Chapter 5
FIVE
CJ
I still can’t believe I convinced Olivia to go along with my crazy plan. I thought for sure she would shoot me down, but she surprised me. She seems to do that a lot.
I love it.
She hasn’t let me in that much, but from what I know about Olivia, she’s a good person. She’s a hard worker, someone who would do anything for the kids at her center or anyone in need.
My cellphone beeps with a text. I curse when I read the message from Declan and realize I’m running late. I’m supposed to pick Olivia up in ten.
I take one last look at myself in the mirror, fixing my hair and straightening my tie and suit sleeves. Then I’m out the door.
Olivia lives on the other side of town, closer to the Youth Center. Traffic is heavier tonight, and I curse as I hit another red light.
I pull up in front of Olivia’s rundown apartment building and jump out of my car. Running up to the front door, I hit the button for Olivia’s apartment. The door buzzes a moment later, and I rush inside and up to her apartment door.
I don’t get the chance to knock before the door swings open and Olivia steps out. My breath stalls in my lungs, and my mind blanks.
She’s wearing a pale pink satin dress that hugs her curves like a dream. Her dark hair is pulled up into some kind of twist and pinned. A few strands have come loose already, and they frame her face, the ends brushing against her shoulders. She’s wearing heels today and is closer to my height.
I stare at her dumbfounded as she locks the door and turns to me.
“Fucking hell, Princess Angel Baby,” I rasp, my eyes devouring her.
She rolls her eyes. “Don’t call me that,” she says, but there’s no force behind her words.
“You look beautiful,” I tell her honestly.
She blushes slightly. “Thanks. You clean up well, too,” she compliments me. “We’re going to be late.”
“Right.”
I take her hand and we head back downstairs to my car. My hand moves to the small of her back as I open the door for her and help her into the passenger seat.
“Do we need to go over the ground rules again?” she asks as I climb behind the wheel and take her hand in mine again.
“Our fake dating rules?”
She shoots me a look.
“Nah, I think I’ve got them all down pat.”
“Clearly,” she says drily, holding up our hands.
“I’m just getting into the role,” I tell her.
She sighs, but doesn’t pull her hand away from mine.
“Are you nervous?” I ask her as we make our way toward the charity event.
“A little. I’m not used to these big…events,” she says. “I’m better with kids or writing grant letters than with big parties.”
“You’ll be great. No one can resist you.”
She snorts. “I don’t need them to like me. I just need them to want to help the youth center.”
“They will,” I promise her.
We pull up in front of the event, and I climb out, passing my keys to the valet before I go around to open the passenger door for Olivia. As soon as she steps out, I take her hand, interlacing our fingers.
“Deep breath,” I whisper as we make our way up the red carpet.
Flashes from cameras nearly blind me, but I keep smiling, my fingers laced with Olivia’s. I feel her tense, and I tug her to my side, wrapping my arm around her waist.
“Breathe,” I whisper. “I got you.”
She nods, inhales, slow and shaky, then steadies.
Good girl.
The air snaps with flashes and shouts.
“CJ! Over here!”
“Who’s your date?”
We move down the line. I answer questions with the exact amount of reformed menace PR asked for, and when they turn to Olivia, she delivers one clean quote about kids and community that could fund a wing in six seconds. Cameras love her. Of course they do.
We shuffle along, smiling at the cameras for a few more moments, and then I turn and lead her into the building.
Inside, the ballroom is all soft lights and glittering tablecloths.
The Thunder logo glows on the backdrop behind a silent-auction spread that includes a weekend at a lakeside cabin, a signed team jersey, and, inexplicably, a “Private Pasta-Making Class” donated by a restaurant that once asked me to please stop returning bowls as “saves.”
“Pretty,” she says, taking it in. She sounds… impressed. Maybe even hopeful. God, I want to give her ten more rooms like this.
“Want to make a lap?” I ask. “Scope the donors, pretend to judge the canapés?”
Her mouth twitches. “I would never judge canapés.”
We judge the canapés.
“So much paté,” Olivia sighs, her nose wrinkling as another server comes by with a tray of crackers and paté.
I laugh, and when she’s distracted, I pull her onto the dance floor. The band has launched into something old and smooth, and I can’t resist the opportunity to hold Olivia in my arms. My hand settles at her waist. She fits there. Like that space was made for her.
