The Boy Who Checked Me First

Chapter 11: The Date That Wasn't Fake Anymore

I woke up in Cole Maddox's tux jacket.

Not in the metaphorical, romance-novel way. I literally woke up on our couch, in yesterday's green satin dress, with his black tux jacket over me like a blanket that smelled like cedar and ice and bad decisions that cost $5000.

Cole was in the kitchen, barefoot, in sweatpants and a white t-shirt, making coffee with the kind of focus he usually reserved for breaking down power plays. His bow tie was on the counter. His hair was still messed up from last night.

"Morning, Auction Prize," he said without looking up.

"Morning, Reckless Spender," I croaked. My throat was dry. My mascara was definitely on his jacket now. "What time is it?"

"Six. You passed out at eleven after you made me watch three TikToks explaining why satin dresses are a scam."

I sat up. The slit in my dress had ridden up. I yanked it down. "Did we... did we do the interview? I remember Coach yelling and champagne."

"We did the interview. Channel 5. You told the nice lady reporter that you think youth hockey should get more funding because 'little girls shouldn't have to wear boys' jockstraps from the lost and found.' It was very political. Very you."

Oh god.

My phone had 47 notifications. The top one: @WhitmoreGossip posted our photo from last night. Cole's jacket around my shoulders, his hand in mine, pulling me off the balcony. Caption: SOLD TO THE CAPTAIN FOR $5K. Tell us again this is 'just teammates' @AriaChen10 @Maddox77. We have video.

The video had 31k views.

Cole slid a coffee across to me. "Don't read it."

"Too late."

He sat across from me, his knees almost touching mine. In the morning light, without the tux, he looked younger. Tired. The captain mask off.

"About last night," he started.

My phone buzzed. Then his. At the same time.

COACH JENSEN: My office. 8 AM. Both of you. Wear normal clothes. And Maddox, bring your checkbook. And Chen, bring your A-game for cameras today. Your $5000 date is TODAY. 2 PM. Youth rink downtown. Channel 5 is following you for the 'hearts of hockey' segment. This is good PR. Don't screw it up by looking like you hate each other. Or like you like each other too much. Be... wholesome.

I stared. "He wants us to go on the date TODAY? For cameras?"

"Wholesome," Cole repeated, looking disgusted. "He wants wholesome after he auctioned you off like cattle."

"He auctioned ME. You bought me."

"You were not for sale, Chen. I was paying off a problem."

"With five grand you don't have!"

"I have it," he said quietly. "I saved it from summer league. It's fine."

It wasn't fine. Cole was on partial scholarship. He worked at the rink sharpening skates in the summer. Five thousand was not nothing.

"Cole -"

"Don't. It's for the kids. Tax write-off." He stood up abruptly. "2 PM. I'll pick you up at the rink. Don't wear that dress."

---

The Whitmore Youth Hockey Rink was not Whitmore Arena. It was smaller, the ice was chipped, the boards were covered in hand-drawn posters that said GO LIONS!!! in glitter glue, and it smelled like old hot dogs and hope.

Cole was already there when I arrived at 1:55, lacing up a tiny pair of skates for a little girl with missing front teeth.

He was in a plain black hoodie, jeans, his captain hat backwards. No tux. No swagger. Just... Cole.

"You're early," I said.

He looked up. I was in leggings, my Whitmore Hockey hoodie, hair in a messy ponytail. The wholesome look Coach demanded. His eyes softened for half a second.

"You came," he said.

"You paid $5000 to force me on a date to a children's rink. Of course I came. I'm scared of what you'd do if I didn't. Buy the whole building?"

The little girl giggled. "Are you his girlfriend?"

"No!" we both said at the same time. Too fast.

Cole coughed. "This is Aria. She plays with me. On my team."

"You're a girl!" The little girl's eyes went wide. "On the boys team?"

"I'm on the team. Not the boys team. The team," I said automatically. It was my line now.

The girl stared at my bruised ribs - the hoodie had ridden up - and said, "Whoa. Are you hurt?"

"Battle scar," I said.

Cole's hand came up and gently pulled my hoodie down to cover it. His fingers brushed my waist. The girl pretended not to see. Kids see everything.

At 2 PM sharp, Channel 5 arrived with a cameraman and the same too-perky reporter from last night, plus Coach Jensen with a clipboard that said SMILE DAMN IT.

"Alright, love birds! Just act natural!" the reporter chirped. "Skate, teach the kids, be inspiring! Pretend we're not here!"

Natural. Right. With a camera in our faces while I tried not to fall over because I was used to hockey skates, not figure skates they gave me.

Cole took my hand. On camera. Interlaced our fingers like we'd done it a thousand times.

"For wholesome," he whispered in my ear, his breath warm.

"For wholesome," I whispered back, and let him pull me onto the ice.

What happened next was not what I expected.

Cole was different here. At Whitmore Arena he was Captain Maddox - loud, commanding, checking guys into boards. Here, he was just... Cole. He knew every kid's name. He remembered that Jayden needed a wider tape job because his ankle was weak, that Sofia was scared of backward skating, that Marcus's dad couldn't afford new laces so Cole had been buying them.

He was patient. He knelt to eye level. He high-fived with his giant hands.

And the kids worshipped him. Not because he was captain. Because he showed up every Tuesday and Thursday at 6 a.m. before our own practice to volunteer.

"You never told me you did this," I said after we finished a drill, while the kids were doing a water break and the camera was focused on them.

"You never asked what I did at 6 a.m.," he said, a little defensive. "You thought I was just brooding sexily."

