Chapter Two
Ryan
Economics major. Smart enough to understand supply and demand curves without breaking a sweat.
Confident enough to pay for a stranger's broken mugs and propose a fake dating arrangement in the same conversation.
But there was something in her eyes when she looked across that coffee shop—something that reminded me of how I felt the first time I stepped onto the ice at Key Arena.
Like she was terrified and exhilarated at the same time.
"Come on up!" Her voice crackles through the ancient intercom system, and I hear the door buzz open.
The stairs creak under my weight as I climb to the third floor, and I catch the scent of something that makes my mouth water. Chocolate chip cookies, if I had to guess. The woman actually baked for our fake tutoring session.
I knock on 3B, and the door swings open to reveal Bella in an oversized ECU sweatshirt and jeans that have seen better days.
Her hair is pulled back in a ponytail, and there's a smudge of flour on her cheek.
She looks nothing like the put-together woman who negotiated our deal yesterday, and somehow that makes her about ten times more attractive.
"You're punctual," she says, stepping aside to let me in. "I respect that in a fake boyfriend."
"I'm many things, but late isn't one of them.
" I follow her into the apartment, which is exactly what I expected from someone who has their life together.
Books organized by subject, a desk that's actually clean, and the kind of throw pillows that suggest someone cares about interior design. "Nice place."
"Thanks. It's small, but it's mine." She gestures toward a small dining table where she's laid out textbooks, notebooks, and a plate of cookies that look like they belong in a magazine. "I figured we should start with macroeconomics since that seems to be where you're struggling most."
I pick up one of the cookies and take a bite. It's perfect—soft in the middle, crispy at the edges, just the right amount of chocolate chips. "How do you know where I'm struggling?"
Bella settles into the chair across from me and opens her laptop. "I may have done some research."
"Research?"
"I looked up your academic record." She doesn't even have the decency to look embarrassed about it. "Public information, since you're on scholarship. Your GPA has been declining steadily over the past three semesters, with economics being your weakest subject."
I stare at her. "You stalked my grades?"
"I prefer 'conducted due diligence.' If I'm going to tutor you, I need to know what I'm working with." She pulls up a document on her screen and turns it toward me. "I've created a study plan that should help you bring your GPA up to the minimum required for your scholarship."
The document is color-coded. There are charts. Actual charts with my current grades and projected improvements. "You made a presentation about my academic failures?"
"I made a presentation about your academic potential." She clicks to the next slide, which has my current 2.3 GPA in large, unforgiving red numbers. "Though I'll admit the starting point is a bit dire."
I lean back in my chair and study her. Bella Lawson is not what I expected. Yesterday, she seemed nervous, almost shy when she approached me at the coffee shop. But here, in her element, she's completely different. Confident. In control. It's sexy as hell, and also slightly terrifying.
"So what's your angle here?" I ask.
"My angle?"
"You could have asked any guy on campus to be your fake date. Half the hockey team would volunteer just for the chance to eat your cookies." I gesture to the plate between us. "But you picked me. The guy with the failing GPA and a reputation for being, let's say, academically challenged."
Bella's cheeks flush pink, and for a moment, I see the uncertain woman from yesterday. "Maybe I like a challenge."
"Or maybe you figured I'd be grateful enough to really sell this fake relationship thing."
She meets my eyes, and I see something flicker there—surprise, maybe, that I figured out her strategy so quickly. "Would that be such a bad thing?"
"Depends on what you're asking me to do."
"Nothing you wouldn't normally do on a date. Hold my hand, laugh at my jokes, look at me like you're interested in what I'm saying." She pauses. "Think you can manage that?"
The honest answer is that I'm not sure I'll have to fake any of it. Bella Lawson is turning out to be full of surprises, and I've always been a sucker for women who can keep me guessing. But admitting that would probably complicate our arrangement.
"I think I can work with that," I say instead. "But first, you need to explain marginal utility to me like I'm a five-year-old who's never seen money."
Bella grins, and the transformation is immediate. Her whole face lights up, and I realize that this—teaching, explaining complicated concepts—this is what she loves. "Okay. Imagine you're really hungry, and I offer you pizza."
"I'm listening."
"The first slice is amazing. You're starving, so that slice has huge value to you—high marginal utility. The second slice is still pretty good. But by the time you get to the fourth or fifth slice, each additional piece has less value because you're getting full."
She pulls out a piece of paper and starts sketching a graph, her movements quick and confident. "It's the same with money. The first thousand dollars you earn has more impact on your life than the ten-thousandth dollar, which has more impact than the hundred-thousandth."
I watch her hands as she draws, noting the way she bites her bottom lip when she concentrates. "So diminishing returns."
"Exactly!" She looks up at me with genuine excitement, like I've just solved world hunger instead of grasping a basic economic concept. "You do understand this stuff. You just need to apply it."
For the next hour, Bella walks me through supply and demand curves, price elasticity, and something called consumer surplus that I'm pretty sure I should have learned three semesters ago. She's patient but not condescending, and she has this way of explaining things that actually makes sense.
More importantly, she's completely focused on me. Not on her phone, not on the pile of her own homework I can see stacked on the counter, just on making sure I understand what she's teaching. It's been a long time since someone gave me their undivided attention like that.
"You're a good teacher," I tell her during a break, reaching for another cookie. "You should consider it as a career."
"I'm planning on investment banking, actually." She closes her textbook and stretches. "Though I do like the teaching part."
"Investment banking." I whistle low. "Big money, long hours, soul-crushing pressure. Sounds fun."
