Chapter 5: The Part Where I Almost Forget It's Fake
1367 Words
**Olivia's POV**
The speeches started at nine.
I know because Kane checked his watch at eight fifty-seven and said, very quietly, "Three minutes," like he was bracing for something.
"You hate speeches?" I asked.
"I hate long ones."
"How long is long?"
"Anything over four minutes." He looked at me sideways. "The Storm's PR director once spoke for twenty-two."
I pressed my lips together. "That's a hate crime."
The corner of his mouth moved. That almost-smile that I was starting to recognize, the one that never fully arrived but meant more than a full smile would have.
"Exactly," he said.
The lights in the room dimmed slightly as someone tapped the microphone at the podium. I shifted on my feet and without thinking about it I leaned slightly into Kane's side, just a fraction, just enough to feel the solid warmth of him through his jacket.
He didn't move away.
He also didn't acknowledge it.
We just stood there, side by side in the dim light, listening to the Storm's team captain talk about community outreach and charitable giving, and it felt, easy. Dangerously easy. The kind of easy that crept up on you before you had the sense to be suspicious of it.
Seth appeared on my other side somewhere around minute six.
"He's been going for six minutes," Seth whispered loudly across me to Kane.
"I know," Kane said, without moving.
"Last year he went fourteen."
"I know."
"I have an escape route mapped if you need it."
"Seth."
"Left side door, past the dessert table, straight through to the terrace...."
"Seth."
"I'm just saying the option exists."
I looked between them. "Do you two do this at every event?"
Seth grinned. "Only the boring ones." He looked at Kane. "She fits, you know."
Kane didn't answer.
But his hand moved to my back again, that same brief, barely-there warmth,and this time it stayed a little longer before dropping away.
I kept my eyes forward and told myself it meant nothing.
The speeches ended at nine twenty-three.
I know because I felt Kane exhale beside me the second the applause started, slow and quiet, like a man released from something.
"Fourteen minutes," he said.
"Could've been worse," I offered.
"It was exactly as bad as I expected."
The room loosened after that. People moved toward the bar, toward each other, toward the tall windows overlooking the waterfront. Kane steered us toward a quieter corner near the edge of the room, away from the thickest clusters of people, and for a moment it was just us and the low music and the city lights bleeding through the glass behind him.
"You did well tonight," he said.
"You sound surprised."
"I'm not." He looked at me directly. "I just don't say things I don't mean."
I studied him for a second. "Is that a warning or a promise?"
"Whichever is more useful to you."
I picked up the fresh drink a passing waiter had exchanged for my empty glass and took a slow sip. Across the room Seth was already talking to three different people at once, laughing at something, completely at ease. Around us cameras still drifted, slow and patient.
"Can I ask you something?" I said.
"You asked me that earlier."
"I have more than one question."
Something shifted in his expression. Not quite amusement but close to it. "Go ahead."
"Why did you agree to this? Really." I looked at him. "Because Dani told me the PR angle. Sponsors pulling out, contract complications, narrative control. I get all of that. But you could've hired a publicist. You could've given an interview, released a statement, done literally any of the standard things people do." I tilted my head. "Why this?"
He was quiet for a moment.
"Statements don't change feelings," he said finally. "People see what they want to see. You can release a hundred statements and if the image in someone's head is already fixed, the words don't land." He looked out toward the room. "But this..." A pause. "People believe what they watch happen in front of them. They believe what feels real."
"And I feel real," I said slowly.
"You are real." His eyes came back to mine. "That's the point."
I didn't have an answer for that. So I didn't try to find one.
We stood in silence for a moment that stretched longer than it should have.
"Your turn," I said finally.
"My turn what?"
"To ask me something."
He considered that. Like he was actually deciding, not just reaching for the first thing. "Why did you agree to this?"
"Dani talked me into it."
"Dani talks people into things for a living. That's not an answer."
I looked down at my glass. "The invitation," I said quietly. "She spelled my name wrong. Amber. Ryan's fiancée." I turned the glass slowly in my hand. "And I just, I looked at it and I thought about six years. Everything I gave, everything I changed, everything I let go of quietly so Ryan could have exactly the life he wanted. And she didn't even know how to spell my name." I looked back up. "I don't want to be the sad ex at that wedding. I don't want him to look across the room and feel nothing. I want him to see me and feel it. Whatever it is. I want him to feel something."
Kane watched me the whole time I spoke. Still and attentive in the way he was attentive, like you had his full focus without him making a performance of it.
"He will," Kane said.
"You sound certain."
"I am." Something moved behind his eyes. "Ryan Cole has spent his entire life watching things he underestimated turn out to be worth more than he calculated." His voice was quiet and even. "He's going to look across that room and understand exactly what he gave up."
The way he said it didn't sound like a script. It didn't sound like comfort either.
It sounded like something he meant.
The cameras drifted past us again. Without discussion Kane shifted slightly closer, the way we'd been doing all night, easy, practiced, natural. His shoulder almost touching mine. Anyone watching would have seen a couple in a quiet moment, close and comfortable.
That was the arrangement.
That was all it was.
"We should probably circulate," I said. "Be seen a little more before we leave."
"Probably," he agreed. But neither of us moved.
And then Seth materialized out of nowhere like he had radar specifically calibrated to inconvenient timing.
"Hate to interrupt whatever this is," he said cheerfully, clearly not hating it at all, "but Mercer, Coach wants a word before you leave. Something about next week's schedule."
Kane looked at me. "Two minutes."
"Go," I said. "I'll be here."
He handed his glass to a passing waiter and followed Seth, and I stood in my quiet corner watching him move through the room, the way people shifted to let him through without him asking, the way eyes followed him, the way he moved like someone who had learned to carry weight so long he'd stopped noticing it.
My phone buzzed.
I looked down at the screen.
It was a notification. A tagged photo, already posted by one of the event's official accounts. Kane and I walking in through the entrance, his hand holding mine, both of us caught mid-step in the light.
We looked, I realized with a jolt, completely real.
The caption read: *Storm's Kane Mercer spotted with mystery date at tonight's charity dinner. Someone's having a good week.*
I stared at it for a long moment.
Then my phone buzzed again. A different notification this time. A follow request on my personal i********: from an account I recognized immediately.
*ryankcole.*
Ryan had found the photo.
My heart did something complicated in my chest — not the sad, hollow thing it had been doing for five weeks. Something different. Something with an edge to it.
Kane reappeared at my elbow. "Ready?"
I locked my phone and slipped it into my clutch.
"More than ready," I said.
And this time when he offered his arm I didn't hesitate even a little.
- Writer
