Page 5

How High?

Aleks

I’d called Mia as soon as I left the meeting with Kilman and Bancroft, my head still pounding from the alcohol from the night before along with their whining about my behavior.

Annoyingly, Mia had been coy about what was so goddamn important until I got my agent to join us on a video call.

Now that she’d explained her publicist’s hare-brained idea, I understood why.

The four of us sat in silence, our images reflected on my laptop screen. The bottom box was Mia and Isabella in sunny California, the two of them huddled close in her back yard that I spent time in last summer during the offseason. In the top left box was my agent, Giana Johnson, her curly hair piled into a high bun on her head and her oversized glasses slipping down her nose a bit as she scribbled something frantically in her notebook.

And then there was me in the top right, blinking slowly, lips flat and unamused.

That resting face of indifference was my armor — always had been. I had the knack for looking bored or pissed off, or a combination of the two, regardless of what was happening around me.

But inside?

I was a fucking mess.

Because my best friend, the woman I’d been sick over since I was sixteen, the one woman I knew I could never truly have…

She’d just proposed that we pretend to date each other.

No, that we pretend to be engaged .

And just the thought of her being mine, even if only for a publicity stunt, had my insides twisted into an unholy knot of anticipation.

“This sounds like a one-sided deal,” I said carefully, coolly, hoping I was masking how badly I was ready to say yes without hearing another damn detail.

“Not at all,” Isabella assured me, glancing at Mia who was giving her an I told you so glare before she turned her attention back to me. “Like we explained, this works out very well for both of you. Just think how happy Dick will be when you tell him you’re engaged, getting on the straight and narrow. And with a pop star who will undoubtedly sell tickets to your games, at that.”

I smirked. I liked Isabella — had ever since I met her seven years ago. Out of all the people pulling the strings of Mia’s career, she was the only one who had my trust. She cared about our girl. She gave a shit what happened to Mia the Human, not just Mia the Musician.

Still pretending like I wasn’t sold, I nodded toward the screen at my agent. “G?”

Giana Johnson was the kind of woman who could throw you for a loop in the first hour you spent with her. On the outside, she was anything but intimidating. She was maybe five foot one and one-hundred-and-twenty pounds soaking wet, with big, curly hair and glasses. Combine that with her wardrobe that was some sort of mix between schoolgirl and librarian, complete with an array of plaid skirts, tights in every color, and cardigans she wore over crisp white blouses, and she was as confusing as she was intriguing.

But as soon as she opened her mouth, anyone around her was quick to realize she was a shark.

She took absolutely zero bullshit from anyone — me most of all. When companies offered me sponsorship or reached out about doing a commercial, she was quick to combat their initial offers and get me what I deserved. When I had to do interviews for the team, she was there with talking points and a reminder of everything I didn’t have to answer, no matter how the media pried.

She knew her shit, and she earned every bit of the fifteen-percent commission I paid her.

“Okay, I will take off my professional hat for only a moment to say that the bookworm inside me is absolutely screaming at this,” she said, and I could tell from how her little knee was bouncing in the video frame that she was trying really hard to keep her shit together. “I mean, a fake engagement between a hot hockey player and a goddess of a pop star? The fact that you two have known each other since you were teenagers? This is trope gold .”

Mia and Isabella shared knowing smiles, giggling a bit as I slow-blinked and waited for my agent to come back to reality.

“Now, putting my professional hat back on ,” she continued, her mouth tugging to one side. “I can definitely see some major benefits to this arrangement. I mean, Aleks…” She shook her head, going over the notes she’d taken. “Even with the Ospreys winning the Cup, our sponsorships have run dry. Everyone wants Tanev and Brittain and the other pretty faces.”

I arched a brow.

“Not that you don’t have a pretty face,” she said. “They just… smile more.”

I rolled my eyes.

“But this…” She tapped her notebook. “This would have people beating down our doors. Commercials, interviews, branding… I mean, the possibilities are endless. But,” she added. “I am a bit worried about the details.”

“Which ones? We are open to discussion on any of the points we brought up,” Isabella quickly fired back.

“Well, for starters — the breakup at the end of it all. We need to find a way to ensure that the scenario can work well for both of us. I understand wanting Mia to be the picture of a strong woman walking away from a toxic relationship, but we also need to preserve my client’s reputation and ensure this shines a favorable light on him.”

“He’ll be back to the pussy god the internet fandoms praise him for being now,” Isabella said flatly. “What more could he want?”

The two of them continued on, sizing the other up as they went through the details of this arrangement.

But I tuned them out, my focus sliding to Mia.

