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941 Words
Ryder
The conference room smelled like coffee and bad news.
I knew it was bad before anyone said a word. Coach Bennett sat at the head of the table with his arms crossed, which he only did when he was trying not to yell. Two university officials I didn't recognize sat stiff-backed near the window. And Callum, my agent, wouldn't look at me directly, which was the worst sign of all.
"Sit down, Ryder," Coach said.
I sat.
Callum slid a folder across the table like he was presenting evidence at a trial. Inside were printouts of the gossip blog photos, the ones from the restaurant, plus a screenshot of some anonymous comment thread debating whether I was "secretly a player, on and off the ice."
"This is the third meeting we've had about your image this year," one of the university officials said. Her name tag said Patricia something. "The athletic department has invested heavily in your public profile. So have your sponsors."
"I haven't done anything wrong," I said.
"That's not the point," Callum said quietly. "The point is what it looks like. Northridge Dairy is threatening to pull the campaign. Apex Footwear wants a call by Friday. You're supposed to be the golden boy, Ryder. Golden boys don't have three women trending under their name in one week."
I wanted to tell them the truth, that two of those women were my cousin and a teammate's sister, and the third barely qualified as a conversation, let alone a relationship. But I'd learned a long time ago that the truth didn't move as fast as a headline. By the time it caught up, the damage was already done.
"So what do you want me to do?" I asked. "Release a statement? Deny everything?"
"Denial doesn't work anymore," Callum said. "Nobody believes a denial. What people believe is a story." He tapped the folder. "We need a narrative. Something clean. Something that makes the rumors look ridiculous by comparison."
"Meaning what?"
Callum hesitated, which wasn't like him. "Meaning a relationship. A real one, or real enough. Someone stable. Someone the public already trusts. Not an influencer, not another athlete. Somebody with actual credibility."
The room went quiet, waiting for it to land.
"You want me to fake date someone."
"I want you to save your career," Callum said. "The board's not going to give you another chance after this. One more headline and Apex walks, and once one sponsor walks, they all do."
I sat there running through every girl I knew, models, teammates' sisters, the kind of women who'd probably say yes to something like this in half a heartbeat. None of them felt right. None of them would fix anything, because they were exactly the type of person people already assumed I dated.
Then I thought of her.
The reporter. Keira Collins. Sharp eyes, sharper questions, the only person who'd interviewed me that night without once looking at me like I was something to swoon over. She'd looked at me like I was a story she didn't fully trust. Which, now that I thought about it, was exactly the point.
Smart. Respected. The kind of person nobody would accuse of chasing headlines, because she wrote them.
"I have someone in mind," I said.
***
The journalism building smelled like old paper and burnt coffee, nothing like the arena. I found her at a corner desk in the student newsroom, hunched over her laptop with her hair pulled back and a pen clenched between her teeth like she was mid-argument with whatever she was writing.
"Keira Collins."
She looked up, and I watched her expression shift from confusion to recognition to immediate, unmistakable suspicion.
"Ryder Hayes." She said my name like it was a diagnosis. "Did you get lost on the way to the athletic center?"
"I need to talk to you."
"About what? Another no comment?" She turned back to her screen. "I already filed my piece. Nothing left to talk about."
"Thirty thousand dollars."
That got her attention. She turned back slowly, pen still between her teeth, eyebrows raised like she was waiting for the punchline.
"I need a girlfriend," I said. "For the rest of the season. Someone the public trusts. Someone with no scandals, no drama, no history of being photographed falling out of nightclubs. I'll pay you thirty thousand dollars to pretend to be her."
For a second she just stared at me. Then she laughed, a short, disbelieving sound that made a few heads turn nearby.
"You want to pay me to be your fake girlfriend."
"That's the offer."
"Do you hear yourself right now?" She shook her head, still half laughing. "I'm a journalist, Ryder. I write about people like you. I'm not going to become one of your headlines."
"You'd be controlling the headline instead of being written into someone else's version of it," I said. "Think about it."
"I don't need to think about it. The answer is no." She turned back to her laptop, dismissing me the way she probably dismissed every source who wasted her time.
I should have left it there. I almost did. But something made me pause at the edge of her desk, and the words came out before I decided to say them.
"Thirty thousand dollars could clear your student loans," I said. "And it might be enough to keep your mom's café from closing."
Her hands went still over the keyboard.
She didn't look up right away. When she finally did, the suspicion in her eyes had shifted into something colder, something closer to alarm.
"How do you know about my mother's café?"
- Writer
