My Hockey Hearthrob

The Aftermath

The locker room after a win smells like victory, which is to say it smells like sweat, blood, cheap body spray, and beer someone smuggled in even though the coach said no beer.

I had been in a lot of locker rooms for my job — mostly standing awkwardly in the corner while boys in towels pretended I wasn't there — but I had never been in one as a girlfriend. Fake girlfriend. The distinction felt important, but no one in the Hawks room seemed to remember it.

"ELLA! ELLA! DID YOU SEE WHEN I HIT THAT GUY? THAT WAS FOR YOU TOO!" Liam the rookie yelled, wearing only a towel and a grin.

"I saw! Great hit! Please put pants on!" I yelled back, hiding behind Cole's back.

Cole had showered fast, hair still wet, lip stitched where he'd split it in the fight — two stitches, he said it was nothing, he got stitches like other people got coffee. He wore his post-game sweats, his championship hat backward, and he had not let go of my hand since we walked in. Possessive. For the cameras that the PR lady kept pointing at us.

"Ella, babe, can you get me a water?" he asked, loud enough for the rookie reporters in the corner to hear. "You know where they are, you practically live here now."

I did not know where the waters were. I found them.

He took it, his fingers brushing mine, lingering. "Thanks, babe."

Babe. He'd never called me babe before tonight. Not even fake. Now he said it like he'd been saying it for years.

Sarah the wife winked at me from the doorway. You're doing great, fake one.

Across the room, the team reporter for ESPN shoved a mic in Cole's face. "Cole! First goal of the season, game-tying, playoffs clinched, and your girl's here for all of it — how does it feel?"

Cole pulled me into his side. I stumbled into his chest. He smelled like his expensive shampoo and ice.

"Feels like everything," he said, looking down at me, not at the camera. His eyes were dark and soft and for a second I forgot this was fake. "I told her before the game I'd score for her. I don't usually make promises I can't keep. But for her, I had to try."

The reporter gasped. "Ella, did you know he was going to do that?"

I looked up at Cole. His hand tightened on my waist, a silent please play along.

"I — I told him to try," I said, voice shaking. "He said he doesn't score. I said maybe he just needed a reason."

Cole's smile went real. Wide and boyish and not at all enforcer-like. "Yeah. She gives me a reason."

The camera clicked. The story was writing itself. Bad Boy Scores For His Good Girl.

My phone buzzed in Cole's jersey pocket — I didn't have pockets in my skirt, so I'd put it in his. He felt it buzz, looked down, and his smile tightened just a fraction when he saw the name on the lock screen.

J — 3 missed calls

He handed me the phone, his jaw tight. "You should call him back."

"Who?" The reporter asked, nose like a shark.

"No one," Cole said quickly. "Her mom. Worried."

He steered me out of the scrum, into a quieter hallway by the Zamboni entrance. The crowd was still cheering outside, leaving.

"You haven't answered him," he said, not a question.

"I was busy watching my fake boyfriend bleed for my entertainment."

"Don't." He ran a hand through his wet hair. "Don't do that. Don't make it sound cheap. What happened out there — the goal — that wasn't PR. That was... I wanted you to see me do something good. Not just hit people."

I stared at him. His lip was swollen, stitched, bloody. His eyes were earnest.

"Cole—"

"Call him," he said, cutting me off. "If you don't, he'll come here. And if he comes here tonight, after we won and they lost, I will hit him. And I will like it. And you'll have to write about it."

He walked away to do more press, leaving me alone in the cold hallway with my phone buzzing again.

J: Can we talk? Please. I saw the game. Congrats to... him. - J

J: You screamed for him. I heard you on the broadcast. - J

J: I'm outside your old apartment. I forgot you moved. Where are you? - J

My chest tightened. He went to my old apartment. In the rain. After a loss.

I called him.

He picked up on half a ring. "Ella?"

"I'm not at my apartment," I said quietly. "You know I'm not."

"I know. I know you're at his. I just — I drove. I didn't know where else to go. We lost, Ella. We lost bad and Coach benched me in the third and I—" His voice cracked. "I saw you on the jumbotron. In his jersey. Screaming for him. And I—"

"Jax, you lost 3-2, it's one game—"

"It's not about the game!" He shouted, then lowered his voice. "It's about you wearing his name when you used to wear mine. In high school. You wore my varsity jacket every day for a year. Remember?"

I remembered. It was too big, it smelled like him, I wore it even in summer.

"Jax—"

"Is it real? Just tell me if it's real. If you're happy. If he... if he's good to you. Then I'll stop. I'll leave you alone. I swear."

I leaned against the cold cinderblock wall. My fake boyfriend was thirty feet away telling ESPN I was his reason. My real ex — my first love — was outside my flooded apartment in the rain asking if I was happy.

Was I happy? I was living in a mansion with a boy who made me tacos and scored goals for me and called me Goldilocks. I was viral. I was employed. For the first time in months, I wasn't scared about money.

But happy?

"I don't know," I whispered. "It's fake. Okay? It's fake. It started fake. For work. For his image and my article. We're roommates. That's it."

Silence on the other end. Then a sharp inhale.

"It's fake," he repeated, like he was tasting the word.

"Yes. But you can't tell anyone. Please. He'll get traded. I'll lose my job. Promise me—"

"I won't tell anyone," he said instantly. "I won't. God, Ella— it's fake? You're living with Cole Maddox and it's fake?"

"Yeah."

"Do you..." He swallowed. I heard it through the phone. "Do you like him? For real?"

I thought about Cole lifting me and spinning me after the goal. His hand shaking in the hallway. The way he looked at my mouth and said there are no cameras.

"I don't know," I said again, honestly.

"Okay. Okay, that's — okay." He laughed, a little wet. "That's better than yes."

"Jax—"

"Can I see you? Tomorrow? Just you. No jerseys. No cameras. Just... you and me. Like old times. The lake? Our lake?"

Our lake. The frozen pond behind Sapele High where he taught me to shoot.

I shouldn't. God, I shouldn't. I was Cole's fake girlfriend. I had a contract. Rule: no feelings. Rule: no real dating other people.

But it was Jax.

"One hour," I said. "Tomorrow morning. Before practice."

"One hour," he echoed. "Thank you, Ella. Thank you."

He hung up.

I stood there, phone to my chest, breathing hard, wearing Cole's name while I promised an hour to Jax.

"What did he want?"

Cole's voice made me jump. He was behind me, arms crossed, his happy post-game glow gone.

"He wanted to congratulate you," I lied. Badly.

Cole stared at me for a long time. Then he reached out and gently took his jersey — his actual game jersey he'd given me to wear, not the practice one — and pulled the hem straight, fixing it where it had twisted.

"You kept his hoodie," he said quietly.

"What?"

"Last night. You kept his Wolves hoodie in your bag. I saw it when you were looking for your notebook. You didn't throw it away."

I didn't know what to say.

He nodded, like I'd answered. "It's okay. You can keep it. But tomorrow, for the article, you wear mine. Not his. Mine."

"It's just a hoodie, Cole."

"Yeah," he said. "It is. And this is just fake. I know."

He turned and walked back to the locker room, leaving me alone again.

From inside, I could hear his teammates chanting his name. "MADD-OX! MADD-OX! MADD-OX!"

He'd scored for me. He'd won. He'd looked at me like I was his reason.

And I had just promised an hour to another boy at our lake, wearing both their hoodies in my bag.

Aftermath. That's what this chapter was supposed to be. The aftermath of a win.

I didn't feel like I'd won anything at all.