Page 21 of Fake Skating

I almost had a heart attack when I heard the tap on the front door.

It was after ten, and I was the only one in the house still awake, doing homework.

We had a massive test in calculus next week, but if I was honest with myself, I was studying to avoid thinking about my dad.

And the locker room.

And I was too emotionally exhausted to start crying again.

I half expected it to be Cassie, because she hadn’t wanted to take no for an answer when I backed out on Applebee’s, but when I looked through the window atop the door, I saw Alec peering through.

Shit shit shit , I did not want to face him. It was bad enough that he’d seen me bawling, but the whole… thing that followed was mortifying.

Mostly because, for a split second, I’d forgotten about everything in the world except his brown eyes and the way it felt to have him hug me again.

Idiot!

But what choice did I have? I’d been freaking out all evening, expecting a call from the superintendent telling me I’d been expelled.

I went over to the door and pulled it open, my stomach full of butterflies.

And God, there he was.

He was so tall now, so big as he looked down at me with a smirk on his mouth and amusement in those dark brown eyes.

“Wow,” he said without even saying hi. “You look hot.”

I rolled my eyes. I was wearing flannel pajama pants and a threadbare Philadelphia Eagles jersey, and my hair was still wet from the shower I’d taken twenty minutes before when I’d been too cold to concentrate.

Yes, I looked atrocious, but that wasn’t important.

“What happened after I left?” I asked, lowering my eyes to the zipper on the front of his jacket because I couldn’t bear to look directly at his face for another second.

“Can I come in?” he asked. “Because it’s a long story and your hair is going to freeze if the door stays open.”

“Oh. Sure,” I said, stepping back to hold open the door. “But my mom and grandpa are asleep, so you have to be quiet.”

“Yeah, I wasn’t planning on yelling the house down,” he said as he walked inside, and I wasn’t sure if he was joking or being a sarcastic ass.

I quietly shut the door and went into the living room, hyperaware of him following me. I didn’t know what to do with myself, so I sat down on the couch and crossed my arms over my chest.

“So what did he say? How much trouble am I in?” I asked, knowing my cheeks were bright red because it felt like my skin was on fire.

“You’re not in any trouble, actually,” he said, dropping down into the chair across from me.

“What? But he seemed really mad,” I said, confused. “And I shouldn’t have been in the locker room.”

“Okay, so let’s just say things got weird after you left. I’ve got a lot to tell you, so I need to ask—respectfully—for you to just be quiet until I’m finished. I need you to hear everything I have to say before you respond.”

This can’t be good.

“All right,” I said, grabbing one of my grandma’s flowered throw pillows and hugging it to my chest. “I’m listening.”

“So you were right—Oz was crazy pissed. He thought I brought some random girl into the locker room for… um, reasons that were not hockey-related. Like he saw—”

“I get it,” I snapped, wondering how much more mortification I could take without spontaneously combusting in shame.

“Okay, good,” he said, and it annoyed me that it looked like he wanted to laugh. “He was livid, so I had to explain that we knew each other when we were kids and that you aren’t some random girl. I explained to him who your grandpa is—”

“Oh my God, is he going to tell my grandpa?”

Just when I’d thought the embarrassment couldn’t get worse.

“No,” he said, then added, “Well, I mean, I don’t think so. He didn’t really say.”

“What did he say, then?”

“You were going to be quiet while I told you, remember? From five seconds ago…?”

“Go already,” I said with a sigh, just wanting this to be over.

“Thank you,” he said, and when he offhandedly rubbed his shoulder, I noticed how exhausted he looked.

“What I was saying is that Coach didn’t respond the way I thought he would.

When I said I knew you when we were kids, he and Gordy mistakenly thought that meant we were, like, childhood sweethearts or something. ”

“Weird,” I said, looking down at my lap and trying not to remember the kiss.

We hadn’t been childhood sweethearts except for that one night.

“For sure weird. But the guys who were with him are hockey dudes. Two of them are D1 scouts, and the one with the bad haircut is a sportswriter who has ties to everyone who matters in USA hockey, right?”

“Okay,” I said, remembering what Grandpa Mick had said about those guys.

“They came to see me play, which was great, because I’m trying to convince them I’m not a fuckup, because a picture that, uh, might’ve made it look—”

“Like you were smoking the world’s largest bong?”

His eyebrows went down. “You saw the picture?”

“Yeah, it was our dinner entertainment the other night,” I said.

