THE HOCKEY CAPTAIN’S PRETEND GIRL

CHAPTER 4

SADIE

I wake up to the loud sound of a blender. It sounds like a lawnmower running inside my skull. My eyes feel heavy and dry, like someone poured sand into them while I slept.

I sit up on the mattress and look around the small, cluttered room. Then it hits me again. My ceiling caved in. This storage room is my home now, at least for a while.

I reach for the giant sweatpants Jonah gave me last night. They are so big I have to roll the waistband five times just to keep them from sliding off my hips.

With my hair a complete disaster and running on maybe four hours of sleep, I shuffle into the kitchen. Rhys is standing there, leaning against the counter and drinking something green out of a tall glass. He’s wearing gym shorts. Nothing else.

“Morning,” he says, without even turning around.

“You could put a shirt on.”

“Could. Won’t. It’s my kitchen too.” He glances at me over his shoulder, smirking. He’s built like one of those guys they put on hockey posters to convince people the sport is worth watching. Broad shoulders. A stomach cut into neat rows of muscle that disappear beneath the waistband of his shorts.

“It’s seven in the morning,” I say, shielding my eyes with my hand. “Put a shirt on. You’re blinding me with your ego.”

Rhys grins. He does not look embarrassed in the slightest.

“Rule one,” he says. “Rhys Callahan does not wear a shirt before nine a.m. House rule. It’s basically written into the lease.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Ask Jonah,” he says. “My skin needs to breathe. It’s a health thing. I’m very focused on my health.”

“It’s a vanity thing,” I snap back.

He winks at me and plates two eggs, sliding them across the counter without asking if I want any.

“Eat,” he says. “I always make too many. Training table habit. You’re doing me a favor.”

“I’m not hungry.”

My stomach picks that exact moment to growl, loud enough that his mouth twitches like he’s fighting back a laugh.

“Sure you’re not,” he says.

I sit down out of pure spite, and also because the eggs genuinely look amazing.

“Jonah told me about the ex,” he says while I eat. “And the actress.”

“Great. So you know everything.”

“Not the whole story. Not asking for it either, unless you want to give it.” He shrugs. “For real though, that Grant guy is stupid. I mean, it’s hard to imagine any sane guy leaving you.”

“And sorry about the apartment.” His eyes are steady now, watching me. “It’ll get better. Even when it feels like it won’t.”

It’s a decent thing to say, and I hate that it came from him.

“Is this the part where you’re being nice because Jonah told you to be?”

“Jonah told me one thing. Don’t touch you. That was the whole conversation.”

“Excuse me?”

“His exact words. Don’t touch my sister, Rhys, I mean it, don’t even flirt with her. Which, for the record, wasn’t hard to agree to. I don’t do the sister of a friend thing. Bad idea, every time.”

“Could’ve fooled me.”

“I’m serious,” he says, entirely too pleased with himself. “Ask anyone.”

“I’ll ask no one, because I don’t care.”

“That’s what they all say.”

I roll my eyes so hard it almost hurts and go back to my eggs, deciding that living here is going to require more patience than I currently have.

My phone buzzes on the table. A text from Priya, my best friend.

Priya: sadie

Priya: [image attached]

Priya: are you seeing this right now

I click the screenshot. For a second the words don’t register, like my brain is refusing to translate them.

LILA VANCE OPENS UP: “HIS EX WON’T LEAVE US ALONE.”

There’s a photo of Lila at some press event, dabbing carefully at one eye with a tissue. Under the photo, a quote credited directly to her.

‘It’s been hard, honestly. There’s someone from Grant’s past who can’t seem to accept he’s moved on. She keeps reaching out… stalking us. I feel for her, heartbreak makes people do things they normally wouldn’t.’

I read it twice. Then a third time, waiting for it to make sense. It doesn’t.

“Sadie?” Rhys is watching me from across the table, his fork frozen halfway to his mouth. “You just went a weird kind of pale.”

I slide the phone toward him without a word, because I don’t trust my voice.

He reads it. His eyebrows climb toward his hairline. “Is this about you?”

“I haven’t texted that man once since he broke up with me,” I say, my voice shakier than I want it to be. “Not once. I don’t even follow him anymore. And now half the internet thinks I’m some unhinged stalker.”

