Chapter 12 Game Face （Wesley）
GAME FACE (WESLEY)
The locker room hums. It’s the first home game after a long stretch of away games. Tape is tearing, blades are scraping, bass thudding through the speakers. The smell of sweat and cedar polish, the pre-game ritual of half chaos, half religion. When I reach my stall, I stop dead.
The ring sits on my stick tape. A Post-it folded beneath it.
Proof no longer required. Thank you for playing along. —J
Of course she gave it back. That was the plan: fake engagement, real ring, return when done. Clean.
Then why does it feel like she just handed me back my heart?
I don’t touch it. I can’t.
“Yo, Alaska,” Tanner calls. “You in there? You’ve been having a staring contest with your—”
My fist closes fast around the ring. “What?”
He blinks. Dmitri glances away, respectful in a way that makes my ribs ache.
“Music up,” Novak says to nobody, too brightly. Bass climbs. Coach yells about details. Everyone adjusts to the new gravity.
After shoving the ring into the inside pocket of my suit coat, I keep my head down, lace my skates, my focus locked on the knots.
It’s enough to numb the thought. If I keep moving, I don’t have to think.
If I keep moving, I don’t see her face streaked in tears, the way she looked at me the last time I saw her.
Then Tanner, always one joke too far, “Hey, remember that dance video? Kane and Joy? Man, that one had views. I’m still recovering.”
Finn laughs. “Our media girl’s got moves.”
“Moves?” Tanner scoffs. “Try show-stopping hardware. I mean, good for her, good for team morale, right?”
The laughter spikes again. “Hard to unsee that girl without that oversized hoodie.”
I’m on my feet before he finishes, stick clattering to the floor, heat roaring in my chest. “You better unsee it if you want to keep your teeth, asshole.”
The air goes razor-thin. Tanner’s grin falters. Dmitri mutters, “Uh-oh. Bear angry.”
Finn whistles low. “More like our boy scored.”
I glare at him. “Keep poking, O’Reilly, and you’ll need a new wrist for your slap shot.”
“Jesus, Kane,” Novak says under his breath. “Who lit you up?”
The door opens. Joy steps in, camera rig balanced on one shoulder, hair in a messy twist, Defenders lanyard at her throat. She’s in her uniform—baggy jeans, oversized hoodie—and my pulse detonates.
She doesn’t notice the tension. She’s in work mode, scanning for light angles, checking battery levels.
“Okay, quick clips before warm-up,” she says briskly.
“We’re doing a thirty-second hype reel: ‘First Home Game of the Year.’ Dmitri, you’re leading with the glove tap. Finn, you’re on the stick flip—”
Her gaze snags on me. For a second, everything stops—the sound, the air, the distance. Just finding me across the room. No smile. No flinch. Only cool recognition. She’s cataloging an asset. No mention of the ring.
Then she breaks it, focusing back on her iPad. “Let’s go, boys. Two minutes. Then I’m out.”
Finn leans toward Tanner, low. “You think she heard that?”
Tanner swallows hard. “Pretty sure she felt it.”
Joy moves through the space, camera up, posture perfect. The guys play along, back in motion but quieter now, suddenly remembering what professionalism means when a girl is in the room.
She stops in front of me last.
“Kane,” she says, tone flat. “Tunnel walk B-roll. Helmet on. No talking.”
I’m already up, grabbing my lid. I can’t even manage a yes.
Chin strap clicks. Visor drops. The light shifts from locker room yellow to arena blue when I step past the stalls toward the tunnel mouth.
She paces backward ahead of me, camera up. “Ready?”
My face is carved from stone as I stare into the lens. I hit my marks—two steady strides, shoulder roll, glove tap to the wall logo.
The red light blinks. The camera hums. Citrus cuts through rubber and sweat—hers. She twitches once on the rig, barely there, then steadies.
She lowers the camera a fraction. “Perfect. Got it.”
I stop on my mark. She’s turning away, the tunnel’s cold air breathing from beyond.
“Good luck out there, Kane.”
And she’s gone.
Silence hangs for a beat, and I want to howl. I walk back into the locker room and drop onto the bench.
Dmitri clears his throat, cautious. “Alaska,” he says gently, “you maybe need a new pre-game ritual.”
