Chapter 17
Chapter Seventeen
Kyle
It’s been two and a half months. Of pretending I don’t feel her everywhere. Her perfume in the hallway, her name in every email subject line, and her voice in every press clip attached to mine.
Ten weeks of watching her walk past me like I’m no one.
She has buried herself in work and spun our mess into a miracle, turning a scandal into a love story so clean the internet can’t stop eating it up. Every time I see her, head down, phone in hand, eyes anywhere but on me, it feels like she is taking another step away.
I catch glimpses of her in the office, chewing her lip when she’s thinking and the faint wrinkle between her brows that only shows when she’s overworked.
I want to cross the room, pull the phone out of her hand, and remind her that the last thing she said to me wasn’t a quote.
It was my name, whispered like a secret.
But she doesn’t look at me once, and it is driving me insane.
Every second she doesn’t speak to me is a slow punishment I can’t fight my way out of. I would take her anger over this distance any day. A sharp word, a glare, anything that proves I still matter. Instead, I get professionalism and polite distance, and I hate it.
She’s doing exactly what she said she would: keeping it clean, keeping it safe. And all I want to do is ruin that safety. To stand too close. To make her forget the rules she’s clinging to. To remind her that beneath all this PR polish is still the woman who kissed me as if she meant it.
The first real headline dropped earlier this week: Hendrix’s Heart Timberwolves Defenseman Finds Love at Home.
By lunchtime, we were trending. By dinner, Momma was leaving me a voicemail, asking when she would get to meet “the lovely Alycia Torres.” I didn’t have the heart to tell her it was fake, because it isn’t, at least not for me.
Now I’m sitting in the conference room, watching Alycia present the PR rollout like she’s briefing a military operation. Her laptop glow reflects off her glasses, her voice steady and smooth. It shouldn’t hurt this much to watch her be good at her job, but it does.
She slides a color-coded packet toward Cooper. “Here’s the proposed schedule. Coffee on Saturday, the charity skate next week, and a brunch with sponsors at the end of the month. Enough visibility to sustain the narrative without overexposure.”
The narrative. Christ, I hate that word.
She keeps talking, something about media rollout and engagement metrics, but all I can focus on is the fact that she hasn’t looked at me once. It’s like I don’t exist, and the worst part is, she’s so good at pretending that a small part of me wonders if I ever did.
“Looks solid. Keep it believable, stay out of trouble, and don’t embarrass me. Understood?” Cooper grunts, flipping through the pages like they’re a scouting report.
“Yes, Coach,” I mutter.
Alycia echoes, “Understood,” at the same time. Our voices blend, and it hits me square in the chest like even the sound of us together feels too good.
“This isn’t a complicated arrangement. You two show up, smile for the cameras, and avoid creating another viral moment.” Cooper’s gaze lifts, cutting between us. “Think you can manage that, Hendrix?”
“Define manage.”
Cooper’s expression flattens. “Don’t test me.”
Alycia’s mouth twitches, the hint of a smile she tries to hide. It still manages to hook into me.
“Relax, Coach,” I say, leaning back in my chair. “You make it sound like I’ve never been on a date before.”
“I’m not worried about the date,” Cooper says dryly. “I’m worried about you remembering it’s fake.”
That lands like a slap, and the easy smirk I’ve been hiding behind slips, leaving something raw underneath. Fake. He says it like that word should fit in my mouth as easily as it fits in his, but it doesn’t. It burns going down, bitter and wrong.
My stomach tightens, and for a second, I can’t look at either of them.
It is supposed to be fake. That’s the plan we came up with to fix the mess, to protect the team, to protect her.
But there’s nothing fake about how she’s the first thought in my head every morning and the last one before I crash at night.
And there’s nothing fake about how much it kills me.
And hearing it from him makes it worse because I know he’s not trying to be cruel. He’s trying to protect the team. Protect me. But that’s the problem. He doesn’t see what this costs me to play along.
I drag in a slow breath, swallow the bitterness, and shove the mask back on. My voice comes out tight but steady. “Right. Fake. Got it.”
“The press statement is already live.” Alycia straightens a stack of papers, voice perfectly neutral. “We just need to follow through with appearances, keep the story consistent. Show unity, believable affection, and—”
“Believable affection,” I echo, cutting in. “Does that mean handholding, or do we get creative?”
Her head snaps toward me, eyes narrowing. “Try not to make a scene before we’ve even started.”
“I’m just asking for clarification,” I say, forcing a grin, because that’s what I do when things hurt. I make it a joke.
“You’re giving me a headache,” Cooper groans under his breath.
“Pretty sure that’s genetic,” I shoot back, and the faintest smile ghosts across his face before he shuts it down.
The line between coach and brother flickers there for half a second, disappearing just as quickly.
“So, when’s our first big debut as the world’s most convincing couple?” I lean back in my chair, pretending the tension in the room doesn’t feel like it’s pressing against my ribs.
Alycia exhales slowly, like she’s counting backward from ten. “Next Saturday at six o’clock. I’ll text you the details.”
“Wardrobe guidelines, right?”
“Obviously.”
“Do they include a smile, or is that off-brand for this relationship?”
“Try not to make a scene,” she says without missing a beat. “We’re selling believable, not delusional.”
There’s the spark in her that undid me in the first place.
“You wound me, sweetheart.” I grin because if I don’t, I’ll break.
