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That this is a work assignment.

The tunnel is chaos, the way it always is after a win.

Cameras jostling, a rink-side reporter shouting Jax's name, a Meridian rep glowing because the shot his money paid for just went out to a few million living rooms.

Steam rises off the players as they file past, chirping, and every one of them clocks Cade and throws him a nod, because my brother is a respected hockey player.

"Cade." His name comes out of me like a cough. "You're here."

"Boston plays here Thursday. I flew in a couple days early to surprise my little sister. I’ll get my skates in at a rink across town till my team arrives." His eyes drop to Hunter's number stretched across my chest, and everything in his face goes to stone. "Surprise."

Jax moves before I can, sliding half a step in front of me, still in full gear, jersey soaked through and clinging, hair dark with sweat, and I watch him pull on the easy grin.

"Cade. Good to see you, man. That was for the cameras. Meridian's people are standing right there. The whole point is to sell it."

"Sell it." Cade doesn't spare him a glance. He looks at me, because he knows I can’t sell a lie and he wants the truth. Jax can lie to a packed room. I’ve never once managed to lie to my brother. "That’s what that was, Mar? Selling it?"

My brother learned my tells before I knew I had them. He knows I bite the inside of my cheek when I'm scared, that I go very still when I'm caught. I hold still anyway, which is its own kind of confession, and I look him dead in the eye.

"My boss told me to fix Jax’s image" My voice barely wobbles. "You know I got promoted to clean up the roster's image. Jax is the worst of it, by a mile. He’s my first assignment. We stage a stable relationship, the sponsor stays, the team keeps nine figures, and I move on to my next assignment. This one required some social proof to make it believable."

Every word is true, and every one of them shaped into a lie by the ones I leave out. "The kiss sells the story. I might have gone too far for the cameras."

He wants to believe me. I can see him straining toward it, because the alternative is his best friend and his baby sister are seeing each other, and that’s a door Cade will do anything not to open.

His eyes never leave mine. "You're wearing his number."

"’Remember the cameras. I can absolutely wear your jersey next time but I might get fired."

The corner of his mouth almost breaks. "You put a Boston sweater on in this barn, they'll walk you out the loading dock." The almost-smile doesn't reach his eyes.

Cade steps into Jax, close enough that the reporters at the wall lean in, and drops his voice. "On the phone, you gave me your word. Man to man. Nothing’s going on. Why did you kiss my sister?"

"She has someone she likes." Jax doesn't blink. He’s so good at this it frightens me. "This is a publicity stunt with a deadline. We have to sell it to the brand sponsor."

Cade holds out his hand. It's a test, and we all know it. Jax takes it, and the two men I love most on this planet stand there gripping each other's hands, sizing each other up the way they've done since they were boys.

Cade lets go first. Something in him stands down, because trusting Jax is the load-bearing wall of my brother's whole life and he’s not ready to take a sledgehammer to it over one kiss.

"Okay." The air goes out of him. "Okay. I'm sorry. It just looked..." He scrubs a hand down his face, and when he lifts his head he's only my brother again. "Come here, Mar. Tell me about this guy you like, what’s his name?"

“Ethan.”

“I can’t wait to meet him.”

Cade hauls me into a hug, and I peer over his shoulder. I catch Jax watching us with a look I’ve never seen on him. Something skinned raw. It's gone and he’s gone by the time Cade lets me go.

"I'm here till Thursday." He loops his arm around my neck the way he did when I was ten and steers me toward the tunnel mouth. "Dinner tomorrow, the three of us. I want to actually meet the man the whole internet has dating my sister. Fake or not, anybody spending this much time with you gets vetted. Even if I know him."

Six days of my brother in this city while I fake-love the one man I have never stopped actually wanting. Sitting across a table, close enough for my brother to read the truth off my face like a scouting report.

At the mouth of the tunnel Cade stops. For a second my big brother slips through again, and he looks at me the way he looked at me through a car window all those years ago, the night I swore nothing happened.

"Are you okay? Really okay?"

His voice roughens, and for a second he's not a famous hockey player, he's just my brother who used to drive me to school.

"Hey." Low, just for me. "You'd tell me. If it was ever more than a job, you'd tell me. Right?"