Chapter 14 – Lena
chapter
fourteen
Lena
I was going to kill Kimmy.
“You look hot. Stop fidgeting.”
Easy for her to say. She wasn’t the one squeezing into a dress she hadn’t worn since sophomore year of high school, about to walk into a room full of athletes and pretend to be Trace’s girlfriend at a dinner with silverware and name cards and probably a podium.
This. Is. Not. The. Plan.
“The dress is too tight.” I tugged at the hem, turning sideways in the mirror.
It was a deep emerald that Kimmy swore did incredible things for my skin, and it hugged every curve I had and a few I didn’t know about.
The neckline dipped just low enough to make me self-conscious every time I breathed.
“The dress is perfect. You’re spiraling.” Kimmy shoved a pair of gold hoops into my hand from her spot on the bed, legs crossed, a bag of sour gummy worms open in her lap like she was watching a show. “Put these on and calm your breathing.”
She wasn’t wrong about the breathing. My lungs had been doing this shallow, fluttery thing since Trace’s text landed this morning. Athletic awards dinner. Pick you up at 6. Wear something nice.
Wear something nice. Like I owned a closet full of options. Like I’d had any reason to dress up since Matt and I split. I’d torn through every hanger I owned before Kimmy pulled this dress out of the back of my closet like a magician producing a rabbit.
I clipped the hoops in and checked my reflection. My braids were pulled up, a few loose ones framing my face, and the gold caught the overhead light. I looked good, better than good, actually. I looked like someone who belonged on the arm of a hockey dynasty’s golden boy.
Fake golden boy. Fake everything. Remember that.
“You need lip gloss.” Kimmy scrambled off the bed, scattering gummy worms, and dug through the chaos on her desk until she produced a shimmery tube. She uncapped it and held it out. “Cherry Bomb. Trust me.”
Cherry. The taste of Trace’s kiss flashed through me and my hand stopped mid-reach.
Absolutely not.
“Got my own.” I grabbed my regular lip balm from the nightstand and swiped it on before she could argue, and then my phone buzzed on the bed.
Trace: I’m downstairs.
My stomach dropped to my knees.
“Go.” Kimmy shoved me toward the door, and the hallway smelled like burned popcorn and someone’s vanilla body spray. The usual evening cocktail. “Text me everything. I mean it. Play by play.”
The October air hit me the second I stepped outside, sharp enough to make my eyes water and prickle the bare skin above my neckline. I pulled my jacket tighter and took the steps too fast in heels I hadn’t worn in over a year.
And there he was, leaning against a black Range Rover under the lamppost, and every rational thought I owned evaporated like breath in the cold.
He was wearing a suit. Not a full-on James Bond situation, but dark slacks, a fitted navy dress shirt with the top two buttons undone, and a jacket that made his shoulders look obscene.
His hair was still a little damp, curling at the collar, and when he looked up from his phone and saw me, he went completely still.
Eyes locked on, phone forgotten mid-scroll.
His gaze tracked down from my face to my heels and back up again. Unhurried, shameless, lingering at the neckline long enough to make his point. His jaw ticked and he swallowed hard.
Good. Suffer.
Also, I needed him to stop looking at me like that in public. My nervous system couldn’t take it.
“You clean up nice, Hartwell.”
“You’re not terrible yourself.” My voice came out steady, which was impressive considering my knees were actively staging a mutiny.
He opened the passenger door and his hand found the small of my back as I climbed in. Just his palm, flat and warm through the thin fabric, and my whole back went tight. The interior smelled like him, that clean woodsy scent I couldn’t stop noticing, layered over leather and money.
The drive was ten minutes of his hand on the center console inches from my thigh, the leather seat warm beneath me, and me staring out the window like I’d suddenly developed a passion for campus architecture.
He drove the way he did everything. One-handed, easy, like the world would rearrange itself to accommodate him.
Must be nice to be that confident. Must be nice to be that rich. Must be nice to smell that good while doing both.
“So what’s the plan?” I asked, because silence with Trace was dangerous. Silence let my brain wander to places it had no business going.
“Sit together. Look happy. I introduce you to Coach Bergman, you charm him, we eat bad chicken, and we leave.”
“That simple?”
He glanced at me, and the streetlights caught his eyes. Very, very blue. “That simple.”
Nothing about this is simple and you know it.
The banquet hall was in the campus athletic center.