Her eyes flash at the nickname, that tiny spark of heat she tries to hide surfacing for half a second before she smooths it away. “Don’t call me that.”
“Fine.” I push to my feet, slower than I should, trying to ignore the fact that every inch between us feels like a dare. “Wouldn’t want to violate protocol.”
“You’re impossible.”
“Yeah, but you like me anyway,” I whisper, and the air goes still.
The words hang there between us, and I can feel them land. Her pen stills against the page as her throat works around a breath she doesn’t take, her pulse beating wildly at the base of her neck.
She doesn’t look at me right away, staring down at the folder in front of her like it’s the only thing keeping her grounded, but the flush creeping up her throat betrays her.
The mask slips for half a second, and I see the want she’s trying to bury.
When she finally looks up, her gaze is sharp enough to hurt.
Her eyes lock on mine, a silent warning I feel more than hear.
Don’t. Don’t make this something real. Don’t make this harder.
I don’t, but I don’t look away either. The silence continues to stretch between us, heavy and dangerous, until Cooper clears his throat like a gunshot. It snaps the moment clean in half.
“Enough,” he says, voice clipped. “You both know what’s at stake. Keep it believable. Don’t give anyone a reason to question this story.”
He isn’t telling us we can’t be real; he’s telling us not to blow the plan. He’s talking about the fallout, headlines, and the potential to, once again, do damage control.
But Alycia’s shoulders stiffen anyway, like she heard something else entirely and needs those boundaries, even if I don’t want them. That’s why we can’t be anything but fake. Because she said it can’t be anything more.
Alycia nods without a word, but her hands are trembling. She presses them against the table to hide it, her expression smoothing into something perfectly calm.
“Got it.” I swallow hard, forcing my jaw to unclench, my voice sounding rougher than I mean it to. “You really think we can pull this off?”
“We don’t have a choice.” Her laugh is soft, humorless.
“Maybe not,” I say, leaning closer, my voice low. “But if we did?”
She looks at me, and it’s the closest thing to an answer I’m going to get because the way her eyes soften before she looks away tells me everything I already know. She wants this, but she just can’t afford to.
Cooper’s gaze flicks between us, suspicion and concern mixing into something unreadable. He hesitates for a second before heading for the door. The second it closes behind him, the silence shifts again, charged in a different way.
“You’re really enjoying this, aren’t you?” she says, gathering her things without looking at me.
“You make it easy.” I grin, slow and unrepentant, because if I don’t joke, I’ll say something I can’t take back.
She looks over her shoulder, and for the first time all week, our eyes meet. And I know right then that this whole fake dating thing is going to destroy me.
“You really mapped it all out,” I say, forcing a lightness into my tone.
“It’s my job, Kyle.”
“I can see that.” I lean back in the chair, watching the careful set of her jaw. “Were you always this good at pretending?”
“You think I’m pretending?”
“You tell me.” I shrug, even though my pulse is going haywire. “You’ve had three days to sell the world on us, and you haven’t even tried to sell it to me.”
Her breath catches, just barely. “Because I don’t need to.”
“Right. Professional. Got it.” I laugh, but it comes out quieter than I mean it to.
“I am a professional.”
“Yeah,” I murmur. “That’s the problem.”
Something flickers in her eyes, and for a heartbeat, I think she might say something real. Then she blinks it away and tucks whatever she is feeling back behind that polished wall.
“Goodnight, Kyle,” she says, voice even.
She adjusts the strap of her bag, gathers the last of her things, and starts toward the door. Each step sounds like it costs her something as she heads for the door. When her hand closes around the handle, she pauses long enough for me to think she might turn back. But she doesn’t.
For a long time, I sit there, staring at the empty chair she left behind.
The faint smell of her perfume lingers in the air, like the room hasn’t figured out she is gone.
She’s everywhere and nowhere all at once.
Each moment we’ve spent together has been replaying in my head since the second she pulled away.
She’s built this wall around herself out of professionalism and press quotes, and I keep throwing myself against it like an idiot who doesn’t know when to stop bleeding.
Every time she smiles that careful smile, every time she calls me Hendrix instead of Kyle, it is another reminder she is already building a world where I don’t exist. But I can’t stop wanting to find a way in.
The packet she left sits on the table, perfectly aligned, every margin neat.
My name runs along the headers in her steady handwriting, like she’s trying to make even that look professional.
I trace the letters with my fingertip because it’s the only way I’m allowed to touch anything that belongs to her. A bitter laugh slips out.
“Fake dating,” I whisper to the empty room. “Right.”
If this is fake, then I’m the biggest liar of all because somewhere between her kiss and her walking away, I stopped being able to pretend to be anything but hers.
I shove the folder under my arm and leave the room before I can talk myself into something stupid. I’ve spent half my life chasing the scrape of blades and the crack of a puck on my stick because the ice is the one place I always knew who I was. Now it just echoes.
Once I step outside the training facility, the night air hits cold and sharp.
The parking lot is mostly empty, just a handful of cars under the glow of security lights.
I scan automatically for her blue hatchback even though I already know it’s gone.
I drag a hand through my hair, exhaling into the dark.
The cold bites at my cheeks. It is still not enough to numb any of this.
I tell myself to go home, get some sleep, and stop making everything about her. But I don’t move because for the first time in my life, I have everything I’m supposed to want. My name. My jersey. My shot.
And somehow, without her, it still feels like I’m losing.