wants to be taken.

My blood heats as I remember the kiss. How my head was a haze and my body was amped full of electricity. How there was nothing else in that moment but the feel of her.

And now, as my skin heats, I want another moment like that.

Get yourself together.

I refuse to get turned on from a cell phone shot.

I jump out of the underbelly of the Web and return to the keypad. I try to call Violet once more, but her phone goes straight to voice mail again. Time to head into the fray. I slip my phone into the back pocket of my jeans, cross the street, and walk to the entrance.

“Excuse me,” I say as I weave around a mom pushing a stroller.

“No problem,” she says, then her lips twitch up. “Go Renegades!”

I give a quick fist pump then dart around a few more people crowding the sidewalk. A teenager up the street lifts his phone and takes a picture as I push on the mistletoe-decorated door.

The receptionist looks up and then beams, her bright green eyes wide and eager. “Hi, Cooper!”

Several faces snap in my direction at once. Customers seated on a white leather couch in the waiting area gawk, while a woman in a salon chair with tinfoil in her hair peers over the top of her glasses. A lady with cherry-red hair stares my way as one of Violet’s half-dozen or so stylists snips her hair.

There’s no point pretending I’m anyone else, so I give a friendly wave, then drum my fingers on the receptionist’s desk.

“Hey, Sage,” I say to the woman with silvery-purple hair and bangles up to her elbows. “I don’t have an appointment, but I was hoping to see—”

“Your girlfriend,” she says brightly, her voice matching the jingle of her jewelry.

I don’t answer right away. I let the word girlfriend bang around in my skull for a little longer. The last time I had a girlfriend was in college. Kelly was a track star, and we were a good fit since we were both more obsessed with sports than schoolwork, partying, or, frankly, even the opposite sex. Don’t get me wrong—we engaged in plenty of horizontal exercise, but neither one of us was keen on anything that dug much deeper on an emotional level. Hell, maybe that was why we were together for an entire year. We were easy, we were painless, and we were good. We broke up when she transferred to another school that had a better track team.

“Yes, I’m here to see my girlfriend,” I say to Sage, and I hear whispers behind me.

A few seconds later, the click of heels across the tile catches my attention. Violet walks toward me, and it takes me a few seconds to process what she’s wearing. Black leather pants. Holy hell, she’s wearing black leather pants, and she looks like a rock star in them, and I want to know how they’d look wrapped around my hips as I push her against the wall.

Rewind.

The pants are off in this fantasy. But she can leave those black boots on. They hug her calves and stretch all the way to her knees, and I bet she’d look hot as fuck in those boots and nothing else. I’m so damn glad she loves to wear boots. My eyes travel up her body. A flowy pink top clings to her breasts. A long gold chain with a feather on it hangs between those beauties. Her clothes are so fucking lucky.

Her smile is wide and devious. “Hey, baby.”

Baby?

“Hey, sweetie pie,” I say, trying that on for size, if we’re going to toss terms of endearments at each other now.

When she reaches me, I steel myself for a number of possibilities. She might be pissed that everyone is still calling her my girlfriend. She might be annoyed because her landlord is a dick. Or she might be ready to remind me that I shouldn’t show up without an appointment.

Instead, she grabs my hand, tugs me over to the nook in the front of the store with shelves of shampoos for sale, then throws her arms around me. She tugs me in close, pressing those sweet breasts against my chest.

Well, hello there, angels. So nice to see you again.

She threads a hand in my hair, and heat sweeps over me. She tilts her face up and nibbles on the corner of her lips. An electric charge surges down my spine. When she curls her fingers around the back of my head, I’m ready to call a two-minute warning because if she moves any closer, she’ll know there’s nothing fake about the way my body responds to her.

I’ve gone from zero to fully aroused in less than ten seconds. She presses her cheek to mine, her soft lips brushing near my earlobe. My chest rumbles. What the hell is she doing to me? Forget aroused. I’m ridiculously turned on, and also confused as hell. But I’m a physical man, so I go with it. I wrap my arms around her, holding her close.

“I texted you,” she says softly. “Did you get them?”

I can barely think with her lips so close to me, with her soft voice floating in my ear. “No. I mean, yeah. Maybe. I don’t know.” English is hard with her breasts getting acquainted with my chest, and me wanting to know how they’d feel without all these clothes between us. “Then Ford ambushed me and there were ducks, so . . .”

Yes, speaking in complete sentences is far too difficult.

“I sent you a couple. I left you a voice mail, too.”

“Sorry. I missed them,” I whisper, and I hope she keeps this conversation up all night long, because her hair smells so good, and her body feels amazing, and I can’t even think about text messages or voice mails when her hair tickles my neck like that. My brain short-circuits as I imagine my hands threading through all those soft strands. Yanking it back. Exposing that pretty neck. I’d suck on her jaw, lick a path up the column of her throat, and nibble on her ear. Then I’d kiss the breath out of her. Kiss her so damn hard and good that she loses her mind with pleasure. Like she’s doing to me in my head.

“Anyway,” she says quietly, “I called because I wanted to ask you something.”

“Sure.”

Her voice drops lower, goes even softer, and I can barely make out the words, but they sound a lot like, “Is there any chance you could pretend we’re still together for a few more days?”

I break the hug, meet her eyes, and say, “Funny, I was coming to ask you the same thing.”