Chapter 2 The Press Conference

CALEB

The press conference was in three hours and I couldn't stop staring at my phone.

She signed it.

Mia Lin actually signed the contract.

I should have felt relieved. That's what this was, right? Relief. Not whatever that tight thing was in my chest.

"You look like shit," Eli said from across the locker room.

I didn't look up. "Thanks."

"No, I mean it." He walked over, pads still on his shoulders, sweat in his hair. "Put a shirt on."

"I'm thinking."

"First time for everything."

Eli had been my best friend since we were twelve. He was the only one who knew the contract was fake. The only one who knew my dad threatened to pull funding if I didn't fix my reputation after that video leaked.

The video where I pushed a guy for calling my teammate a slur.

Didn't matter that I was defending someone. The internet clipped it to make me look like a bully. My agent said I looked aggressive and unmarketable.

My dad said I looked like a liability.

So here I was.

Fake dating the only girl in the world who actually hated me.

I'd known Mia Lin for three years.

Well, "known" was strong. I'd existed in the same building as her. She taped sticks, filled water bottles, yelled at guys who left their gear on the floor.

She'd never once smiled at me.

Freshman year, I made a joke about her not being able to afford the team dinner. I didn't mean it the way it came out. I was sixteen and stupid and trying to make the guys laugh.

She heard me.

The way she looked at me that day — like I was garbage under her shoe — I hadn't forgotten it.

Sophomore year, I called her "manager girl" because I was embarrassed that I forgot her name. That was worse, wasn't it? Forgetting someone's name after they already hated you.

Junior year, I shattered her laptop.

That one was actually an accident. A puck went wild. I should have apologized. I meant to. But she was already looking at me with that cold stare, and my stupid pride kicked in, and I said something like "shouldn't have been in the way."

I wasn't proud of it.

I wasn't proud of a lot of things.

"My mom wants to have dinner with you," I told Eli.

He raised an eyebrow. "Your fake girlfriend or your real mom?"

"Real mom. She wants to meet Mia. Welcome her to the family."

"Does your mom know it's fake?"

"No."

"Does your dad?"

I didn't answer.

He was the one who suggested it.

Eli's face went dark. He knew how my dad worked. Every gift was a leash. Every opportunity was a test.

"And Mia?" Eli asked. "Does she know what she signed up for?"

I thought about the way she threw that tape at my chest. The way she said don't touch me like she meant it.

"She knows enough."

"Does she know about the video? That you were defending Noah?"

Noah. The kid who got called a slur in the locker room. The kid who cried in my arms after.

I shook my head. "That's not in the contract."

Eli stared at me for a long second. Then he sighed.

"You're gonna mess this up, you know that?"

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means you're not as good at pretending as you think you are." He grabbed his bag and headed for the door. "Try not to fall in love with her. That's not in the contract either."

He was gone before I could answer.

I showed up to the press conference early.

The hotel ballroom was half-empty. Reporters drank coffee and checked their phones. My agent, Derek, paced by the stage.

"Where is she?" he asked.

"Coming."

"She's not coming. She's going to bail. I told you we should have picked someone nicer."

"Mia doesn't do nice."

"Then why did you pick her?"

I didn't have an answer for that.

Because she wouldn't fall for me. That was why. Every other girl on the team looked at me like I was a ticket to something. Mia looked at me like I was a bug she hadn't bothered to squash yet.

With her, I knew it was fake.

Because she actually couldn't stand me.

The back door opened.

And there she was.

Mia was wearing a Wolves jersey.

My jersey.

Number seventeen on her back.

Her hair was down. She wore jeans and sneakers and zero makeup. She looked like she just came from the rink. She looked like she didn't care at all.

She looked good.

No. That wasn't the right word.

She looked real.

"Took you long enough," I said.

She walked past me without stopping. "Traffic."

"There's no traffic in Hamilton at ten in the morning."

"Then I stopped for coffee."

"You could have brought me some."

She turned around. Walked backward. Smiled at me — but it wasn't a real smile. It was a knife.

"You don't deserve my coffee, Kessler."

Derek stared at us like we were a car crash he couldn't look away from.

"This is going to be a disaster," he whispered.

Mia heard him. She didn't flinch.

"Probably," she said. "But I get paid either way."

The cameras turned on.

The questions started.

"Caleb, is this your girlfriend?"

I put my hand on Mia's lower back. She tensed. I could feel it through the jersey.

"This is Mia," I said. "She's been in my life for a while. I just wanted to keep her private."

A lie. Smooth. Easy.

Mia smiled at the cameras. It looked real. It looked warm.

Then a reporter asked: "Mia, how did you two meet?"

She looked at me. Just for a second. Her eyes said: don't mess this up.

"He sat next to me in class," she said. "Asked to borrow a pen. Never gave it back."

The reporters laughed.

I laughed too.

Because that wasn't what happened at all.

But she was good at this.

Too good.

And that scared me more than anything.