“Shit—did Mick see it?” he asked, looking panicked.

“Would it really matter if my grandpa saw a picture of you with a bong?”

“Mick Fucking Boche?” He looked at me like I’d just said something ridiculous. “Of course it would matter.”

“He’s just a man, you know.”

“Oh, okay,” he said, rolling his eyes.

“Back to the story,” I said, gesturing with my hands for him to get going.

“They came to see me when I’m supposed to be proving I’m not a locker room distraction, so the fact that they walked into the locker room and saw what they thought was me hooking up with a girl is a fucking nightmare.”

“I bet,” I said, almost feeling bad for him.

Almost.

“But when they heard who you were from my coach and his incorrect assumption that you and I are maybe an item—”

“What?” This day was a nightmare. “They think we’re an ‘item’?”

“Shhhh and listen,” he said, shaking his head.

“It was inferred by my coach because he misunderstood what I said. Anyway, once they heard that you’re a genius who’s going to Harvard and Mick Boche’s granddaughter, all of a sudden they started looking at me in a different light.

Like maybe I wasn’t a fuckup and maybe I’m dating somebody who’s going to be a good influence on me. ”

How could four dudes have it all so wrong? I wondered.

“But we aren’t dating,” I said dumbly.

“No shit, Sherlock,” he said.

“No shit, Sherlock,” I mocked in a stupid voice under my breath, irritated by his attitude.

“Dani.” He leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, and said very seriously, “Obviously this is a shit show, a misunderstanding that got way out of hand.”

“Obviously,” I said.

“But while I’m trying to get people to see who I really am—not a partying fuckboy—this could be a good thing.”

“For you ,” I said, trying to keep up with his direction. “So, what—you want to just let them think the wrong thing because it makes you look better?”

“You promised to be quiet until I was done,” he said with raised eyebrows and a tilted head, like he was reasoning with me.

“No, I didn’t,” I argued. “I believe I said, ‘I’m listening.’?”

“Dani,” he said through gritted teeth. “Please?”

“Fine,” I said with another eye roll.

“So,” he said, clearing his throat. His face got super serious as he put his big hands together like he was praying and said, “I have a proposition for you. I will get you the hockey-manager job so you can have Harvard, if you agree to go along with this and maybe, like, let people think we’re kind of dating a little bit. ”

“What?” Whatwhatwhat the hell ?? “You want me to pretend we’re dating ?”

“I mean, it’d be low-key,” he said, looking offended by my reaction. “It’s not like we’re going to make a formal announcement or anything. We’d just, y’know, kind of act like we’re seeing each other.”

“Absolutely not,” I said, irrationally irritated by his nerve, his assumption that I’d just do him the tiny favor of ruining my own not-yet-formed reputation.

I could just imagine how it would go.

I’d be his little nerd beard, giving him the credibility he needed, yet all his friends would know the truth and laugh behind my back about the way Miss Four-Eyes was fake prostituting herself for an extracurricular.

Meanwhile, I would be on display for the rest of the school to notice me— who even is she?— and make judgments about me because I was suddenly dating their superstar.

Talk about landing on everyone’s radar in the very worst way.

The new girl is dating Zeus? Ew.

And eventually, when he didn’t need the alliance anymore and fake dumped me, I’d be left alone to deal with whatever my undeserved tattered reputation might look like.

“Don’t shut it down without considering it first,” he said with narrowed eyes, like he found my reaction to be ridiculous.

He was ridiculous.

And then he said, “Keep in mind that regardless of what we do, people are going to hear about what the coaches thought they saw earlier. So do you want the rumor to be about two people who barely know each other, or two people with history who might be reconnecting?”

I wanted to hit him. I wasn’t a violent person, but I wanted to hit him for saying something I hadn’t considered, for speaking out loud something that was a freaking nightmare.

People were going to be talking about me tomorrow, about me and Alec in the locker room together.

I knew he was right, but I was too mad to give in.

“Listen,” I said, my throat tight because everything was going south at Southview so freaking fast. “It sucks that you’re having to face the consequences of your actions, but I’m passing on this opportunity.”

He squinted a little more, looking like he was trying to see in the dark as he glared at me. “You’re not at all interested in helping when it might actually help you, too?”

“Nope,” I bit out, glaring back at him.

“Harvard isn’t worth a tiny little favor to you?” he asked.

“Not even a tiny little bit,” I replied, overwhelmed by the stress of what tomorrow was going to look like at school.