The Boy Who Checked Me First

Chapter 15: The Press Conference Where We Lie For 30 Minutes Straight

The Whitmore Athletic media room has never been full for hockey. Football, yes. Basketball when we made March Madness in 2019, yes. But men's hockey scrimmage coverage? Usually it's Coach Jensen, two bored student reporters, and a guy from the local paper who asks the same question about "grit" every week.

Today, there were 40 people, three cameras, a Channel 5 light so bright I could see my own pores, and a handwritten sign taped to the door that said NO @WhitmoreGossip - JENSEN which @WhitmoreGossip was already filming through the window.

I was sitting at a folding table in my Whitmore Hockey polo, my hair straightened for once because Lena threatened me, my swollen lip covered with concealer that Cole kept staring at like he wanted to wipe it off with his thumb. Again.

Cole sat next to me in his captain polo, his own lip still scabbed, his knuckles still bruised from Volkov's face, his knee bouncing under the table at 100 mph. He hadn't said a word since I got in the room.

Because 20 minutes ago, in the hallway, I'd decided not to tell him about Seattle Torrent yet.

Lavoie's voice in my head: December. Development camp. Three days. No promises.

I wanted to tell him in our apartment, with ice on my ribs and his tux jacket not involved. Not in a hallway where Coach Jensen was yelling "WHOLSOME!" like a battle cry.

So now we were both keeping secrets and about to lie on camera for 30 minutes straight.

Jensen stepped up to the mic first, looking like a man who'd aged five years since the ice bath photo.

"Alright. Quick ground rules. This presser is about Whitmore Hockey Hearts charity week, about our youth program, about team culture. Not about gossip, not about kissing, not about auctions. We are a hockey team. We play hockey. Any questions about personal lives will be ignored. Are we clear?"

Channel 5 reporter — Jessica, blonde, perfect teeth, the one who called us "hockey's most wholesome charity couple" last night — raised her hand with a smile that said I am absolutely going to ask about kissing.

Jensen pointed at her. "Jessica."

"Thanks, Coach! Jessica Martinez, Channel 5. This question is for both Aria and Cole. Your penalty box kiss on Saturday has 4.2 million views across platforms, Seattle Kraken's official account shared it, and your charity date auction raised $5000 for youth hockey. How do you balance this sudden... personal spotlight with your athletic goals?"

I grabbed the mic before Cole could say something that would get us benched until graduation.

"Great question! We balance it by being teammates first," I said, in my best wholesome voice. The voice I use when I talk to my dad's pastor. "Cole and I live together for logistics, we play together because Coach puts us on the same line, and that kiss — that was — heat of the moment, adrenaline, the crowd chanting —"

"Crowd told you to kiss?" A guy from the Whitmore Howl, our student paper, interrupted. "So if crowd told you to fight, you would fight? Oh wait, you did."

The room laughed. Cole's jaw tightened.

"We're competitors," Cole said, taking the mic, his voice low. "When Aria got hit with a late, dirty check, I did what any captain would do. I protected my teammate. The rest — the Kiss Cam is random. It landed on us. We played along for the fans. It was not —" He glanced at me, just for a half second. "It was not planned."

Lie #1. It wasn't planned, but it wasn't playing along either. It was desperate and bloody and real.

Jessica leaned forward. "Cole, your father Richard Maddox, former NHL All-Star, was seen leaving your apartment at 6:18 a.m. yesterday, right before your private skate with Seattle scout Derek Lavoie. Was he there to discuss your draft stock being affected by this... teammate dynamic?"

I saw Cole go white. In the back row, Richard Maddox Sr. stood against the wall, arms crossed, in the same suit as yesterday morning. He didn't react. He just watched.

Jensen jumped in. "We are not discussing private family meetings or private skates —"

"It's fine," Cole cut him off. His voice was suddenly flat. Captain voice. The one he uses when he's about to take a penalty he knows he deserves. "My father was here to support me. He watched my skate. Seattle is evaluating me for development camp. They evaluate a lot of players. That's all. My personal life has nothing to do with my draft."

Lie #2. His personal life had everything to do with his draft now, because his personal life was me and I was sitting next to him trying not to touch his bleeding knuckles under the table.

Then the Howl reporter looked at me. "Aria, this one's for you. You're the first woman to score for Whitmore men in 50 years, you have a 3.9 GPA in history, and you just turned down three NIL deals from energy drinks that wanted you to pose in a bikini on ice — which, respect. Do you feel you have to work twice as hard to be taken seriously as more than just 'the captain's girlfriend'?"

The phrase hung in the air. Captain's girlfriend.

I felt Cole shift next to me, about to grab the mic and fight again, the way he always does.

I put my hand on his forearm under the table. Just for a second. Stop.

"I am not the captain's girlfriend," I said clearly, looking right at the camera, at @WhitmoreGossip filming through the window, at my future. "I am left wing, #10, Aria Chen. I was here before the kiss, I will be here after the views die. I earned my spot because I can shoot top shelf and I can take a hit and I can feed a captain who actually knows how to finish. If people want to call me a girlfriend to make it easier to understand, that's their problem. Not mine."

The room went quiet. Then Lena, who had snuck into the second row despite Jensen's sign, started clapping. Slow. Loud. Park joined. Then the whole team in the back started.

Cole looked at me like I'd just scored again.

Richard Maddox in the back row? He didn't clap. But he wrote something down in his little notebook.

Jessica, sensing blood in the water, smiled wider. "So you two are NOT dating? On the record? Just teammates? Just roommates?"

This was the question. The one Jensen had prepped us for. He'd literally written on a sticky note and stuck it to our water bottles: SAY: WE ARE TEAMMATES AND ROOMMATES FOCUSED ON TEAM SUCCESS.

