Faking Forever With The Hockey Star

Chapter 1

Chapter one

Sadie

Winter Festival Disaster

The worst part about being publicly humiliated in a small town is that everyone pretends not to notice. Which, of course, means everyone notices.

I stand behind the Sweet Seasons Bakery booth at the town festival with powdered sugar on my apron, frosting on my wrist, and the kind of smile that makes my cheeks ache from holding it too long.

Across Main Street, Briar Cove glows like the inside of a snow globe.

White lights hang from every lamppost. Evergreen garlands wrap around the shop signs.

The temporary skating rink sparkles under strings of golden bulbs, and half of the town is strolling Main, bundled in scarves, mittens, and cheerful winter hats.

It should be beautiful.

It is beautiful.

That’s the problem.

Beautiful things have a way of making heartbreak look even uglier.

I try not to look toward the far end of the street.

I fail.

Darren, my ex-boyfriend, stands beneath the archway of lights near the skating rink, one hand resting possessively on the waist of a woman who looks like she stepped out of a glossy magazine and into my personal nightmare.

Of course she’s beautiful.

Of course, her hair falls in perfect waves beneath a cream-colored wool hat.

Of course, her coat probably costs more than my oven repair bill.

And, of course, half the town has noticed.

Darren sees me looking and smiles. Not kindly. Not apologetically. Just enough to make sure I know he sees me seeing him.

My stomach twists.

Sadie Bennett, town baker, single mother, and apparently the woman men always underestimate.

I turn back to my booth and rearrange gingerbread hockey sticks that do not need rearranging.

Darren is not Jillie’s father.

That matters. I remind myself of that every time the betrayal digs deeper than I want it to.

Jillie’s biological father left us just after her first birthday.

He faded out slowly at first, with missed visits and weak excuses, then all at once, like fatherhood had been a coat he could shrug off when it became inconvenient.

Our divorce followed, painfully at least on my part.

Jillie barely remembers him now, which is its own strange mercy.

Darren came later.

We dated for a year, just long enough for him to sit at my kitchen table.

Long enough to carry Jillie through a snowstorm when she had a fever.

Long enough to let her draw him into family pictures with stick-figure arms and a crooked smile.

And long enough to make me think maybe I had been wrong to keep the walls so high.

Then he cheated with Vanessa Hale, a real estate agent with perfect nails and a laugh sharp enough to cut ribbon.

Now here they are, at the town’s winter festival, looking polished and new while I stand behind a bakery booth trying not to crumble beside the peppermint brownies.

“Mommy?” Jillie tugs my sleeve. “Can we skate later?”

“Maybe, Bug.”

“You said maybe means probably no.”

“It means maybe.”

“It means probably no with hope sprinkled on top.”

I look down at her, and despite everything, I smile. “Who taught you to be so suspicious?”

“You.”

Fair.

A cluster of older women stops near the booth, their voices low but not low enough.

Poor thing.

I keep my hands moving. Box the cookies. Tie the twine. Smile. Smile. Smile.

He really did move on quickly.

My fingers tighten around the ribbon.

And then, the words that make my blood go cold.

“Poor thing,” one of them murmurs. “He traded up.”

Jillie goes still beside me. Every bit of warmth leaves my body.

She looks up, cookie forgotten in her mitten. Her little face shifts in that awful way children’s faces do when they understand enough to be hurt but not enough to know what to do with it.

“Mommy,” she whispers, “what does “traded up” mean?”

I want to climb over the booth and tell those women exactly what I think of their pity wrapped in perfume and church-lady scarves. Instead, I crouch in front of my daughter and gently wipe the icing from her mouth with my thumb.

“It means some people talk when they should be buying cookies,” I say.

Her eyes search mine. “Is it bad?”

“No, baby.” My voice is too soft. “It’s not about you.”

“But it’s about you?”

My throat closes.

Before I can answer, a loud burst of laughter rises from the skating rink. Jillie turns toward it, blinking too fast. She sets the half-eaten cookie down and slips away from the booth before I can stop her.

“Jillie,” I call, but a customer steps in front of me holding out a twenty.

I handle the sale as quickly as I can, barely hearing the woman ask for a dozen cranberry-orange shortbread.

