one shots | nascar

selachophobia [ryan blaney]

word count: 1625
requested by: liannaagracee
summary: Lianna is invited by Ryan to come onto his podcast
warnings: n/a
date published: October 1, 2017 / 10:28 pm
authors note: this imagine is pretty long so you're welcome, but sorry I'm so far behind on requests. I'm trying to get caught up I promise!! xo
— [selachophobia]: irrational fear of sharks

-

"So, you asked her out right after she almost fell into a pool of sharks?" I heard the familiar voice of Kim Coon as I cautiously opened the large door to the recording booth. All heads turned to look at me and I gave a nervous smile. I focused my eyes on Ryan's laughing face to calm down. He waved me over and pointed to an empty chair next to him. "Glad you could make it, Li. I was just telling everyone the amazing story of how I scared you into being my girlfriend." I let out a breath, laughing lightly to myself.

"Ryan, never tell that story to anyone ever again." I warned him as I sat down quickly at my place. "How was I suppose to know you had selachophobia?" Ryan chuckled and spun his chair around to face me. He was wearing an old white Dave Blaney t-shirt that complimented the scruff on his face. "Have," I corrected and shot him a wink. "Touchè," He smiled and grabbed the piece of paper in front of him. "So are we ready to start?" Ryan asked, looking up for the cue of the producers.

A tall blonde lady wearing black dress pants and a purple tied shirt shook her head at him, placing a hand on her hip. "I'm sorry, I missed your story. Can you fill me in on how you scared your girlfriend into dating you by using her fear of sharks?" I rolled my eyes and held my head in my hands, shaking my head back and forth in embarrassment. "Sure as hell I can!" Ryan grinned. Chuck let out a sigh and Kim gave me a sympathetic smile before letting out a quiet laugh.

"But how about you do it while we're airing, okay?" She smiled. "Starting in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1." Before I could protest Chuck had begun playing the introduction and everyone had stopped talking. "So, that was Clyde letting out his frustration towards Ryan Newman." Ryan chuckled, looking around at the others. "Quite the choice of words." Chuck said slowly. I understood Chase's anger, but man he sure said some strong things. I laughed nervously and gave some input. "I certainly think he's much different to talk to outside of the car." Ryan laughed, and held up a hand to stop me. "Hold on, here. You hang out with Chase? Who's girlfriend are you?"

I rolled my eyes and sent him a glare. "Oh, please you five year old." Kim and Chuck laughed at our bickering. "Well, I guess this would be a good time to introduce our special guest this week." Kim broke us up. "A little help Chuck?" She asked. The two began to do a drum roll on the table. I felt my heart speed up at the thought of all the attention I would receive on social media about this. Although I've been Ryan's girlfriend for a while now I still haven't gotten use to the limelight.

"We've got Lianna! Ryan's girlfriend!" Kim cheered. I smiled and said my greetings to the microphone. "Because of popular request, Ryan Blaney will now give us a play by play of how he scared Lianna into dating him. Take it away, Ryan." Chuck narrated with his animated voice. I grinned and shook my head as Ryan cleared his throat and began his story.

"It all began on a cold, dark, dreery afternoon in Charlotte, North Carolina. I was friends, if not best friends, with Lianna. So of course I decided to call her up when I was bored on a rainy day. I invited her to go to the aquarium with me. At first she denied my invitation and I had no idea why. But-" Kim waved her hand in front of her, stopping Ryan. He sent her a glare but she ignored it. "Hold on. You never thought maybe it's because she didn't wanna go on a date with you?" Chuck and I laughed, grinning at each other. Ryan pouted and scoffed. "Hey, guys! I'm still right here. I can hear everything."

Before I could stop myself from letting out my inner wild side I opened my mouth and replied. "Yeah, we see you but we don't care." Everyone continued to laugh and Ryan's cheeks grew red." "Anyways!" Ryan declared. "Finally she agreed to go with me. I picked her up and we got there. I was really bored so I didn't want to go on just any old aquarium trip. I decided to get two tickets for the behind the scenes tour. Lianna gave me a bit of protest but didn't argue much, probably because she was just happy to be spending time with me." Ryan smirked. I laughed loudly and then coughed to cover it up, jokingly. Kim and Chuck thought it was hilarious.