Fuck, it made my chest ache to look at her, to take in those blue eyes and pouty lips of hers. Isabella said something that made her smirk, that dimple in her left cheek popping and reminding me of all the times I’d wished I was brave enough to reach out and touch her there. Her long brown hair was straight today and a little greasy, like she hadn’t washed it in a few days. It was pulled half up in a clip on her head, the other half falling over her shoulders.

She used to wear it like that when we studied together, when she’d chew her pencil and frown at her textbook and I’d pretend I wasn’t just there to study her .

She was too good for me back then. She was still too good for me now.

Never stopped me from wanting her, though.

“You’re fine with this?”

The words shot out of me, silencing Giana and Isabella in the middle of them working out details. Mia blinked before looking at me through the screen.

“With people thinking we’re engaged?”

I swallowed with the question, my throat tight as I tried to feign indifference.

Mia looked soft for only a moment before her lips flattened, one dark eyebrow arching. “Are you asking me , or stating your own concern?”

“We’re not exactly each other’s type,” I pointed out, thinking about her clean-cut ex. He had golden skin, golden hair, and a golden boy reputation. He wasn’t missing any teeth. His face didn’t have a single scar on it.

And then, there was me.

“Don’t worry — I’m sure the parade of women that follows you around will be waiting when this is all over,” Mia snarked. “And if you don’t want to do this, just say it and stop wasting our time.”

“I didn’t say I didn’t want to do it.”

“Well, you’re not exactly jumping up and down with excitement, either.”

I smirked. “Is that what you want, Mia? Want me to jump for you?” I leaned toward the camera. “How high, sweetheart?”

Isabella placed a calming hand on Mia’s arm as she narrowed her gaze, and Giana muttered a soft, “Aleks,” in warning.

I just leaned back in my chair and crossed an ankle over my knee, arms folding over my chest. It was defensive body language, but I’d perfected it enough that it came off as arrogance.

I kept my eyes on Mia as a moment of silence passed between us, and then Giana cleared her throat. “As long as Aleks is okay with it, so am I. My only condition is that we all stay in constant contact about what the plan is, and that there are no surprises.”

“No surprises,” Isabella promised. “Once you give the word, I’ll have my people make calls to some high-profile gossip sites and influencers to get the ball rolling. I have inside sources armed with photographs and details about how Mia and Aleks have been dating for months now.”

All eyes snapped to me, and I didn’t miss how Mia went from the wall of fortitude she always was to the girl I used to know. Her eyes softened just marginally, just barely enough for me to even notice. But I saw it in the way she subtly chewed the inside of her bottom lip, in how she was wringing her hands together in her lap.

She wanted this.

I leaned forward, elbows balanced on my knees and my attention solely on her. “What do you want out of this more than anything, Mia?”

“This is for your benefit, too, Aleks,” Giana started, but I held up a hand to ask her for a moment of quiet.

Mia frowned, looking at her hands before she shook her head and lifted her gaze to mine again. For a moment, I thought she was going to lie to me. But she sighed, like she knew better, and she hit me with the truth.

“I just want to be free of Austin, of Garrett, of all this stupid criticism over a breakup that happened more than a year ago. I want people to listen to my music and hear it for what it is — not what those two men think it is.” She swallowed. “I love this album. And I want it to have a fighting chance.”

My jaw was tight as I listened to her. Fuck both of those men for making her feel small, for taking away something she worked her ass off for. Austin got to bask in the glow of their breakup while she tried to escape the rubble of it unscathed. That douchebag reporter friend of his didn’t help.

I wanted to squash them both like the bugs they were.

“And my role?”

Mia held her chin a bit higher. “Prove them all wrong. Show them I’m different than what they think. I’m not just the crazy ex-girlfriend still hung up on Austin. I’m…” She flushed. “Desirable. Sexy. Talented. I’m alluring enough to capture the NHL’s bad boy. I’m good enough for him to want to stay.”

Her words sucker-punched me square in the ribs, my next breath halting in my chest before slowly leaking out. The fact that she didn’t already feel that way about herself, that she didn’t see it…

I nodded, leaning back in my chair again.

I wouldn’t just deliver on what she’d asked.

I’d also make that punk ass bitch of an ex-boyfriend of hers wish he’d never fucked with my girl.

I’d make him wish he’d never been born.

“I’m in,” I said.

Mia blinked. “Really?”

A slight tilt of my lips was all I gave her in answer, and I thought I saw that beautiful skin of hers flush as Isabella and Giana continued talking over details. They were already discussing NDAs and plotting our next public appearances, going back and forth about how we’d lay the groundwork, and discussing when the proposal should be.

They landed on August — just a month away.

I kept my eyes on Mia.

And thought of all the excuses I’d have to touch her now.