“Yeah,” I mutter, taking off my helmet, voice low enough to end it. “Maybe I do.”
Dmitri claps my shoulder—comfort and encouragement. All I can think is that she didn’t even look back.
The tunnel opens into white light. The crowd roars—thousands of voices coalescing into one. The air smells of ice and metal and adrenaline. Dmitri bumps my shoulder with his glove. “Let’s go, Alaska. Use the pain.”
I grunt. “You always know when to talk.”
He shrugs. “North men, we smell anger. Same ice, different side.”
“You’re from St. Petersburg,” I mutter.
“Close enough,” he says, grinning. “Alaska, Russia—neighbors, da? Cold makes us stubborn.”
He taps his helmet to mine. “Now skate.”
I nod. The anthem fades. The puck drops.
First shift, Titans’ winger barrels down the boards, fast hands, cocky grin. I close the gap, shoulder through his chest, and the impact rattles my bones. He hits the glass so hard, his stick bounces. The crowd explodes. My pulse evens out for the first time all night.
Between rushes, I catch a flash of blonde at the boards, camera rig steady. She never looks at me. It’s worse than if she did.
Second period, Titans go on the power play. Their captain tries to screen me. I drive him out with a crosscheck that draws blood and a whistle. Two minutes for roughing. Worth it.
I skate to the box, chest heaving. The camera follows me the whole way. I don’t need to look to know whose it is.
Two minutes stretch into a lifetime. I can feel her there.
The penalty expires. Dmitri’s waiting at the gate, expression worried. “You look possessed, Bear.”
“Good,” I growl. “Means it’s working.”
Every hit, every block, every time I drop to one knee and send the puck screaming out of our zone—it’s all for her. Every violent motion, every sound from the crowd, is a word I can’t say out loud.
The final horn blows. Defenders win 4–3. Helmets off, sticks up, gloves clapping. I tap Dmitri’s shoulder and mutter, “Good game.” My jaw’s tight, my throat tighter. The crowd is still chanting when I see her lowering the camera, packing up, walking away.
The win should feel good.
It doesn’t.
The tunnel’s half dark, half thunder. Skates clatter past, the air still tasting of sweat and ozone. I stay behind, helmet under one arm, the thunder of the crowd leaking through the concrete.
Every hit tonight was supposed to bleed the anger out of me—the desperation, the humiliation, the picture of her face at the opera, of the ring on tape. It didn’t. The more I hit, the louder it got.
It was pretend, I tell myself. But the words don’t land right.
The scoreboard says we won. Everything in me says otherwise. The ache under my ribs feels earned but not solved, the kind that doesn’t cool off with ice or time.
I jam my stick into the rack and head for the exit, sweat freezing on my neck. The roar follows me up the ramp, chanting my name as if that’s proof I’m fine.
I should go home. Shower. Sleep. Process.
Instead, I’m at the Penalty Box an hour later, tie loose, nursing a soda I’m not drinking. The team sprawls across two high-tops in loosened ties and open collars.
The door swings and noise lifts. Joy—hair in a careless ponytail, hoodie swallowing her shape, camera bag crossbody. She sweeps the room for light and starts to shoot.
Watching her work, a thought slips in, unwelcome and sharp:
She never lied.
She said her name was Joy Preston. It is. She said she works digital for the Defenders. She does. She told me about the inheritance clause. The fake engagement. All of it.
What she didn’t tell me: her uncle’s name. Her full name. The size of the trust.
Not lies. Omissions.
The kind you make when you’re testing whether someone sees you—or just the dollar signs.
When you want to be Joy, the girl behind the camera, not Josephine Osgood Yardley Preston stamped on a building.
She was protecting herself.
From guys exactly like me, who couldn’t see past the money to the girl underneath.
“Preston!” Tanner crows. “Close-ups?”
“Done for tonight,” Joy says, stowing the camera. “I’ve got enough until next game.”
“Then dance,” Rowan calls.
The DJ drops “Dear God.” Bass sways; synths thread the air. A sleek suit slides into her orbit—navy, sharp taper, pocket square. He extends an invitation, smile easy.
