How to upstage your Ex's wedding : fake date a hockey player

**Olivia's POV** I should have known something was wrong when Ryan ordered for me. He never did that. In six years, not once. Ryan always handed me the menu first, always waited, always said," You pick, I'll eat anything."It was such a small thing but it was ours. Tonight at Bellini's, he barely glanced up before telling the waiter, "She'll have the pasta." I stared at the side of his face and said nothing. The waiter disappeared. Soft jazz floated from somewhere near the back of the restaurant. Around us, couples leaned into each other over candlelight, completely unbothered. I watched them for a second and tried to breathe through the knot that had been sitting in my chest since Ryan picked me up tonight. Something was off. I'd felt it the moment he hugged me at the door, too tight, too long, the kind of hug that felt like an apology. All week he'd been distracted. Checking his phone at weird hours, Going quiet mid-sentence, Forgetting things he never forgot. I'd told myself it was hockey stress. Season pressure. His contract coming up. I'd told myself a lot of things. "You look beautiful tonight," he said, and his voice landed all wrong. The words were right. The tone wasn't low and careful, it sounded like he rehearsed them. I looked at him and I noticed the way his jaw was set, the way he hadn't touched his wine, the way his hands were flat on the table like he was steadying himself. "Ryan." I set my glass down slowly. "What's going on?" "Can we just enjoy dinner first?" "Tell me." He exhaled. Looked down. Looked back up. "My contract is up in the spring. Chicago's been talking to my agent. Starting position. Better money. A real shot, Liv." "Okay." I nodded. "So we go to Chicago. I'll find something there. I've done it before, I can...." "I think we should take a breakup", Ryan said. Everything stopped. The jazz. The clinking glasses. The couple laughing beside us. All of it just.....stopped. "Say that again." "I think...." "No, I heard you." My voice was dangerously quiet. "I just want you to say it again. Out loud. To my face." "Olivia...." "Say it, Ryan." He met my eyes. "I think we should break up." I laughed. Short and sharp and completely humorless. "Right. Okay.... And this is because of Chicago." "It's complicated...." "Is it? Because it sounds pretty simple from where I'm sitting. You got a better offer and I didn't make the cut." "That's not..." "Then explain it to me." I leaned forward. "Because I have been with you for six years. Six years, Ryan. I have shown up to every game, every away stretch, every 6am practice you needed me awake for. I drove eight hours to move to a city I didn't choose because you needed me here. So explain to me, slowly, how any of this is complicated." "Your whole life shouldn't revolve around my career" "It wasn't revolving. It was a choice. I made a choice because I loved you." My voice cracked on the last word and I hated it. Hated that he could hear it. "Don't rewrite it now just to make yourself feel better." "I'm not rewriting anything" "You ordered my food tonight." The words came out before I could stop them. He blinked. "Six years and you have never once ordered for me. But tonight you did. Because you'd already checked out. You sat down at this table already knowing what you were going to say and you couldn't even look at me long enough to hand me a menu." His jaw tightened. "Olivia" "Did you even want to be here tonight?" "Of course I...." "Answer the question." That silence said everything. "I gave up my job in Portland for you." My voice was rising and I didn't care who heard it. "I had a promotion lined up. A whole life. And you called me and said You needed me here and I came. I just came, Ryan, because that's what you do when you love someone. You show up." "I never asked you to give that up" "YOU DIDN'T HAVE TO ASK." My palm hit the table. Every head in the restaurant turned. Ryan flinched. "I did it because I trusted you. Because you looked me in the eyes and made me feel like this was forever. Was any of it real? Any of it?" "Yes." His voice broke. "All of it was real." "Then why does it feel like nothing?" I was shaking now. Fully shaking, hands and voice and all of it. "Why does six years feel like nothing right now?" "It's not nothing.." "You're leaving me for a trade, Ryan." "It's not just the trade..." "Then what? What else is there? Because I'm sitting here and I cannot find one single reason that makes this okay." My eyes were burning. I refused to blink. "Give me one reason. One." He opened his mouth. Closed it. Opened it again. Nothing came out. And that, that was the moment. Not the words, not the dinner, not the too-careful hug at the door. That silence, right there, was when I understood that there was no reason. There was no good reason. There was just Ryan, choosing easier, and me, sitting across from him in a restaurant where he'd ordered my food, realizing I'd seen this coming for weeks and loved him too much to admit it. I stood up. "Olivia, wait. Ryan said" "Don't." I grabbed my purse. My chair scraped back so hard it almost fell. "Don't follow me outside. Don't text me tonight. Don't show up at my door with flowers thinking I'll forgive you by morning." "Just let me explain...." "You had six years to explain." I looked at him one last time. Really looked, the way you look at something you're trying to memorize because you know you're never going to see it the same way again. "You should've started a lot earlier than tonight." I walked out. The cold Seattle air hit me the second the doors swung open. I stood on the sidewalk gasping like I'd been underwater. My hands were shaking so hard I could barely unlock my phone. I found Dani's name and pressed call. She picked up on the first ring. "Did he propose?" "He broke up with me." "I'm on my way," Dani said, voice going completely flat and certain. "Don't move. Don't go back inside. Don't talk to him if he comes out. Ten minutes." She hung up. I stood there on the sidewalk watching strangers walk past, arms linked, laughing and I looked at my phone when it buzzed. *Ryan: Please don't shut me out. I'm sorry. That's not how I wanted tonight to go.* I deleted it. It buzzed again. *Ryan: I do love you. I need you to know that.* I blocked his number. Through the restaurant window I could see him still sitting at our table, his face in his hands. And then I saw the waiter set something down beside him. Small. Square. Velvet. A box. My stomach dropped. He'd brought a ring tonight. He'd planned to propose. And somewhere between sitting down and ordering my pasta, he'd changed his mind. I turned away. Dani's car pulled up seven minutes later. She leaned across and shoved the door open, took one look at my face, and said, "Ice cream or tequila?" "Both." "That's my girl." As she pulled away from the curb, I caught a glimpse of Ryan bursting through the restaurant doors, still holding that little velvet box. I didn't look back. Six years of my life, gone before the bread basket even arrived. "So," Dani said after a few blocks of silence. "Scale of one to ten. How badly do we want to destroy him?" I stared out at the city I'd moved to for his career. "Dani," I said quietly. "How do you make an ex regret everything?" She glanced over at me, slow smile spreading across her face. "Oh, Liv," she said, already reaching for her phone. "I thought you'd never ask."