She stiffens for exactly one beat and then melts, trust trickling in like warm honey. Her palm rests against my shoulder, her other hand slips into mine, and together we dance. I guide her, small steps, close turns, gentle brushes of our bodies against each other.
“You’re very good at pretending,” she murmurs, eyes up, lashes a little dangerous.
“Who said I’m pretending?” I murmur back.
She gives me the look, the one that says she knows exactly how to shut me down, yet doesn’t quite want to. We move past a cluster of donors, gray hair, old money, polite interest, and I tip my chin at them.
“Three o’clock,” I say. “Faces say they love foundation stones and endowments. We sell them on legacy.”
“You can read donors?” she asks, skeptical but curious.
“I read shooters for a living.” I guide her through a slow turn.
“Same tells. They lean forward, they want to commit. They cross their arms, they need reassurance. They smile without eye crinkles, they’re being polite.
They ask how many kids you serve and follow up with ‘per week,’ they’re already calculating impact. ”
“You’re not entirely useless,” she says.
“Be still my beating heart.”
She tries to hide her smile, but I see it.
We finish the song. She’s flushed, eyes bright, lips parted. I want to kiss her in the middle of this floor with every camera rolling.
I do not. I’m a gentleman.
Also, Logan is somewhere, and his disapproval could level a city.
We make the rounds. I shine, but Olivia…
she glows. She tells quick, vivid stories of Bea and her “more conclusion,” Malik learning to square his shoulders, the sisters with the pink-and-glitter project, and the donors lean in like she’s feeding them something they didn’t know they were starving for.
“Ms. Walker,” a woman in a beaded navy dress says, taking Olivia’s hand in both of hers. “I grew up going to a center like yours. Thank you for doing this work.”
Olivia’s eyes soften. “We do it together,” she says. “Us, the kids, the community.”
Us. She said “us,” and it felt like a private thing meant for me.
When we hit the silent auction tables, I nudge her with my shoulder. “Pick something.”
“We can’t bid with center funds.”
“Who said anything about center funds?” I scrawl my name on the pasta class because I’m an agent of chaos, but also because I want to feed her again and again until she realizes she doesn’t have to do everything herself.
At our table, the auction begins. Olivia sits to my right, Declan on my left, Logan across from us, looking like he’d rather be stuck in a penalty box.
When his girl, Violet, leans against his side, his face softens as he smiles down at her.
I slide my hand onto Olivia’s knee beneath the tablecloth, thumb tracing a small circle through satin.
She gives me a look, but doesn’t push my hand away.
I lean in, mouth to the shell of her ear. “You’re doing amazing,” I whisper. “I mean it.”
“CJ,” her breath catches.
“Hmm?”
“Ground rules.”
“Right. No touching that isn’t strictly necessary.” I squeeze once and leave my hand where it is. “I would argue this is necessary. For morale.”
She leaves my hand where it is. I call that a win.
Lots go one after another. A luxury spa day, golf with a local celeb, and dinner with the Thunder coaching staff. Coach Pearson bids on anything that lets him leave early, and I wave at him as he tries to make a sneaky exit.
Then it’s the big-ticket items. I told PR we’d comp a “Practice with the Team,” and an on-ice shootout against me; the crowd eats it up. When the final paddle drops, I’m pretty sure we’ve raised enough money to keep the lights on and the heater alive for a while.
Olivia squeezes my fingers under the table. It’s quick, barely there, but I feel it everywhere.
The emcee invites us up for a final thank-you. Olivia steps up to the mic, and I watch her transform, nerves to steel to warmth in three breaths.
“Tonight you didn’t just give to a building,” she says. “You gave time. Time for a kid to finish a book report. Time for a teenager to be seen by an adult who believes in them. Time for a working parent to breathe on the car ride home because their child is safe. Thank you for buying us time.”
The room stands. Not a slow clap. A wave.
Olivia looks at me, eyes shiny. I slide my hand into hers and we hold them up together for the cameras, for the donors, for the kids who don’t even know this is happening but will feel it on a Tuesday at 4:17 p.m., when there’s a snack and a seat and someone waiting to hear them say the thing that hurts.