"Guys!" Ryan whined. "Sorry," I giggled. He stuck his tongue out at me and continued on with the story. "So everything was going pretty well, if I do say so myself-" I couldn't hold myself back anymore, I had to interrupt him. "I just want everyone to know, before he asked me to be his girlfriend I had no idea this was a date. Carry on." Ryan glared at me, causing Kim and Chuck to break into fits of laughter. "This is better than the first time when Ryan told this story off air!" Chuck laughed.

I rolled my eyes and crossed my arms over my chest. "How did that subject get brought up anyways?" I asked. Kim laughed and twirled her pen around in her hands. "Well I wasn't convinced Ryan actually had a girlfriend so I made him take the test to find out." "And the test consisted of him telling the story of how he asked me out?" I laughed. She nodded and moved her hands along with her words for emphasis. "Well, duh! If it sounds like he's making it up he doesn't have a girlfriend because he would've remembered what happened when he asked her out!"

I nodded and gave her a look of approval. "I like it, I'll use it some day." "Guys! Just let me tell my story!" Ryan pouted. I laughed and grabbed his hand under the table, giving it a light squeeze. "Sorry, baby. Continue." He huffed and squeezed my hand back before continuing. "So, everything was great until we got to the end of the tour where you feed the fish and sharks in the big tank. On the side they have a small section where they bring the small sharks in to feed them individually, so they were giving a demonstration of that." I shivered in my seat at the memory of the sharks.

"I could tell that Lianna was getting nervous or stressed or something but I didn't think much of it because I thought I was just making her nervous or maybe she had to pee or something, I don't kn-" I laughed and cut him off again. "Dont flatter yourself Ry." I teased. He rolled his eyes and let out a big sigh. "Lianna, so help me if you interrupt me one more time I will not let y-"

"Okay! Ryan! That's enough!" Kim laughed and placed her hand on Ryan's chair to pull him away from me. I stuck my tongue out and made a teasing face. "Haha!" I grinned. "Continue the story, the listeners wanna know how it ends!" Chuck whined. "Just the listeners?" I teased. He scoffed and took off his glasses to wipe them on his shirt.

"Well, Lianna clung onto me when she saw the big open aquarium full of the sharks. We began to move to the side of the tank so we could drop in the food they had given us. But on the way up the steps to the side I tripped on one of the unstable metal steps." Chuck let out a loud gasp and we all turned to look at him, giving me weird looks. "What?" He answered nervously. "It was intense." "Mhm." I laughed and told Ryan to continue.

"So I dropped my container of cut up fish into the tank and all of the sharks came swimming up. But since Li was clinging onto my she went down with me and unfortunately for her, the side she was on didn't have a railing. Luckily she kept her balance and stood up quickly. And in the middle of her freaking out because she thought she was gonna be eaten by sharks I told her I thought she was pretty, and asked her to be my girlfriend." "My gosh!" Kim breathed. "Chuck is right, it's intense every time."

I rolled my eyes and spun in my chair. "Ryan's story is a little dramatic." Ryan scoffed and glared at me. "Is not!" "Mhm." I smiled. "Sure," I dragged out. He pouted and crossed his arms over his chest. "Oh, yeah? Then how did it go?" He challenged. "It's more like we were leaving the big aquarium and I was rubbing all of my sticky fish fingers all over him and he tripped down the cement stairs, brought me with him, and then apologized for scraping my knee by promising to make it up to me as my boyfriend."

Ryan laughed awkwardly and scratched the back of his head. "Yeah, I don't remember it going like that." He denied. I shook my head and laughed. "Whatever you say, baby." "Well, that was interesting but we need to move on to our next topic." Chuck laughed.

It's amazing how much more comfortable I've become since I first walked in. Turns out it was a good idea to accept Ryan's invitation and come star on a podcast.