By the time I glance back, Jillie is already near the rink, standing alone beneath a lamppost, her little shoulders hunched.

I step around the booth to get her, but someone else gets there first.

A man in a dark wool coat and a Frostholm Blizzards beanie crouches in front of her.

Not just any man.

Colby Reid.

For one impossible second, I forget how to move.

Everyone in Briar Cove knows Colby, even people who pretend they don’t care about hockey.

Star left wing for the Frostholm Blizzards, local boy turned national obsession.

Magazine-cover smile. Highlight-reel goals.

Recently dragged through every sports headline after a brutal season and an even uglier breakup with some influencer whose name I only know because Jillie accidentally clicked on a video about it while looking for puppy cartoons.

He is supposed to be arrogant. That’s what the headlines say.

Selfish. Reckless. Too famous for his own good.

But the man crouching in front of my daughter does not look reckless.

He looks careful.

He points toward the lights strung above the rink and says something I can’t hear. Jillie shakes her head. He presses his hand dramatically to his chest like she has wounded him. She looks uncertain for half a second, then smiles.

My heart gives one dangerous, traitorous twist.

Colby glances toward me, as if asking permission.

I should walk over there. I should collect my daughter. I should definitely not nod at a famous hockey player like I am agreeing to something normal.

But Jillie is smiling again, so, I nod.

Colby grins at her, then carefully lifts her onto his shoulders like she weighs nothing. Jillie squeals, grabbing his beanie with both hands.

“Careful,” I call, already moving toward them.

“I’ve taken worse hits than a six-year-old with frosting on her mittens,” he says.

His voice is warm. Lower than I expect.

Jillie gasps. “You know I’m six?”

“You told me.”

“No, I didn’t.”

“You did with your face.”

She giggles. “That’s not real.”

“It is if you’re very skilled.”

I reach them, breath catching slightly from the cold or the moment or the absurdity of standing beside Colby Reid while my daughter sits on his shoulders like a tiny queen of winter.

“I’m sorry,” I say. “She wandered off.”

“She didn’t wander.” Colby looks up at Jillie. “She was conducting an official festival inspection.”

Jillie nods seriously. “The lights are good. The cookies are too small.”

“Noted,” he says.

I fold my arms. “The cookies are perfectly sized.”

Colby looks at the booth, then back at me. “You made those?”

“Yes, I own Sweet Seasons.”

Something flickers in his expression. Recognition, maybe. “You’re Sadie Bennett.”

I brace myself. There it is. The pity. The gossip. Darren the ex. The single mom who got cheated on.

But Colby only says, “My sister used to mail me your maple pecan bars when I was on the road during playoffs.”

That catches me off guard. “Really?”

“Once, I ate four before a game and blamed my sluggish first period on bad ice.”

Jillie leans over his head. “Did you win?”

“No.”

“Because of Mommy’s bars?”

“Absolutely not. Your mom’s bars were the only reason I survived the shame.”

Jillie pats his hat. “You’re funny.”

“I’ve been telling people that for years.”

The laugh slips out of me before I can stop it.

Across the street, Darren is watching. So is Vanessa. So are half the people pretending to admire the wreaths outside Bellamy’s Gifts.

The old familiar humiliation rises again, but it doesn’t land the same way this time. Not with Jillie laughing above me. Not with Colby Reid standing beside me like he has all the time in the world. Not with his broad shoulders blocking the view of Darren just enough to let me breathe.

“You don’t have to do this,” I say quietly.

His gaze drops to mine.

For a second, the festival noise blurs around us. Skates scrape ice. Children laugh. A carol plays from the speakers near town hall.

“Do what?” he asks.

“Be nice because people are watching.”

His expression changes. Softens. “I’m being nice because she looked sad.”

Oh. That’s worse. That is much worse, because I can defend against pity. Charm I can ignore. Public performance I can dismiss.

Kindness, though?

Kindness is dangerous.

Jillie points upward over the crowd. “Can we see the big snowflake from over there?”

Colby looks at me again. “Official inspection?”

I should say no.

The word is right there.

Instead, I hear myself say, “Five minutes.”

Jillie cheers.