After the applause, after the handshakes and the “Let’s talk Monday,” after Logan gives me one tight nod that reads “good job, idiot,” and Declan smirks like he always knew I wasn’t hopeless, I steer Olivia toward the exit.
“Hungry?” I ask as we step into the cool night.
She exhales, shoulders dipping as if her dress itself is made of expectations.
“I’m… exhausted,” she admits. “Happy-exhausted.”
“We can do food another time,” I say, surprising even myself. I don’t want the night to end. I also want to do the things she asked of me: behave like a professional, prioritize the center, and put her comfort first. “Let’s get you home.”
In the car, the world goes quiet. No cameras. No donors. Her hand finds mine again, like it’s done it a hundred times.
“Thank you,” she says softly as city lights smear past the windshield. “For tonight. For—” She gestures at everything. “All of it.”
“Anytime,” I say, and mean it in at least six reckless ways.
We pull up at her building. The lot is nearly empty, the neon pizza sign down the block buzzing into the dark. I kill the engine and hustle around to open her door because my mom raised me with manners, and also because I want one more excuse to touch her.
We take the stairs slower this time. She leans into the banister, one hand on my forearm for balance. At her door, she slips the key into the lock and turns toward me.
The hall light throws a little halo over her hair. Her eyes are tired but bright. Her mouth… Yeah, I’m a dead man.
“Good night,” she says, soft and proper and probably expecting me to follow the rules I made her make.
“Good night,” I echo, shoving my hands into my pockets so I don’t reach for her like I’ve been wanting to since the first click of her heel on the first step of the first stair.
She tilts her head, reading me, always reading me. “CJ?”
I step in, slow enough for her to change her mind, fast enough so I don’t. One hand at her waist. The other cups her jaw, thumb tracing that damn-perfect cheekbone. Her lashes lower. I angle, she rises on her toes, and our mouths meet.
It starts like a promise. Soft. Careful. A first sip.
Then she exhales against my lips, and I forget every rule that ever existed.
I taste something sweet, champagne or her, I don’t know, and deepen the kiss.
She opens, lets me in, fingers curling into the lapel of my jacket like she plans to keep it.
I kiss her the way I guard a net in overtime.
Total focus, zero doubt, absolutely certain that this is the only thing that matters for as long as it’s happening.
When we finally break, her pupils are blown, her breath a little unsteady. My heartbeat is loud enough to draw a noise complaint.
“Research,” I say hoarsely, because I’m an idiot and jokes are my emergency exits. “For the… pretending.”
“Right,” she says, but her voice is wrecked, and her hand is still fisted in my jacket. She doesn’t let go.
“We raised a lot of money,” I manage, because I need to remind us both why we did this. “You did that.”
“We did that,” she corrects, fingers smoothing the fabric she wrinkled.
I dip to press a quick, reverent kiss to her forehead because I can’t help myself. “Sleep,” I tell her. “I’ll text you about the totals in the morning.”
“Don’t text me at six a.m.,” she warns, the director returning, the girl who kissed me pausing just behind her eyes.
“Wouldn’t dream of it.” I step back before I do something like ask to come inside and forget how to leave.
She fits the key again. Looks at me over her shoulder. “Good night, CJ.”
“Good night, Olivia.”
The door closes. The lock clicks. I stare at the wood like a lunatic for a full five seconds and then pivot, hands on my hips, a grin I can’t kill spreading across my face.
I take the stairs down with a spring that would make my PT scold me. In the car, I sit there for a minute, forehead against the steering wheel, and laugh quietly to myself like a man who just got away with something and can’t wait to do it again.
My phone buzzes. Team chat is a mess of photos, donation figures, and heart emojis from wives and girlfriends. A separate text from Logan that says, Proud of you. Don’t make me regret it.
I thumbs-up him and type to Olivia.
CJ: You were the star. Pasta class is ours. Wear clothes you don’t mind getting flour on.
Three dots appear. Disappear. Appear again.
Olivia: Thank you for tonight.
I lean back, staring up at the faint halo of the streetlight on my windshield.
Not pretending, I think. Not even a little.
Then I put the car in gear and head home, smelling like her shampoo and champagne, already counting the hours until I can see my Princess Angel Baby again.