The decor consisted of round tables in white linen, Loveland U blue and silver everywhere, a podium flanked by team photos, and the noise of a hundred conversations hitting at once.
The room smelled like warmed-over catering food and competing colognes.
Trace’s hand settled on my lower back the second we walked in. Not a polite hover, but a full spread of fingers, his pinky grazing the curve of my hip. My skin prickled under the fabric.
He’s acting. This is acting.
Except his thumb was doing that slow-circle thing again, and it was taking every ounce of willpower I had not to lean into him.
People noticed us immediately. There heads turned and, conversations paused mid-sentence. A couple of girls at a nearby table whispered behind their hands, eyes bouncing between me and Trace like they were keeping score.
Yeah. I see you. Keep looking.
“Coulter!” A thick, barrel-chested man with a gray buzz cut and a handshake that looked like it could crush walnuts materialized in front of us.
This had to be Coach Bergman. He looked exactly the way a hockey coach should, built like a refrigerator in a sport coat, eyes that missed absolutely nothing.
“Coach.” Trace straightened beside me, and his hand on my back pressed firmer. “This is my girlfriend, Lena Hartwell.”
Girlfriend. My smile held but my fingers curled into the fabric of my dress. I was lying to this man’s face, shaking his hand, and the worst part was how easily it came out. Like I’d been rehearsing it in my sleep.
Cool. So you’re a liar now. Add it to the résumé.
I extended my hand and gave him my best don’t-let-them-see-you-sweat smile. “Nice to meet you, Coach.”
His grip was firm but not unkind. He studied me with the same assessing gaze he probably used to evaluate defensemen. “Hartwell. You play tennis, right?”
“I—used to.” I hadn’t expected the hockey coach to know my sport. “I help out with the intramural team now.”
“Hmm.” He didn’t look convinced, and he crossed his arms and leveled me with a look that probably made his players skate suicides. “Delaney talks about you. Says you’ve got the best backhand she’s seen in three recruiting classes and you won’t return her emails.”
My cheeks burned and beside me, Trace went very still.
“I’ve been focused on school and things at home mostly,” I managed.
“Uh huh.” Bergman’s eyes flicked between us with the look of a man who was always doing math.
“Delaney’s not the type to give up easy.
She wants you on the spring roster, and between you and me, I’d listen.
That woman’s built three conference champions in five years.
” He clapped Trace on the shoulder hard enough to shift him sideways.
“Good to see you tonight, Coulter. Keep your nose clean.”
He moved off toward the next table, and Trace leaned down until his mouth was close to my ear. “You didn’t tell me Delaney was recruiting you.”
“She’s not recruiting me. She’s harassing me via every coach on campus, apparently.
” But my voice came out uneven, because Bergman had just poked the one bruise I’d been protecting.
Tennis had been mine once, the one thing I was undeniably good at, the one place where the noise in my head went quiet.
Before Mom got sick, before the medical bills chewed through our savings and I had to choose between court time and hospital time.
And now Dr. Okafor’s office had called. The referral Trace had made happen. The appointment that was the entire reason I’d agreed to this arrangement in the first place. If Mom got in, if the treatment worked. Maybe I could have tennis back. Maybe I could have a lot of things back.
All because of the guy whose hand was still warm on my hip like he’d forgotten it was there, or like he hadn’t.
Don’t go there, Hartwell. This is a transaction. Stay in your lane.
We found our table, number three, near the front. And that’s when the real torture started.
The dinner itself was fine. The usual mediocre chicken that had been sitting under a heat lamp too long, decent salad, rolls that were somehow both dry and undercooked.
The torture was sitting next to Trace for two hours while a parade of coaches, boosters, and administrators stopped by to shake his hand and size me up.
I smiled until my cheeks ached, answered the same three questions, What’s your major?
How’d you two meet? Isn’t he something?, and hated how easy the lies were getting.
A silver-haired booster wife leaned across the table during the entrée, wineglass tilted at the exact angle of someone about to ask a personal question. “So how long have you two been together?”
“A few weeks,” Trace said, smooth as anything, his hand still resting on my knee under the table like it had squatter’s rights. “Couldn’t stay away.”
She beamed at me like I’d just confirmed her favorite theory. “You can just tell, can’t you? The way he looks at you. That’s the real thing.”
My smile didn’t waver even as my stomach turned. “He’s pretty special.”