“Enough,” he says, voice clipped. “You both know what’s at stake. Keep it believable. Don’t give anyone a reason to question this story.”
He isn’t telling us wecan’tbe real; he’s telling us not to blow the plan. He’s talking about the fallout, headlines, and the potential to, once again, do damage control.
But Alycia’s shoulders stiffen anyway, like she heard something else entirely and needs those boundaries, even if I don’t want them. That’s why we can’t be anything but fake. Becauseshesaid it can’t be anything more.
Alycia nods without a word, but her hands are trembling. She presses them against the table to hide it,her expression smoothing into something perfectly calm.
“Got it.” I swallow hard, forcing my jaw to unclench, my voice sounding rougher than I mean it to. “You really think we can pull this off?”
“We don’t have a choice.” Her laugh is soft, humorless.
“Maybe not,” I say, leaning closer, my voice low. “But if we did?”
She looks at me, and it’s the closest thing to an answer I’m going to get because the way her eyes soften before she looks away tells me everything I already know. She wants this, but she just can’t afford to.
Cooper’s gaze flicks between us, suspicion and concern mixing into something unreadable. He hesitates for a second before heading for the door. The second it closes behind him, the silence shifts again, charged in a different way.
“You’re really enjoying this, aren’t you?” she says, gathering her things without looking at me.
“You make it easy.” I grin, slow and unrepentant, because if I don’t joke, I’ll say something I can’t take back.
She looks over her shoulder, and for the first time all week, our eyes meet. And I know right then that this whole fake dating thing is going to destroy me.
“You really mapped it all out,” I say, forcing a lightness into my tone.
“It’s my job, Kyle.”
“I can see that.” I lean back in the chair, watchingthe careful set of her jaw. “Were you always this good at pretending?”
“You think I’m pretending?”
“You tell me.” I shrug, even though my pulse is going haywire. “You’ve had three days to sell the world on us, and you haven’t even tried to sell it to me.”
Her breath catches, just barely. “Because I don’t need to.”
“Right. Professional. Got it.” I laugh, but it comes out quieter than I mean it to.
“I am a professional.”
“Yeah,” I murmur. “That’s the problem.”
Something flickers in her eyes, and for a heartbeat, I think she might say something real. Then she blinks it away and tucks whatever she is feeling back behind that polished wall.
“Goodnight, Kyle,” she says, voice even.
She adjusts the strap of her bag, gathers the last of her things, and starts toward the door. Each step sounds like it costs her something as she heads for the door. When her hand closes around the handle, she pauses long enough for me to think she might turn back. But she doesn’t.
For a long time, I sit there, staring at the empty chair she left behind. The faint smell of her perfume lingers in the air, like the room hasn’t figured out she is gone. She’s everywhere and nowhere all at once. Each moment we’ve spent together has been replaying in my head since the second she pulled away.
She’s built this wall around herself out ofprofessionalism and press quotes, and I keep throwing myself against it like an idiot who doesn’t know when to stop bleeding. Every time she smiles that careful smile, every time she calls me Hendrix instead of Kyle, it is another reminder she is already building a world where I don’t exist. But I can’t stop wanting to find a way in.
The packet she left sits on the table, perfectly aligned, every margin neat. My name runs along the headers in her steady handwriting, like she’s trying to make even that look professional. I trace the letters with my fingertip because it’s the only way I’m allowed to touch anything that belongs to her. A bitter laugh slips out.
“Fake dating,” I whisper to the empty room. “Right.”
If this is fake, then I’m the biggest liar of all because somewhere between her kiss and her walking away, I stopped being able to pretend to be anything but hers.
I shove the folder under my arm and leave the room before I can talk myself into something stupid. I’ve spent half my life chasing the scrape of blades and the crack of a puck on my stick because the ice is the one place I always knew who I was. Now it just echoes.