"I thought you were doing protein shakes and staring at yourself in the mirror."

He laughed, surprised. A real laugh that made his eyes crinkle.

"I started after my freshman year," he said, watching Jayden try to stop. "After the whole Mascot Maddox thing. I wanted to go somewhere people didn't know that photo. These kids didn't care. They just wanted someone to teach them how to not fall."

I looked at him. Really looked. The guy who held my foot in an ice bath because I was freezing. Who threatened to end Park's starting career for taking a photo of me. Who spent $5000 he couldn't afford because some alum looked at me wrong.

"Cole, why did you really bid?"

He went still. The camera was still on the kids. Coach was distracted yelling at the reporter.

"Because," he said slowly, not looking at me, "if I didn't, that guy would have taken you to dinner and you would have been polite even though you wanted to punch him. And you would have come home and said 'it's fine, it's for charity' and iced your ribs alone. And I was tired of watching you do everything alone when you have a roommate. Who is your captain. And..."

"And?" My voice was barely a whisper. My heart was hammering so loud I was sure the mic would pick it up.

He finally looked at me. His eyes were that impossible winter-blue.

"And I wanted to take you on a date, Chen. Even if I had to buy it at a charity auction like an i***t. Is that so hard to believe?"

The youth rink felt suddenly too hot despite the ice. My cheeks were on fire.

"Cole -"

A puck slammed into the boards right next to us. We both jumped.

Marcus, the 10-year-old, had shot it way wide. "Sorry! My bad!"

Cole cleared his throat and skated over to help him, his ears red.

For the next hour, we taught. We raced. We fell - I dragged Cole down with me once and we both ended up in a heap on the ice while the kids screamed with laughter and the cameraman got the perfect wholesome shot. His arm was around my waist. My legs tangled with his. We were both laughing so hard our stomachs hurt.

It felt... easy. Not like last night's tux and spotlights. Just us, on ice, where we actually made sense.

When the segment was over and the kids left with their parents, the rink emptied. Coach Jensen gave us a thumbs up. "Wholesome as hell! Channel 5 is going to eat this up! Maddox, you might have just saved her scholarship committee vote next week! Chen, you might have saved his NHL draft interview!"

He left. The cameraman left. The lights went half-dim.

It was just us. Alone on the ice. At 4 p.m. on a Tuesday.

Cole skated to the center and held out his hand again. No cameras. No kids.

"One more lap? For the $5000?"

I took it. "You got ripped off. This date should have been $50 and a coffee."

"You drink terrible coffee," he said, pulling me close as we skated slow. Slower than we'd ever skated. No drills. No race. Just gliding, hand in hand, his other hand finding my waist again, this time not fixing a zipper, not covering a bruise. Just holding.

"You know," I said, looking up at him, our noses inches apart, "for a just-teammates, just-roommates situation, you are really bad at the 'just' part."

"You're one to talk, Ice Queen. You slept in my jacket."

"You put it on me!"

"Because you looked cold."

"I looked hot, you said I looked -"

I didn't finish, because he stopped skating. In the middle of the empty rink, with the Zamboni humming in the background and the glitter GO LIONS!!! signs watching, Cole Maddox stopped and looked down at me like I was the only thing on his ice.

"Aria," he said, my name different in his mouth than anyone else's.

And he leaned down.

My eyes fluttered shut. My cold, chapped, hockey-player lips parted. His hand tightened on my waist -

His phone rang. Loud, obnoxious, classic rock ringtone.

He flinched. "Shit."

He pulled it out. The screen said DAD. He stared at it like it was a penalty.

"I have to take this," he said, his voice suddenly tight. Different. The captain mask slamming back down.

He answered and turned away, skating a few feet off, his shoulders hunched.

"Hey, Dad. No, I was - Yeah, I saw the article. No, it's not - It's not like that. She's my teammate."

I stood alone in the center of the ice, the cold seeping back in.

Teammate. Right. Just teammate.

When he hung up, his face was pale. Angry. Not at me, but it felt like it.

"Everything okay?" I asked.

"Yeah. My dad saw the auction video. He thinks I'm distracted. He thinks you're a distraction." He ran a hand through his hair, agitated. "He's coming to the game Saturday. With a scout."

Oh.

The game Saturday. The one where press was coming because of me. The one where Cole's dad - who apparently thought I was a problem - would be in the stands with an NHL scout watching his son.

"We should go," Cole said, not meeting my eyes. "Curfew."

We skated off in silence. At the bench, he helped me unlace my skates like always, his hands careful, but he didn't touch my waist. He didn't hold my hand.

At the door, he finally said, "Tonight... on the ice..."

"Wholesome," I said quickly. "For the cameras. I know."

He looked at me, something raw and frustrated in his eyes. "It wasn't for the cameras, Aria."

Then he walked out into the cold, leaving me sitting on the bench with borrowed skates and a heart that had just learned what a $5000 almost-kiss felt like.

My phone buzzed.

@WhitmoreGossip had posted the youth rink footage already. Someone from the parents had leaked it.

Video: Us falling on the ice, laughing, tangled. His arm around me. My hand on his chest.

Caption: From $5K auction to free falling (literally). Captain's charity date looks a lot like a REAL date. Coach Jensen, is this still "wholesome"? 👀 #IceBathGate #CaptainBoughtHisRookie

18k likes in ten minutes.

And a comment from an account I recognized - Cole's dad's old team logo as his profile pic:

@MaddoxSr: Focus on the draft, son. Not distractions.

I closed my eyes.

Saturday's game just became do-or-die. For both of us.