Fake Skating(101)

I was talking fast, but he just watched me calmly.

I had no idea what he was thinking.

“You didn’t deserve to be attacked, but I’m begging you—as a friend I’ve known my entire life.” I looked into his eyes and prayed he’d have a heart about this. “Can you pleasepretend this didn’t happen?”

“How exactly would I do that?” he asked, pointing toward his battered face.

“I mean, you’re a hockey player,” I said. “If you just allude to the fact that you got in a scuffle, no one will—”

“I’m not letting Barczewski off the hook on this, Dani,” he said, shaking his head.

“But don’t you see that you could ruin his future—”

“Hedid this, not me,” he snapped, his eyes narrowing. “And don’t yousee how wrong it is if he’s able to behave this way and still get everything he’s ever wanted?”

“I mean, I can see how it might feel that way,” I forced myself to say, loathing him for being so vindictive.

“No, it is exactlythat way. I’ll be honest—the idea of him flaming out and failing doesn’t make me sad. I’d fucking love it. But Ididn’t do anything to make that happen. He is the low-class hothead who chose to come after me.”

“Please,” I said, feeling perilously close to tears. “I am begging, Benji, please don’t—”

“Ben,” he snapped.

“Ben, come on,” I said, fully panicked now. “And trust me, he won’t be getting everything he’s ever wanted.”

“Yes, he will,” he said, and it was obvious that was all he cared about.

“What can I do, Ben?” I blinked fast because I didn’t want to cry, but I could tell I was failing and that was terrifying. “Please tell me what I can do to convince you.”

“There’s noth—actually.” His eyes narrowed as he looked at me, like a villain hatching a plan before my very eyes. My heart was in my throat when he said, “Oh. You know, I think there issomething.”

“What is it?” I asked, a sense of foreboding settling over me.

“Nothing illegal, relax,” he said, smirking like it was funny. “But if you don’t want me to file charges, you need to end things with him.”

“What?”

I looked at his stupid facial hair and broken face and couldn’t believe I’d heard him right.

He couldn’t be telling me to break up with Alec.

That… wasn’t possible, right?

But he nodded and looked happy all of a sudden, like he was excited. “You’ve only been here a minute, so it’s not like I’m asking you to divorce your husband, and he’s going to juniors as soon as he graduates, so you won’t be together for long anyway.”

He really was more of a tool than I’d ever thought he could be.

“But, like, so then why would you want this?” He might’ve had a crush on me when we were kids, but I could tell he didn’t now, so this didn’t make any sense.

“Because you are actually the one thing he’s always wanted,” he said with a casual shrug. “It’s perfect.”

“No, I’m not, and this… this is ridiculous,” I said, my stomach so heavy I felt nauseous because I could tell he meant it.

He’s seriously demanding I break up with Alec.

“It’s ridiculously simple,” he said. “You break up with him, this goes away. If you don’t, I’m filing a report.”

It felt like my heart was shattering when I looked at that real-life villain, because he was dead serious, and I didn’t have a choice.

He really was the asshole Alec had always said he was.

But I’d seen the fear in Alec’s eyes when he realized he might’ve jeopardized his chance to be the anchor for his family—for the whole damn town—and I never wanted to see that look again.

So there was only one thing for me to do.

I had to break up with him.





CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR Alec




My heart almost stopped when I heard the doorbell.

My parents had taken Ashton and Cole to their eight o’clock basketball game, so I was trying to ignore the world by getting some overdue homework done in my room. I seriously expected to see a police car when I looked out the window, so when I opened the front door and saw Dani, standing there in the bright morning sunlight, I was so fucking relieved.

Relieved it wasn’t something bad, and also relieved that she hadn’t decided to pretend she’d never met me after everything that’d happened the night before.

There she stood, bundled up in her big coat with her hair in a long, loose braid, and I’d never been so happy to see anyone in my life.

“Is this a new thing, you walking to my house?” I asked, holding the door open so she could come inside.

“Oh, your face,” she said, blinking fast and raising a hand like she was going to touch it, her eyebrows scrunched together in concern.

But then she dropped her hand and asked, “How does it feel?”

“Stings like a bitch,” I admitted, and then she gave a little nod and walked into the house.

I closed the door and followed her in, realizing as Dani stopped beside the couch but didn’t sit that we were home alone.