Page 23 of Fake Skating

What the fuck was that?

I was still sitting up in bed at twelve thirty, “ricochet”in my ears and a pounding in my skull, because how the hell was Benji already sniffing around when she’d just moved back? He’d always been like a puppy at her heels, so I shouldn’t be surprised.

For all I knew, they were best friends.

Did you get my text?

Why would that fucking asshole even have her number?

It doesn’t matter anymore.

But yes—it kind of fucking mattered because I hated him.

Benji Worthington had been an annoyance as a kid, a douchey little irritant who lived next door to Dani’s grandpa and liked doing things like tattling behind my back and being passive-aggressive when he was too little to even know what passive-aggressive meant.

But once we hit middle school and I had to deal with him on the ice, he became a fucking menace.

He was always on the best teams, the teams that recruited even though that wasn’t supposed to be a thing, and it bugged the shit out of me.

He had a hockey IQ of zero, yet somehow always managed to make the cut.

Surely it had nothing to do with all that expensive equipment and those unlimited resources.

But as much as I didn’t like him, he fucking haaated me. It seemed to piss him off that no matter how much money he had, I was always the better player. Since he couldn’t do anything about that, he used to talk shit on my family all the time.

And I could handle assholes chirping at me —that was part of the game, right?

But Ben always managed to come up with “jokes” about my life that were too personal, that had just enough truth to sting.

My mom’s crappy minivan, the time my dad got laid off when I was in eighth grade…

he always had something to insinuate, then loved playing innocent when I lost my cool and lit into him later.

Then I was considered the “aggressor,” the one who was out of line.

I finally beat the shit out of him at a party after my dad’s car accident, which was probably what started the whole “Barczewski’s a loose cannon” storyline (even though it wasn’t true).

I’d been at the hospital that day, waiting for my dad to wake up after yet another surgery (he’d had seven), when my mom told me Dani and Hannah were on their way. Apparently they’d heard about the crash and decided to fly in for the day to see my dad and be with my mom.

And I’d been so fucking happy to hear that, not only because I hadn’t seen Dani in a couple of years, but because we were all drowning from the fallout of the accident, and I needed my friend—who’d stopped responding to my postcards—so fucking badly.

But when Hannah showed up, she was alone.

I asked about Dani, and she looked embarrassed when she said, “She’s not good at hospitals and wasn’t sure if she’d be intruding, so she had Benji just take her to the hotel.”

I knew I couldn’t have heard her right. “Benji?”

To a hotel?

“Yeah, remember Benji Worthington, the kid who lived next door to us?” Hannah said it like it was hilarious, grinning as she told me that he’d been on the same flight and had offered them a ride.

Small world, right?

“That kid is so sweet,” she’d said, and I wanted to put my fist through a wall.

What a small fucking world.

I’d been so bummed that Dani hadn’t wanted to see me; it was like her refusal to come to the hospital made everything that was already horrible feel even worse.

And the idea of that jackass getting to see her brought it even lower.

But when I let Vinny drag me away from the hospital and to a party in White Bear later that night, and Benji was (of course) there, everything hit rock bottom.

“Zeus! I saw our old friend Dani today,” he said in that sniveling rich-boy accent that had nothing to do with geography and everything to do with the silver spoon that was jammed all the way up his ass. He’d grinned and pulled out his phone. “Check it out.”

I’d been so drained that fighting wasn’t on my mind.

At all.

I’d been interested to see what Dani looked like, honestly, even as I felt so damn disappointed in her.

But instead of showing me an awkward selfie of them at the airport where I could convince myself she looked like she hated him, it was a photo of just her.

Sitting in a chair, grinning up at the camera.

A chair I recognized as one we’d stolen from my dad’s shop.

Holy balls, she’d taken him to our spot.

She hadn’t come to the hospital to see me or my critically injured father, but she’d taken King Douche to our secret spot and was laughing with him.

It made me want to puke.

I’d kept my cool for another hour, but as soon as Benji started in on his shit— is it true your dad was drinking when he got in that crash?— I hit him.

Multiple times.

Knock it off, I told myself, leaning the back of my head against the wall and skipping to the next song as I tried to figure out my next move. Because no matter how much I racked my brain, I couldn’t come up with anything better than Dani. More specifically, (fake) dating Dani.

I didn’t want to let her in, but I needed her, dammit.

