Chapter 6 #2
Daphne uncrossed her legs and stood, smoothing her skirt with both hands. Her voice was calm, measured—like she’d already made the decision before I even walked in.
“I feel partially responsible,” she said. “I baited that Vultures player into mouthing off. I knew what I was doing. Kieren just… responded.”
Responded. Like I was some programmed pit bull that couldn’t help but bite.
Still, she kept talking.
“If the league doesn’t care about the full story—then fine. We give them a version they’ll accept.” Her jaw tightened. “We give them a romance.”
I couldn’t look away from her. Couldn’t breathe, either. Her ponytail was too tight, her hands clenched at her sides, her voice clipped with a kind of brutal professionalism that didn’t sound like her at all. Not the Daphne I remembered.
Not the girl who used to look at me like I was more than my worst mistake.
And she still wouldn’t meet my eyes.
She was doing this for the team. To protect the Storm from bad press, to keep sponsors from running. She wasn’t doing it for me.
She still hated me.
Maybe more now than ever.
I tried to laugh, but it caught in my throat. “So you’re just going to fake-date the league’s biggest liability? That’s noble, Sommers. Really.”
She didn’t rise to the bait.
Didn’t smirk. Didn’t toss a retort back like she used to.
She just nodded. “Someone has to clean this up.”
Cameron exhaled like he’d just avoided a multi-million dollar catastrophe. “Okay. Great. We can spin this. Get ahead of it. Launch a controlled rollout.”
Mara was already typing furiously on her tablet. “Oh, we’ll need photos. Date night at the pier? Brunch downtown? Maybe a charity event—”
Reid cut her off. “Keep it simple. Quiet. We’re not turning this into a circus.”
But I barely heard them.
All I could think about was Daphne—her voice, her silence, the way she wouldn’t look at me like she used to. The distance between us felt wider than ever.
Fake dating.
This was going to be hell.
Mara didn’t even glance up from her tablet when she said it. “Honestly? I’d believe you two were dating already. The tension’s insane.”
I shot her a look. “It’s not tension. It’s disdain.”
“Sure,” she said, smirking. “Disdain with eye contact like foreplay. Got it.”
Cameron cleared his throat, trying to redirect before I opened my mouth again and made things worse.
“We’ll keep it simple to start. A soft rollout, like Mara said.
First post—hand-holding at that community fundraiser this weekend.
Maybe a quick stadium kiss before the next match.
Light PDA. No interviews yet. Just enough to make the narrative plausible. ”
My jaw clenched. “Sounds like hell.”
It came out rougher than I intended, but I didn’t take it back.
Because it was hell. Not the fake dating part—that was a nightmare all on its own—but the proximity. Being close to her. Pretending.
Daphne didn’t miss a beat.
She turned slightly toward me, lips curling into the kind of smile people mistook for charming—but I knew better.
It was her professional smile. The mask.
“Don’t worry,” she said smoothly. “I’ll make sure it’s convincing.”
I stared at her.
She wasn’t bluffing. Daphne Sommers could sell water to the ocean if she wanted. And right now, she wanted to sell the story that we were in love. That whatever happened on the sideline had been some grand, romantic gesture instead of a split-second act of pure rage.
I nodded once, because what else was there to do?
But inside, I knew the truth.
This wasn’t about convincing the league.
It was about surviving her—and hoping I didn’t fall apart in the process.
I was the first to leave.
Didn’t wait for Cameron’s closing remarks or Mara’s next “brilliant” PR idea. Just shoved the door open and walked straight into the hallway, air colder than it should’ve been, fluorescent lights buzzing like my head.
Which was pounding.
Not from the fight. Not from the bruise swelling under my cheekbone. But from the sheer whiplash of the last ten minutes.
I thought she hated me.
Every conversation, every glare, every clipped little “Walker” spat like a slur—I’d bet my salary she couldn’t stand me. And I got it. I wasn’t easy. I didn’t follow rules. I’d burned bridges and danced on the ashes.
So yeah, I thought she’d want me gone.
Suspended. Benched. Erased.
But then she sat in that chair—arms folded, jaw tight, that perfect little ponytail pulled like a battle flag—and she protected me.
She agreed to this fake dating mess like it was just another story to write. Like it didn’t matter. Like I didn’t matter.
Which pissed me off more than it should have.
My fists clenched again, nails digging into the pads of my hands. But it wasn’t rage this time. Not really.
It was confusion. Frustration. A sharp twist of something I didn’t want to name.
I rubbed a hand over my face, dragging it down my jaw as I hit the corner near the locker room. The ache in my shoulder flared from earlier, but I barely felt it.
All I could think about was her voice. “I’ll make sure it’s convincing.”
Hell, she probably would.
She’d smile, touch my arm, tilt her head just enough for the cameras—and every fan on the internet would fall for it.
Every fan but me.
Because I’d know it was fake.
I clenched my jaw.
This was going to be a disaster.
So why did part of me already want to touch her again?