Chapter 23 #2
We’re heading toward the locker room when Connor comes barreling around the corner, not watching where he’s going, and crashes straight into me. His coffee goes flying, splashing all over my shirt and the floor.
“Shit, sorry, Hunt. I’m so sorry, man. I wasn’t looking where I was...” He’s already scrambling to grab napkins, his face flushed with panic.
The rage hits me like a physical force. Hot and immediate and completely disproportionate to what just happened. My hands clench into fists, and I can feel my whole body going tight with the need to yell, to lash out, to make someone else feel as shitty as I do at this moment.
“Watch where you’re fucking going,” I snap, my voice louder than it needs to be. “Jesus Christ, Connor. Use your eyes.”
The kid freezes, his face going white. A few other guys in the hallway turn to look. I can see the way they’re all holding their breath, waiting to see how bad this is going to get.
“Hunter.” Juliet’s voice cuts through the haze of anger. Sharp and warning.
I look at her. Her expression is carefully neutral, but there’s something disappointed in her eyes that makes my stomach twist.
“It was an accident,” she says quietly. “The rookie made a mistake. He didn’t kill your dog.”
Connor looks like he wants to disappear into the floor. The other guys are still watching, waiting to see if I’m going to explode completely or if this is as bad as it gets.
I want to keep yelling. I want to make Connor understand that this isn’t just about coffee; it’s about everything. It’s about feeling like I’m always one wrong move away from screwing everything up. About being tired of having to hold myself together all the fucking time.
But Juliet is looking at me like she’s cataloging this moment for later reference. Maybe she’s remembering why she thought I was a lost cause.
I clench my jaw and force myself to step back. “Just... be more careful.”
It’s not an apology, but it’s not the explosion it could have been. Connor nods frantically and disappears toward the locker room. The hallway slowly empties until it’s just me and Juliet standing there.
“Better?” I ask, my voice tight.
“Not really.” She studies my face for a moment. “It’s a start.”
That night, after we’ve finished another round of media obligations and I’ve somehow managed not to alienate anyone else, I’m lying in my hotel room scrolling through my phone when I remember Connor’s face earlier. The way he looked so panicked, so young.
I open the team group chat and scroll through a few stupid memes until I find one about faceoffs that’s actually kind of funny. Something about how they’re like awkward first dates but with more violence.
I send it to the chat without really thinking about it.
Hunter: [sends meme about faceoffs being like awkward first dates but with more violence]
Connor:
Grayson: If faceoffs are first dates, Connor’s ghosted before the puck even drops.
Thorne: More like he’s the guy stuck paying the bill while the other center skates away with the puck.
Jett: Nah, I figured it out. They’re not dates for him. They’re breakups. Every single time.
Connor: wtf guys
Grayson: Don’t worry, bud. One day you’ll win one.
Thorne: Not today. Not tomorrow either.
Jett: Should we start a GoFundMe for his self-esteem?
Connor: I hate you all.
Hunter: [sends gif of someone getting demolished in a faceoff]
At the next practice, Connor gives me a fist bump when we’re lining up for drills.
Maybe that counts for something.
The game itself is everything I needed it to be. Two goals, an assist, clean hits, no penalties. The performance that makes the coaching staff remember why they keep me around despite all the headaches.
I can see Juliet in the VIP section throughout the game, arms crossed but watching intently. Every time I make a play, I look for her reaction. Which is stupid, because this is supposed to be about hockey, not about impressing my fake fiancée.
But when I score the second goal, a beauty of a wrist shot that finds the top corner, I swear I see her smile before she catches herself and goes back to looking professional.
After the game, after all the interviews and handshakes and bullshit, I make my way back to the hotel. I’m exhausted in a way that only comes after a perfect game, when you’ve left everything on the ice and your body is finally coming down from the adrenaline.
I kick the door shut with my foot and collapse onto the bed, still in my post-game suit. I’m too tired to move, too tired to think about getting undressed. That’s when I notice Juliet is already there.
She’s kicked off her shoes and changed into sweats. There’s another room-service tray on the desk. She looks comfortable in a way that catches me off guard. She acts like she belongs here.
“I figured you’d be hungry after your little hero routine,” she says, pulling the tray lid off dramatically.
I peer over at what she’s ordered, and my brain short-circuits a little. “Is that... chicken parm?”
“With garlic bread. And a protein shake that doesn’t taste like chalk.”
I stare at her. “How do you know all this?”
She shrugs, not meeting my eyes. “I pay attention. You always order like 5 chicken parms from the performance kitchen. You must like it.”
She’s right. Chicken parm is my go-to comfort food, the thing I always crave after a good game. And that protein shake is the exact brand I’ve been trying to find in hotel gyms for the past five years.
“Uh, thanks,” I say awkwardly.
She gives me a funny expression. “Don’t be weird, Hux.”
She got the same thing minus the protein shake, so we end up eating on the bed with the TV playing some muted baking competition show. It’s domestic in a way that should make me uncomfortable, but doesn’t. At some point, I nudge her shoulder with mine.
“You were a menace out there today.”
Juliet shrugs, stealing a piece of my garlic bread. “Someone has to make sure you don’t ruin your fake life.”
“Right,” I say. “Fake life. Fake fiancée. Real garlic bread.”
She snorts. Something about the sound makes my chest feel warm. We fall into a conversation that shouldn’t feel easy but does. Maybe it’s the post-game endorphins, or maybe it’s because we’re both too tired to maintain our usual walls.
“My brothers and I used to fight over rink time,” I say. “Our dad said we all played or nobody did. So we rotated shifts like a prison schedule.”