“Screw it,” I said, pulling off my headphones and dialing the number my mom had given me in case I wanted to be nice and reach out.

While it rang, my mind went back to the locker room yet again.

How could someone’s neck smell so good?

“Hello?”

Something about her voice when she answered (I couldn’t believe she answered), the way she sounded tired, brought back memories that I didn’t want to remember.

“Hey, it’s Alec,” I said, realizing we’d never spoken on the phone before.

How is that even possible?

“Hey,” she said, and I was surprised she didn’t hang up or say something about the Benji incident earlier.

“Listen, I know you already said no,” I said, jumping right into it as I switched on the Bluetooth speaker next to my bed to its lowest volume, “but I’m wondering if you’d consider letting me try to change your mind.”

She sighed, but since it wasn’t a no, I kept going. “You can still reject me, but I’ve come up with more reasons why this might benefit you.”

“Have you?” she asked.

“I have,” I said. “Can I share them with you?”

“Okay,” she said.

Okay? “Wait—are you awake?”

“What?”

I said, “I’m worried maybe you’re sleeptalking or something, because you sound very agreeable.”

“I’m always agreeable. Now talk before I hang up.”

“Okay.” I took a deep breath and said, “So, for starters, I think you need to look at this in a pros-and-cons sort of way because I’m having a hard time coming up with any reasons why this would be a bad thing for you.”

“Of course you can’t,” she said. “Because why would any girl not want to be linked with Zeus the Hockey God?”

“I feel like you’re prejudiced against me for being athletic now,” I said, wondering offhandedly where she was in Mick’s house. Was she in bed, wherever that might be, or back down in the living room, where she’d been lost in studies when I showed up earlier?

I’d seen her through the window of the door, deep in thought with her eyes on her textbook and her bottom lip between her teeth.

I hated how pretty she was; I didn’t need that shit.

“Are you jealous—is that it?” I teased, hoping to soften her. Regardless of anything else, I needed her to be receptive to this. “We both used to be klutzes together, and now you’re left all alone…?”

I heard her cough something that sounded like a laugh, and it felt a little bit like a win.

“Believe me, I’m not jealous,” she said.

“Okay, so back to my outline. I’m going to give you reasons why this is a good thing for you.

Number one—obviously—you get the extracurricular.

You can be a hockey manager, which will get you the activity you need for Harvard.

Since going to Harvard is very important to you, pretending to like someone to make it happen seems like a small sacrifice, don’t you think? ”

“That was a pretty good argument,” she said, “but it’s the no-brainer. What’s next?”

“You’re not going to make this easy, are you?”

“Not at all,” she said.

“Okay, so number two… well, actually, who am I kidding, I only have two.”

“Wow,” she said. “Did you spend all of five seconds on this outline?”

“I spent a solid twenty minutes, if you must know,” I said, wondering if number two was going to piss her off or embarrass her. It was a gamble, but it was the only other reason I had.

“Give me number two, then,” she said.

“All right. So, I’ve never had to go to a new school, but I don’t imagine it’s fun. Being the new kid probably sucks, and you seem to be a little on the introverted side now. And I don’t mean that in a bad way; I just—”

“Get on with it,” she said, but she didn’t sound mad.

“Okay, so wouldn’t it be nice to be linked to someone who knows everyone? I could introduce you to everybody, and then you would have, like, a social cushion, right? You wouldn’t have to stress or be nervous, because you’d be with me.”

“All I hear is arrogance,” she said, but I could tell she was teasing.

The old Dani is still in there.

I explained, “It’s not arrogance; it’s just a fact. I’ve lived here my whole life, so of course I know everybody. Which means if you date me—”

“ Fake date you,” she corrected.

“ Fake date me,” I said with a sigh, “you’re in. You can be confident and comfortable because you’ll be instantly part of the group. Surrounded by friends.”

“Okay, your number two is stupid, because the fake friends would be yours, not mine,” she said.

“Potato, potahtoe. And don’t you want to have a little bit of a social life?” I asked.

“Like you, the Bong King of the Twin Cities?”

“Not that you’d believe me,” I said, torn between wanting to laugh at her smart-assery and wanting to scream because I was never going to live down that photo, “but I was just holding that—”

“For a friend, right?” she said. “Also, I like the way you assume I will never have a social life without your help. It is possible that I will once I’m here for more than a minute.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“And what exactly would this look like?” She sounded irritated again, like the idea of it was too much, and I knew I was losing her. “Not that I’m considering it at all, but in this scenario, would everyone think we were an item, including our families?”