Joy weighs him a heartbeat, then nods. She peels off the hoodie—sports bra under a cropped tank, black jeans that mean business—and accepts. The suit blinks, recalibrates, sweeps her head to toe; his shoulders square. He’s just upgraded his weekend plan.
Heat spikes in my neck. I know exactly what he’s thinking: hook, line, entire weekend. It’s the same thought all of us had.
“Jaw,” Finn murmurs. “Unclench.”
“The Finance Bro’s running the numbers—dinner, drinks, no-sleep,” Tanner adds. “You good with that?”
Russo tips his chin toward the floor. “You gonna let Retail Therapy walk off with your girl, Kane?”
“She’s not my—”
“Your jaw says otherwise,” Finn cuts in.
“Eyes, too,” Tanner chuckles.
Dmitri, gentler: “Bear. Air.”
On the floor, the suit clocks my stare over Joy’s shoulder, amusement flickering.
He settles at her waist and draws her into the count.
She answers with clean lines and a fleeting smile that isn’t mine.
He tries a spin; she lets him. Chorus hits; he pulls her closer, breath at her ear.
Her mouth flickers—surprise, then neutral.
My chair scrapes. The guys go quiet.
I reach the edge of the floor. He keeps the hold, measuring me.
“Mind if I cut in?” I don’t raise my voice.
Joy looks at me; a beat, then the smallest nod. The suit lifts his hands graciously, a last flicker that reads enjoy your win, and steps back.
I catch Joy’s fingers, warm in mine, steady. The room hushes to a pulse.
“Two counts. A courtesy so you don’t look a fool in front of your friends,” she says, cool as glass.
“Copy.” I pull her in—frame solid, hands decent, no finesse because restraint is dead.
Two counts of perfect posture, then she steps in on the downbeat, close enough that her breath lives in my ribs. Three more turns and a smile I haven’t earned in weeks flashes—there and gone.
I want it back.
“Congratulations,” she grits, not breathless, not kind. “You’re cutting in on a dance I don’t owe you.”
“Tit for tat,” I rasp. “You cut in on a life I thought I understood.”
The song crests. Hope flickers—idiot, stubborn. She pushes my chest. For half a heartbeat I mistake the pressure for a touch. It isn’t. It’s a check. She steps back—one pace, then another. The crowd folds in, claps, resets around the ruin where I’m standing.
“Good game,” she says, pivoting, professional down to the consonants.
A fault line opens in my gut, quiet and catastrophic. “Don’t.”
“Don’t what?”
“Don’t talk to me as if we never happened.”
A beat. Her chin lifts. “We tried each other on, Kane. Tag tucked. That was the deal.” She looks at me and completes the cut. “Didn’t fit.”
My tone scrapes. “The Post-it in my stall, was that the return receipt?”
“It was the refund,” she bites, expression bright and unforgiving. “You got what you needed. I got what I needed. Transaction closed.”
Tanner materializes. “Group shot?” He reads the air, backpedals. “Or…later.”
“Now’s fine,” Joy says, bright again—the face you put on to keep you from bleeding. She steps in just close enough for the photo. I want to reach for her, but I don’t move.
Flash. The moment freezes as proof of nothing.
“For the record,” she says, only for me, “I meant every minute in Alaska.”
Her words slice me open.
She meant it—the dancing, the family dinners, the northern lights, the night tangled in my childhood bed.
She meant it, and I threw it away because her name is, what? Too complicated, too long, too much?
Her gaze doesn’t waver. “And this is exactly why I kept my family to myself.”
Because of men like me, who can’t see past the money to the girl underneath.
She pulls on the hoodie and turns. Rowan hooks an arm through, and she’s gone.
I stay there, floored. Finn steps in, not joking now. “You want me to tell Tanner to shut his mouth for the next month?”
I look after her. “Tell everyone.”
Dmitri rests a giant paw on my shoulder, pressure and promise. “We drive you home, Alaska.”
“I’m good,” I lie.
But I’m not. I’m the guy who had everything and threw it away.
I watch the door close. Somewhere on the other side, Joy’s walking away. Back to her world of opera boxes and family endowments and four-name introductions.
Back to a life that doesn’t have room for a guy from Alaska who couldn’t handle the truth.
I tell myself I’m better off.
I’m a shitty liar.