Colby walks slowly toward the center of the festival with my daughter on his shoulders, and I follow beside them like this is normal.

Like I haven’t spent months feeling like the woman everyone is sorry for.

Like my child hasn’t just heard something cruel.

Like one of the most famous hockey players in the country hasn’t stepped into the ugliest moment of my night and somehow made it bearable.

People stare. Phones lift. I notice, but I’m too busy watching Jillie tilt her face toward the lights.

“Mommy,” she says, breathless, “I can see everything.”

Colby glances at me, and there is something unreadable in his eyes.

“Good view?” I ask her.

“The best.”

My chest aches.

Darren appears near the cocoa stand as we pass, Vanessa tucked against his side. His smile thins when he sees Jillie on Colby’s shoulders.

“Sadie,” he says.

I keep walking. For once, I do not stop to be polite. For once, I do not shrink.

Colby slows just enough to look at me. Not asking. Not pushing. Just noticing.

I lift my chin.

We keep walking.

Jillie waves at the giant illuminated snowflake hanging over Main Street. Colby salutes it solemnly. She laughs so hard she nearly loses her hat.

That is the exact moment a flash goes off.

I turn.

A tourist stands near the cider booth, her phone raised, and her eyes wide with excitement. Another person lifts their camera. Then another.

My stomach drops.

Colby notices too.

His jaw tightens, but his voice stays calm. “Do you want me to put her down?”

Jillie is still laughing. She has no idea. I look at her face, bright and happy for the first time since those women spoke.

“Not yet,” I say.

So, Colby keeps walking.

And for five more minutes, I let my daughter feel tall enough to see over the whole town.

By the time he lowers her carefully near my bakery booth, Jillie’s cheeks are pink and her smile has returned full force.

“Thank you,” I tell him.

He dusts imaginary snow off his coat. “I take festival inspection very seriously.”

Jillie beams. “You can come inspect cookies anytime.”

“Dangerous offer.”

I should laugh.

Instead, I notice his phone buzzing. Again. And again. And again.

He checks the screen.

His expression shifts so quickly I almost miss it.

The softness disappears beneath something guarded.

“Everything okay?” I ask.

He looks at me, then at Jillie, then back to his phone.

“I’m not sure.”

My own phone starts buzzing on the table behind the booth.

Then Mrs. Bellamy from the gift shop hurries toward me, cheeks flushed and eyes huge.

“Sadie,” she says, waving her phone like it might explode. “Honey, you need to see this.”

Cold moves through me.

I pick up my phone. There we are.

Colby carrying Jillie on his shoulders.

Me smiling up at them.

The lights glowing behind us.

The three of us looking painfully, impossibly, heartbreakingly like a family.

The caption beneath it reads:

COLBY REID’S SECRET SMALL-TOWN FAMILY?

My pulse stumbles.

Another notification appears.

Then another.

Then another.

Celebrity blogs. Hockey fan accounts. Local pages. Comments multiplying too fast to read.

Who is she?

He has a daughter?

This is the happiest Colby has looked all year.

Secret family in Briar Cove?

Jillie tugs my sleeve. “Mommy? Why is your face funny?”

I lock the phone and force myself to breathe.

Colby steps closer, his expression is grim now. “I’m sorry,” he says quietly.

I should blame him.

I should panic.

I should run inside the bakery, pull the blinds, and keep my daughter away from every camera in town.

Instead, I look past him. Darren is staring at the phone in his hand. Vanessa is too.

For the first time all night, neither of them looks smug.

I should not enjoy that.

I absolutely should not enjoy that.

But I do.

Just a little.

Okay, a lot.

Colby follows my gaze, then looks back at me.

Something almost like understanding passes between us.

Not romance.

Just a strange, dangerous alignment. Two people caught in a story that neither one of them started.

Jillie slips her mittened hand into mine, then, after a hesitation, reaches for Colby’s too.

He stills. So, do I.

My daughter stands between us beneath the festival lights, holding both our hands like this is the simplest thing in the world.

Like men don’t leave.

Like headlines don’t hurt.

Like pretend things can’t become dangerous.

Across town, phones keep buzzing.

By tonight, everyone will know.

By morning, the whole internet will believe Colby Reid has a secret family in Briar Cove.