Three Hundred and Sixty Five What?? Hell No!!

the proposal

ARIA.

“Hey,” the deep voice repeated, softer this time. “Are you okay?”

I stayed frozen on my knees, my tear-stained face turned up toward Kellan Hayes. He looked imposing standing over me—broad shoulders blocking out the pale winter sky, wearing his black and gold university hockey jacket. Up close, without a screen or a stadium fence between us, his sharp jawline and brow made him look entirely out of reach.

He looked like the golden boy everyone swore he was.

He didn't know who I was.. He just saw a hysterical girl sobbing in the slush outside Mason’s lodge.

Kellan took a m step forward, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a folded gray handkerchief. He knelt down in the snow, bringing himself to eye level.

“You’re freezing,” he said gently, extending the cloth toward me. “Did someone hurt you inside? Do you need me to call someone?”

The sound of his voice—so calm, so unreasonably kind sent a jolt of pure white-hot rage straight through my grief.

This was the boy who had walked away from Lily. This was the killer standing here, offering me comfort with hands that had broken my family forever.

“Don’t touch me!” I shrieked, slapping his hand away with enough force to send the handkerchief fluttering onto the snow.

Kellan blinked, startled, his eyes widening as he drew his hand back. “Woah. Easy. I’m just trying to help—”

“I don’t want your help!” My voice cracked. I scrambled backward in the snow, pushing myself up on trembling legs. “Stay away from me, Kellan. Just stay the hell away from me!”

He stood up smoothly, raising both hands in a non-threatening gesture, his brow furrowing in genuine confusion. “Wait. Do I know you? How do you—”

“Don't speak to me!” I screamed over my shoulder, turning around and sprinting toward the road.

I didn't care that my socks were soaked through, or that my throat burned with every freezing breath I drew into my lungs. I ran until the lodge vanished behind the wall of trees, until the sound of Mason’s laughter and the sight of Kellan’s face blurred together into one giant, unbearable ache inside my chest.

By midnight, my dorm room was dead quiet.

I lay flat on my back under three heavy blankets, staring up at the ceiling. My toes were still numb, but the rest of my body felt like it was burning up with fever.

Every time I closed my eyes, the scene replayed with sickening clarity. Mason handcuffed to his own headboard. Tessa’s bare shoulders. The cruel, effortless laughter that had poured out of both of them like I was nothing more than an ugly punchline. She had been my best friend and he had been the boy who promised me that things would get better after Lily died.

They had taken the tiny bit of warmth I had left and set it on fire.

Driven by an old, familiar reflex, I reached over to my nightstand and grabbed my phone. My thumb automatically navigated to my secondary browser, opening up the main anonymous account I used on campus social media pages. @HayesExposed.

Over six thousand students followed it. For twelve months, I had fed them every rumor, every accusation, every piece of dark speculation about Kellan Hayes. I dragged his name through the dirt because no one else would make him pay for Lily’s death.

My fingers hovered over the keyboard as I opened a new draft.

Golden boy Kellan Hayes was seen lurking around off-campus housing again today. Wonder what dirty secrets he’s trying to cover up this time?

I stared at the words. Usually, typing those words gave me a twisted sense of control. It was my armor, the only way I could fight back against a world that had let Lily’s memory slide into quiet obscurity while Kellan’s life got brighter by the day.

But tonight, my thumb stayed frozen above the Publish button.

I looked at the draft. Then I looked at the ceiling.

The anger felt hollow. It felt paper-thin, crushed under the weight of Mason’s betrayal and the memory of Kellan kneeling in the snow, offering me a hand.

I deleted the text, tossed the phone onto the foot of my bed, and pulled the blanket over my head, weeping until there was nothing left inside me.

The next morning, my laptop chimed with a notification.

I sat up, my eyes swollen and red, rubbing my temple where a killer headache was brewing. I opened my inbox, expecting a automated library notice or a class lecture update. Instead, an email from the Department of Student Employment & External Affairs sat at the top of the list.

Dear Ms. Bennett,

Regarding your application for the High-Performance Athletic Communications Internship: Your preliminary profile has been reviewed and selected for an immediate interview today at 10:00 AM in the Athletics Executive Suite, Room 304.

I stared at the screen, blinking back sleep. I had never applied for an athletics internship. I was a journalism student, and I intentionally avoided the sports department at all costs to keep my distance from the hockey team.

Desperate for money, I thought, looking around my cramped, lonely room. And more than money, I needed a distraction. I couldn't spend another hour staring at my walls, wondering if Tessa was with Mason right now, laughing about the cake smeared on his floor.

I threw on a high-necked black sweater, pulled my dark hair into a tight tail to hide how washed-out I looked, and walked across campus toward the glass-and-steel monstrosity that was the University Sports Complex.

Room 304 was at the far end of the third floor, past glass cases filled with silver trophies and giant framed photos of alumni in NHL jerseys. I knocked once on the door.