Cole and I said it at the same time, rehearsed and terrible.

"Just teammates and roommates," we said in unison. Too fast. Too loud.

Lie #3. The biggest one yet.

The whole room knew it was a lie. The cameras knew. The way Cole's knee had stopped bouncing the second my hand touched his arm knew.

Jessica opened her mouth for the kill shot when a new voice came from the side — a man in a Seattle Torrent polo I'd never seen, holding a phone.

"Sorry to interrupt, I'm with Torrent media — we just wanted to confirm before we post — Aria, can you comment on your development camp invite for December? Seattle Torrent PWHL? Lavoie said he offered you a look after your skate this morning?"

Time stopped.

The invite I hadn't told anyone about except my own brain. The email Jensen mentioned but I said was "nothing." The future I'd been holding like a fragile puck.

Cole turned to me so slowly I could hear his polo rustle.

"Aria?" he said, not into the mic, just to me. Quiet. Wounded. "What invite?"

My mouth went dry. The Channel 5 light was so bright I could see every freckle on his nose.

"I — Lavoie pulled me aside after you left the ice this morning. He offered — he offered a three-day look with Torrent in December. Development camp. No contract. Just a skate."

The room erupted. Cameras flashing. Jensen standing up so fast his chair fell.

Cole didn't look at the cameras. He looked at me.

"You didn't tell me," he said. It wasn't angry. It was worse. It was hurt. "You said it was nothing."

"It IS nothing! It's December! It's three days! I was going to tell you at home, not — not here, not in front of Seattle and your dad and Channel 5 and —"

Richard Maddox pushed off the wall in the back. He didn't say anything. He just looked at his son, then at me, and gave a tiny, almost sad shake of his head that said See? Distractions.

And walked out. Again.

Lavoie's assistant was still holding his phone up. "So... is that a yes for comment? Are you excited?"

Jensen grabbed the mic. "That's it! Presser over! No more personal questions! Everyone out!"

Chairs scraped. Reporters shouted. "Aria! Will you leave Whitmore? Cole! Are you happy she's leaving? Is this why you kissed?"

Cole stood up abruptly, his chair screeching. He didn't look at me. He walked out the side door, the one that leads to the ice, not to our apartment.

I sat alone at the folding table, my polo suddenly too hot, my lip bleeding again where I'd bitten it, 40 people filming my first major screw-up.

Park mouthed from the doorway: Go after him.

I grabbed my bag and ran.

The rink was dark except for emergency lights. Cole was at center ice, in his sneakers, not skates, just standing there, staring at the scoreboard that still said 4-3 from Saturday.

"Cole!"

He didn't turn.

"You didn't tell me," he said when I got close, his voice echoing.

"I was scared!" I stopped a foot away, breathing hard. "You just got Seattle looking at you, your dad just told you I'm ruining your draft, and then Lavoie offers me something that means I might leave? I didn't know how to tell you without you thinking I was choosing something over us when there is no us — you said we were just teammates and roommates for the cameras!"

"There is no us?" He finally turned, his eyes red, his bloody lip split again. "Aria, I fought a guy twice my size because he hit you. I paid $5000 I don't have because some creep looked at you wrong. I kissed you in front of my father who hasn't said he's proud of me in ten years and a scout who holds my future and 8,000 people and you think there is no us?"

"I —"

"If you get Torrent, that's amazing. That's what you want. That's PWHL. That's everything you worked for before you met me. Why would you hide that?"

"Because you hid your dad in our kitchen at 6 a.m.! Because you closed your door after you kissed me! Because you told me it was adrenaline!"

We were both yelling now, in an empty rink, at center ice, no cameras for once.

Cole stepped closer, grabbed my hands, his bruised knuckles rough against mine.

"It wasn't adrenaline," he said, fierce and quiet. "It was you. It's been you since you checked me and called me Captain Cliché. And if you go to Seattle in December, I will drive you there myself and sit in the stands and cheer until I lose my voice. But don't you ever think you have to hide good news from me because you're scared of my dad or my draft or some stupid line we have to say for press. Don't do that."

My eyes filled. "So we're not just teammates and roommates?"

He laughed, wet and wrecked. "We have been really, really bad at being just teammates and roommates, Chen."

"So what are we?"

He looked at my mouth, at my bleeding lip, at the empty stands where Richard Maddox had just walked out.

"We are," he said slowly, "two idiots who have to get to practice in ten minutes before Jensen kills us and who have a press conference video that's about to hit 5 million views where we lied our asses off."

He pulled me into him, forehead to forehead, his hands in my hair.

"And after practice," he whispered, "we are going to figure out what we are. Together. No cameras. No dads. No Seattle. Just us."

"Just us," I repeated, and this time it didn't feel like a lie.

He kissed me again. Soft this time, no blood, no crowd chanting, just a real kiss at center ice in an empty rink at 11 a.m. on a Monday, where we were supposed to be wholesome.

The rink door banged open. Jensen's voice, apocalyptic: "MADDOX! CHEN! IF YOU ARE KISSING ON MY ICE AGAIN INSTEAD OF BEING AT WEIGHTS, I SWEAR -"

We broke apart, laughing, breathless.

"Coming, Coach!" we yelled together.

We skated off — well, ran off in sneakers — hand in hand, leaving the scoreboard still glowing 4-3.

Behind us, my phone buzzed on the bench.

Seattle Torrent official: @AriaChen10, welcome to the conversation. December can't come fast enough. 💜

And a text from an unknown Seattle number: Aria, it's Derek Lavoie. One more thing about that camp — bring Maddox. If he keeps his head. We like captains who fight for their left wing.

I stared at it. Then at Cole, who was waiting for me at the Zamboni door, holding it open like a gentleman, his scabbed lip grinning.

December just got a lot more complicated.