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“Your excitement at seeing your boyfriend was very convincing.”
I decline to dignify her statement with a response.
How I just said I’ve never been a sports girl? Yeah, after my first hockey game, I think that’s changed.
Sharing the jubilation of a home team goal with an arena of people, the breath-stealing tension when an opposing player let loose a puck in Hudson’s direction, the sense of being caught up in something bigger than myself. It was incredible.
The end result only makes it better. The Black Bears win, 3-0. Hudson didn’t let a single puck get past him.
The chatter of the crowd after the game tells me how big a deal this win was. The team we were playing against, Grizzwood College from New Hampshire, is apparently one of Brumehill’s longtime rivals. Even though preseason games usually are treated more like scrimmages, supposedly Brumehill and Grizzwood go all out every time they share the ice.
Despite that, we still shut them out, thanks to our new goalie. My fake boyfriend.
Excitement still hums over me as Olivia and I leave the arena. I’m definitely going to keep going to hockey games, even after Hudson and I stop faking.
After Hudson and I stop faking.
The happy buzz dancing through me suddenly stops, like a flame dying in an instant when the oxygen is sucked away from it. It feels like there’s a heavy piece of lead sitting in my chest, dragging me down.
Luckily, my phone vibrates, dragging my attention away from my sudden mood swing. Which is a good thing, because I’m really not in the mood to examine it right now.
It’s from Hudson. Now there’s another mood swing, in the opposite direction. A smile carves high on my lips as I read his text.
Hudson
Me and the guys going out to Loser’s to celebrate. You in?
If I were Hudson’s girlfriend, I would be by his side to celebrate a shutout win in his first game as a Black Bear, wouldn’t I?
I text him that I’ll be there. It takes a little bit of coaxing, but I get Olivia to tag along.
We get there before the guys. After ordering drinks for ourselves, we find a table.
Loser’s Luck Tavern is the most popular college bar in the town of Cedar Shade. Its interior is cozy with warm wood-paneled walls, tiled floors, and wooden tables and chairs and are clearly well used. The walls are lined with sports memorabilia and signs from beer companies that throw off warm, neon light. It’s not the least bit pretentious. The kind of place that already feels like home by the second time you visit it.
Hudson texts, telling me that he and the guys are a couple minutes away.
In the meantime, two other guys saunter over to our table. One of them has closed-cropped light brown hair, and his demeanor makes it clear at a glance that he’s thrown back a couple drinks already. He leans his forearms against the side of our table and rests his gaze on me.
“Darren,” he introduces himself. “What’s your name?”
I’m about to politely tell him that I’m not interested, but before I can say anything, a much lower, colder voice addresses itself to Darren.
“Hey, buddy.”
The tone of those words is enough to make Darren’s back straight as a rod in an instant. He turns around to find himself face to face with six-foot-four, tattooed mountain of muscle.
Hudson drills him with a glare sharp enough to cut through solid rock. “You’re talking to my girl.”
19
HUDSON
Iprobably didn’t have to make that poor guy think I was seconds away from biting his head off his shoulders. But I couldn’t help it.
Seeing Summer in a Black Bears jersey, knowing it’s my jersey, sent such a rush of possessiveness through me that the sight of another man talking to her made me want to grab him by the neck and throw him not out the front door, but through it.
Luckily for everyone involved, especially him, I settled for beaming a glare at him that could curdle blood. He was smart enough to get the message, and he and his friend are now on the other side of the bar.