“Come in,” a clinical voice called out.

I turned the brass handle and stepped inside. The room was spacious, with a long mahogany conference table and floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the main ice rink below.

I took two steps forward and stopped dead.

Sitting at the center of the table was a sharp-looking man in a tailored gray suit, holding a thick folder. Sitting right beside him, leaning back in a leather chair with his dark hair damp from a morning practice, was Kellan.

My heart slammed against my ribs.

Kellan turned his head when the door opened. His eyes landed on me, and I saw the exact moment recognition flashed across his features. His posture straightened instantly.

He didn't look arrogant now; he looked completely baffled.

“You,” Kellan muttered, his voice low. “The girl from the lodge.”

The man in the suit didn't look surprised at all. He smoothly closed the folder, folded his hands over it, and offered me a cold, professional smile.

“Take a seat, Miss Bennett,” the man said. “I’m Arthur Briggs, Kellan’s brand manager and liaison to the NHL draft scouts. I believe you know my client.”

“I... I think there’s been a mistake,” I managed to say, my hand tightening on the strap of my bag. “I didn't apply for this job.”

“You didn't,” Briggs agreed calmly. “I generated the automated invitation to bring you to this room without causing a scene in your dorm hallway.” He tapped the folder with his index finger. “Because for the past six months, my team has been running a digital trace on sixteen different anonymous accounts dedicated to defaming Kellan Hayes.”

The air was sucked completely out of the room and my blood ran cold.

“We pulled the IP addresses, Miss Bennett,” Briggs continued, his tone dangerously light. “The posts made from @HayesExposed, @CaptainsLies, and fourteen sub-accounts originate from your personal laptop and your campus Wi-Fi login. You’ve spent an entire year running a targeted harassment campaign against the top NHL prospect in the country.”

I couldn't breathe.

My hands shook so badly I had to tuck them behind my back.

Then I looked at Kellan.

He was staring at me, his jaw clenched tightly, his dark eyes ablaze with a terrifying mix of confusion and anger.

“It was you?” Kellan asked, his voice dripping with disbelief. “You’re the one who’s been posting all those things? Calling me a monster? Saying I should be suspended?” He stood up slowly, looming over the table. “I tried to help you last night! You were sobbing in the snow like your life was over, and I actually felt sorry for you and all this time, you’re the coward hiding behind a screen trying to ruin my life?”

“Kellan, sit down,” Briggs ordered smoothly, though his eyes never left mine.

Kellan didn't sit. He took a step around the table, his tall frame cutting off my path to the exit. “Why?” he demanded, “I don't even know who you are! What did I ever do to you, Aria?”

The sound of my name on his lips made my stomach turn. I locked my jaw, fighting back the wave of panic that threatened to drown me. I couldn't tell him about Lily. If I told him I was Lily’s little sister, he would prepare his lawyers. He would cover his tracks.

He would build a wall I could never break through.

“I don't have to tell you anything,” I whispered, forcing myself to look him dead in the eye despite the terror tearing through me.

“You ruined two major sponsorship deals this morning alone because of those posts!” Kellan snapped, closing the distance between us until he was standing just inches away. The faint smell of ice and expensive cologne hit me, sending a shiver down my spine. “The draft is in four months, and scouts are asking if I’m a liability because of the garbage you write! Give me one reason why I shouldn't take this file directly to the dean and the police right now!”

I swallowed hard, refusing to let my eyes drop. “Do it then. Throw me out of school.”

Kellan stared at me, his chest heaving, stunned by my refusal to break. Silence stretched across the room, heavy and suffocating.

Behind him, Briggs cleared his throat and stood up, smoothing his tie. “Expelling her doesn't fix your public perception, Kellan. If she gets expelled, the rumors look true. The media will say we silenced a whistle-blower.”

Briggs walked around the table and stopped next to Kellan, looking at me like I was a puzzle piece that needed to be forced into place. “However... if the girl who has publicly hated Kellan Hayes for a year suddenly becomes his devoted, loving partner, the narrative changes entirely. The press will call it a passionate misunderstanding turned romance. The scouts will see a stable, reformed image.”

My head whipped toward Briggs. “What?”

Kellan turned to his manager, shocked. “Briggs, you can’t be serious—”

“I’m entirely serious,” Briggs said smoothly, then looked back at me. “Miss Bennett, you have a choice. Option one: We file criminal defamation charges and submit this evidence to the university ethics board today. You lose your scholarship, your degree, and your future.”

He paused, letting the words hang in the freezing air.

Then Kellan slowly turned back to me. The shock in his eyes had hardened into something calculated. He stepped into my personal space, towering over me, his shadow completely swallowing me up.

Kellan leaned forward, his eyes locked onto mine, his breath brushing against my skin.

“Option two,” Kellan purred, “Fake-date me for one year… or I ruin you the same way you tried to ruin me.”