He slides the phone back.

“That’s insane.”

“I know it’s insane, Rhys. I’m living it.”

He doesn’t say anything else. He just watches me with an expression I don’t have the energy to figure out right now, because I’m already dialing Grant’s number.

He picks up on the third ring. “Sadie. Hey.”

“Did you see it,” I say. No hello.

“See what?”

“Don’t do that. You know exactly what. Lila’s interview. She’s telling people I won’t leave you alone. I haven’t contacted you once, Grant. Not once.”

“What do you want, Sadie?” His voice is cold and annoyed.

“Tell Lila to stop lying,” I say, fighting back tears. “I’m not a stalker. I haven’t called you since we broke up.”

“Technically you’re calling me right now.”

“Because of the interview!” I shout. “You know I’m not doing those things.”

“I don't really get involved in what Lila says to press," he says, and his voice has that smooth, rehearsed quality it always gets when he's lying to me. "That's her thing. I can't control her interviews."

"You could tell her to stop, asshole!”

"And what, embarrass her publicly right before her movie drops? Come on, Sadie, think bigger picture for a second."

"The bigger picture is that she's lying about me on a platform with millions of followers."

"Look." He exhales, long and put upon, like I'm the unreasonable one in this conversation. "If it bothers you that much, do something about it. Post something. Get seen with someone. Show people you've moved on, and this whole thing dies on its own."

"That's your solution? Tell everyone I'm fine while she's out there calling me obsessed with you?"

"I'm just saying." And here it comes, the tone I know too well, the one he uses right before he says something designed to sting. "You've never really been the bounce back type, Sadie. No offense. You're not exactly going to have guys lining up around the block."

My whole face goes hot. "Excuse me?"

"I'm being real with you. It's not a bad thing. Some people just take longer."

“You don’t know that.”

“I do,” he says. “Prove me wrong. There’s a big industry party at the Wren this weekend. Everyone will be there. Bring a date. Show me you’ve moved on. But we both know you won’t. You’ll just sit in that room and cry.”

“I will be there,” I say. “And I will have a date.”

“I’ll believe it when I see it.” He hangs up.

I stare at the wall, my heart slamming against my ribs.

Rhys is standing by the sink, drying a glass with a white towel. His jaw is tight. His knuckles are almost white around the glass.

“I heard all of that,” he says quietly.

“You were listening?”

“It’s a small apartment. And he was loud enough that I didn’t even need to try.”

He sets the glass down harder than necessary. It clinks against the counter.

“That guy is trash,” he says. “Actual garbage. You’re a graphic designer. You have a real job, a real life. You’ve got manners. You’re not throwing tantrums on some tabloid site to make yourself look like a victim.”

His voice gets sharper. “Meanwhile my agent’s out here trying to hand me a list of girls like I’m picking out furniture, and none of them come close to what you’ve got going for you. And this clown thinks he can talk to you like you’re nothing?”

I blink at him, thrown off by how genuinely angry he sounds on my behalf.

“The Wren, huh?” he says, shaking his head like he’s trying to shake off the anger.

“You heard that part too.”

“Hard not to.” He looks at me carefully. "I actually have to be there. A sports brand is throwing a bash for the hockey team. They are a big sponsor."

"You are going?”

“I’m the captain,” he says. “Gotta show my face. Wear a suit, talk to people I don’t like..take pictures. Standard stuff.”

I look at him, wondering if he has to make everything about himself, even during my crisis.

Then he drops to the floor without warning and starts doing pushups, fast, his muscles moving under his skin like waves. He doesn’t even look like he’s trying.

“One hundred,” he grunts. “One hundred and one.”

Wait a minute.

The realization hits me about five seconds too late.

Rhys is tall. Popular. Objectively, infuriatingly attractive, even if he’s also the most annoying person I’ve ever met. He looks like a movie star, but somehow more real. He fills up a room just by standing in it.

If I show up to that party with him on my arm, Grant will lose his mind.

A plan starts forming in my head. Reckless. Crazy. But it’s the only one I’ve got.

“Hey, Rhys?”

He pushes himself up to standing and wipes sweat off his forehead, catching me staring. He grabs a towel off the counter and slings it over his shoulder.

“Yeah?”