“Sounds weirdly wholesome.”
“We still fought. Just not about ice time.” I think about those early mornings, the three of us taking turns, always trying to prove we deserved more time than the others. “My younger brother Silas was the talent. Natural everything. Made the rest of us look like we were playing in concrete boots.”
“What about your older brother?”
“Jett was the smart one. Captain of everything, straight As, full ride to Seattle U. Hockey was just another thing he was good at. He’s an amazing goalie.”
“And you were...?”
“The angry one.” Before I can stop them, the words flood out. “The grinder. The one who had to work twice as hard for half the recognition.”
She’s quiet for a moment, processing that. “Sounds lonely.”
It was. But I don’t say that out loud.
Instead, I turn it back on her. “What about you? Any siblings to compete with?”
“Only child. But I had plenty of competition anyway.” She sets down her fork and wipes her hands on a napkin. “They forbade me to swear. Or dye my hair. Or look at boys. My parents weren’t really around, but they still expected me to be their buttoned-up, emotionally repressed princess.”
I raise an eyebrow. Thinking back to the girl I knew in college, it doesn’t really track. “You made up for it later.”
She gives me a look that’s half amusement, half warning. “It wasn’t a rebellion. It was survival. Have you seen my body? I’m five feet tall and have big boobs. From the second I turned thirteen, everyone treated me like a full-grown seductress.”
That makes me go quiet. There’s something in her voice, something sharp and painful that I recognize. The sound of someone who learned early that the world wasn’t going to be kind.
“You think that made you guarded?”
“How could I not be?”
She sets her food down completely now, looking at me, sucking in her lower lip. I can tell we’ve shifted into deeper territory. The conversation that usually makes me want to run.
“Patrick told me once that ambition makes women ugly,” she breathes.
My stomach knots up at the mention of her ex. I’ve heard enough about him to know he was a piece of shit, but hearing the specifics still makes me want to punch something.
“He said that I focused too much on my career and that I was too driven. That men want someone who makes them feel important, not someone who’s always trying to prove herself.
” Her voice gets smaller. “I believed him. For years, I felt that if no one respected me, at least I could make myself lovable. Until I walked into Patrick’s hotel room to surprise him and found him with a nineteen-year-old blonde.
Then I realized he didn’t love me. He kept me, which is different. ”
I shift toward her on the bed, every instinct telling me to say something, to fix it somehow. But she’s not looking at me, staring at her hands like she’s remembering her bitterest moments. I get the feeling that interrupting would break whatever spell is letting her talk about this.
“You know what the worst part was?” she continues. “The first time he cheated, I took him back. I started believing his lies. He had me thinking that maybe if I were smaller, quieter, less… then he might actually want to stick around.”
The pain in her voice is like a physical hit. I want to tell her that Patrick was wrong, that any man who can’t handle her ambition is a fucking idiot who doesn’t deserve her. But I also know that’s not what she needs right now.
So I just stay there, silent, grounded, letting her know I’m listening. She goes quiet for a moment, then her attention shifts to me.
“You’re not who I thought you were. I mean, you’re still awful. But not how I thought. You’re… something else.”
I don’t know what to say about that. Part of me wants to ask what ways do matter, to dig deeper into what she thinks of me now versus what she thought before. But mostly I’m just grateful that she doesn’t think I’m a complete waste of space anymore.
“Thanks?” I say finally. She gives a brittle little laugh.
“That wasn’t really a compliment.”
I shrug. “I’ll take what I can get.”
We lapse into comfortable silence after that. The TV keeps playing its muted baking show. I watch her more than the screen. The way she absently touches her hair when she’s thinking. The way her entire face softens when she’s not actively managing something.
Eventually, exhaustion catches up with her. Her eyes drift closed, and she lies back on the bed without really meaning to. Still in her sweats, still on top of the covers, lipstick still firmly in place, but clearly done for the night.
I should probably go to my bed. Or at least move to the chair. But I gently pull off her socks, trying not to wake her. She stirs slightly but doesn’t open her eyes.
I tug the blanket over her, then lie down next to her, fully clothed and staring at the ceiling.
I tell myself it’s just pretend. That I’m being decent. That it’s not real.
But that’s bullshit, and I know it.
Juliet acts like this is just another job, just another box to check off her list. She’s professional and efficient and keeps everything neat and compartmentalized.
But the way she leans into me when we’re in public, the way her breath catches when I brush her waist during photo ops? That’s not nothing.
She’s not as immune as she pretends to be. And neither am I.
She keeps playing it off like none of it means anything. Like I’m just a client. A puppet to be cleaned up and repackaged for public consumption. A project with a deadline.
If she knew who I really was, the things I needed to fulfill my fantasies, she’d run. They always do. The moment people see past the surface, see the mess underneath, they decide it’s not worth the effort.
She shifts in her sleep. Her hand lands lightly on my chest, right above my heart. And I think, God help me, I might be in trouble.
This isn’t supposed to feel real. It’s supposed to be five months of playing house, helping each other get what we need, then walking away clean.
But lying here in this hotel bed, listening to her breathe, feeling the weight of her hand on my chest, I’m starting to think clean might not be an option anymore.
Juliet makes a small sound in her sleep and shifts closer. I know I’m already fucked.
Three months left on our contract. Three months to figure out how to walk away from this without destroying both of us.
I should plan my exit strategy. Instead, I’m lying here thinking about room service breakfasts and the way she says my name when she’s trying not to smile.
Yeah. I’m definitely in trouble.