"It's practical. Stable. Good salary, good benefits, clear advancement track." She recites it like she's reading from a brochure. "What about you? Plan to play hockey forever?"
"Just until my body gives out or I stop being good enough." I lean forward, resting my elbows on the table. "Then maybe coaching. Or sports management. Something that keeps me close to the game."
"That's it? That's your whole career plan?"
I shrug. "Hockey's the only thing I've ever been really good at. Might as well stick with what works."
Bella stares at me for a moment, and I can practically see the wheels turning in her head. "You know your problem with economics isn't that you're not smart enough, right?"
"Enlighten me."
"You don't think it matters. You've already decided you're going to play hockey professionally, so why bother learning about market forces or fiscal policy?
" She leans forward, matching my posture.
"But what happens if you get injured? Or if you don't get drafted?
Or if you do go pro but it only lasts a few years? "
The questions hit closer to home than I want to admit. Every hockey player thinks about those scenarios, usually at 3 AM when you can't sleep and your shoulder's aching from practice. "Then I'll figure something else out."
"Or you could have a backup plan. Something that uses your brain instead of just your body.
" She taps the textbook with her finger.
"Economics is everywhere, Ryan. Sports contracts, salary caps, franchise values.
You could be a team manager, or work for the league office, or start your own sports marketing company. "
I've never thought about it like that. Hockey has always been the beginning and end of my career aspirations. But listening to Bella talk about the possibilities, I can almost see it—a future that doesn't end the first time I take a bad check into the boards.
"You really think I could do something like that?"
"I think you're a lot smarter than you give yourself credit for." She glances at the clock on her laptop. "Speaking of which, we should probably talk about our story for this weekend."
Right. The fake dating part of our arrangement. For the past hour, I'd almost forgotten that this was supposed to be transactional.
"What do you want people to think about us?" I ask.
"That we're... involved. Interested in each other. Like we could be something serious if we wanted to be." She's back to being nervous, playing with the sleeve of her sweatshirt. "Nothing too dramatic. Just enough to get Tanner's attention."
"Tell me about this guy. Tanner Williams."
"He's..." Bella pauses, searching for words. "Smart. Ambitious. He's doing a double major in business and political science, and he's already got an internship lined up with some consulting firm in downtown Seattle."
"Sounds boring."
"He's not boring. He's focused. Driven." She's defending him, but there's no real heat in it. "We were study partners last semester for International Business. We had coffee a few times, talked about our career goals, compared notes on professors."
"Did you sleep with him?"
Bella's eyes widen. "That's none of your business."
"It is if I'm supposed to make him jealous. I need to know what I'm competing with."
She's quiet for a long moment, and I think she's going to tell me to go to hell. Instead, she says, "No. We studied a lot together. Always kept it platonic. Then one night after dinner, we made out in his car. He wanted more, but I didn’t know how he felt about me. Not yet. We had just met. And I wanted to take my time. Looking back, I’m glad we didn’t end up in his bedroom.
Because after that, he didn’t want anything serious so we just stayed friends. "
"And you want more than to be friends."
"I wanted to see if there could be more. But he sees me as..." She waves her hand vaguely. "Safe. Reliable. The girl you study with, not the girl you date."
I'm starting to understand the problem. Guys like Tanner Williams are idiots.
They see a woman like Bella—smart, put-together, responsible—and they think 'marriage material' instead of 'I want to take her home right now.
' They don't notice the way she lights up when she's passionate about something, or how she bites her lip when she's thinking, or the fact that she's sitting across from me in old jeans and a college sweatshirt and still managing to be the most attractive woman I've seen all week.
"So we need to make you look dangerous," I say finally.
"Dangerous?"
"Unpredictable. Like you might do something that would surprise him." I stand up and start pacing around her small living room. "What's the most rebellious thing you've ever done?"
"I once turned in a paper two hours before the deadline instead of a week early."
I stop pacing and stare at her. "That's it?"
"I'm not a rebellious person, Ryan. I follow rules. I make plans. I color-code my study schedules."
"Which is exactly why this is going to work." I sit back down and lean across the table toward her. "Tanner thinks he knows who you are. We're going to show him he's wrong."
"How?"
I reach over and tuck a strand of hair behind her ear, letting my fingers linger against her skin. Her breath catches, and I feel something electric pass between us. "Leave that to me, sweetheart."
Bella stares at me for a moment, her pupils dilated and her lips slightly parted. Then she blinks and pulls back. "We should probably set some ground rules."
"Such as?"
"Physical contact should be... appropriate. Hand-holding, maybe an arm around my shoulder. Nothing that would make people uncomfortable."
"What about kissing?"
The question hangs in the air between us. Bella's cheeks flush pink again, and I find myself genuinely curious about her answer.
"If it's necessary to sell the illusion," she says finally. "But nothing too... intense."
I nod, even though I'm already wondering what she considers too intense. "Anything else?"
"This ends after the party. One public appearance, and then we go back to normal. Just tutoring."
"Understood." I stand up and gather my things. "Same time next week?"
"Tuesday and Thursday, seven PM. Put it in your calendar."
I head toward the door, then pause with my hand on the knob. "Bella?"
"Yeah?"
"For what it's worth, Tanner Williams is an idiot if he can't see what's right in front of him."
I leave before she can respond, but I catch the smile that spreads across her face just before the door closes behind me.
Walking back down the creaky stairs, I realize that somewhere between marginal utility and study schedules, this fake dating arrangement just got a lot more complicated. Because the more time I spend with Bella Lawson, the less fake this whole thing feels.