“Hmm—I haven’t thought about that—this idea is new for me, too,” I said, picturing my mom; shit, she’d lose it if she thought I was seeing Dani.

“My gut says yes, though, because letting people in on the secret seems like a bad idea, like a quick way for it to fail. If we were to do it, I think it’d be best for everyone except us to think it’s real. Do you disagree?”

“Um, no,” she said, “I think you’re right. Not that we’re doing this.”

“Of course not,” I said, smiling in spite of myself because she was flipping back and forth so fast it was hard to keep up.

“And how exactly does this work? How do two people pretend to date?”

“Come on, Collins, quit being all Harvard and overthinking things. How hard can it be?” I reached over and pulled open my nightstand drawer, rifling through junk papers with my hand as I felt around for that old Polaroid.

“We just need to be seen together a couple times a week, looking like we like each other, and maybe go to, like… things together sometimes. I can get on Instagram and post pics of us being a couple. As long as the guys on the team see us—and the guys I play against—it’ll get back to the right people. ”

“So you really don’t know,” she said.

“Well, I’ve never pretended to date anyone before.”

“Fair.”

Found it. I grabbed the picture and pulled it out. “All I know is that I need to do whatever it takes to convince the fucking world that I’m gaga for a good girl and have my shit together.”

“But, like,” she said quietly, suddenly sounding nervous, “won’t it be hard to pretend when we don’t even know each other?”

“Isn’t that what dating is, though—getting to know someone?”

I looked down at the faded snapshot between my fingers, the photo I’d looked at hundreds of times over the years, just as “Want Me” by Stephen Dawes came on.

And you’re too cool for me to be yours

It was Dani and me, soaking wet after a water-balloon fight in my backyard.

I was pretty sure we’d been ten or eleven at the time.

Our clothes were drenched—she was wearing a Spider-Man T-shirt and I’d been in my bro-tank phase where I cut the sleeves off of every shirt I owned to show off my (soft) biceps—and we were sporting matching rainbow sunglasses that we’d gotten for free at the Southview Days parade.

We looked like little idiots.

“So your plan would be for us to get to know each other while we’re pretending?”

Where the fuck had those kids gone? I wondered. How was it possible that they needed to get to know each other? I said, “I mean, why not?”

I put the photo back— fucking sentimental dipshit— because I kept forgetting the important piece of this puzzle.

I wasn’t the same guy anymore.

Since the minute I heard she was moving back, I’d been all twisted up trying to convince myself I didn’t give a shit about her. Because when we were kids, I’d always been half-obsessed with her, pudgy little Alec chasing Dani around while she laughed and chased me back.

But Dani Collins didn’t have any power over me anymore, because I was no longer that kid. Faking nice with her wasn’t going to kill me or make me fucking sprout feelings, for God’s sake, because it was just a means to an end.

“And if I don’t want to do this,” she said, “is the hockey-manager position off the table?”

Yes, it’s off the table, I wanted to snap, but I didn’t. “I wouldn’t say it’s off the table, but if you do this, it’s on the table with ribbons and bows and I’ll make it so easy that you will thank me and name all your sons after me.”

“That’s hard to imagine,” she said, “because isn’t your middle name Herbert?”

“RIP Grandpa Herb, do not disrespect his glorious name,” I said, surprised she remembered.

“I would never—Herb was an icon,” she said, and I heard a smile again.

“So…?” I prodded.

Please, please, please.

“Hmmm,” she said slowly, like she was really weighing her options.

“Please?” I added, just in case it helped. “I promise you won’t regret it.”

“Don’t make promises you can’t keep,” she said. “And I’ll let you know in the morning.”

“How about I pick you up?” I heard myself blurt, throwing out words and ride offers in a desperate attempt to convince her.

“Are you sure you’re not just going to drive your car through Benji’s house like a jackass when you get here?” she asked.

“I can’t promise anything,” I said.

She sighed. “So mature.”

And then I couldn’t stop myself. I asked, “You aren’t seriously texting buddies with that piece of shit, are you?”

She was quiet for a minute, but then she just said, “I’ll see you in the morning. Don’t be late.”