Page 162 of Ice Dance Hockey

“Take his hood off,” Father orders.

Fucking kinky Jack. Not that I can talk, but he’s way too trusting in favor of his dick. Bet they lured him right into the van with candy.

His hands are tied behind his back. They slam him into the chair beside me and pull the black hood off his head.

“Rhett?” He looks around, bewildered. “Aww, man. This is fucking awkward. I’m hard enough to cut glass right now. Please tell me you’re part of Mercy’s plan, um, somehow.”

I scrub my hand over my face. “No, Jack. Sorry to disappoint.”

He glares at my father. “What the fuck are you doing here?”

“I think,” I begin, “though, it hasn’t been declared yet, that Father wants me to marry you so that we’ll become the world’s ultimate hockey power couple. We haven’t quite got to the point where he threatens me into complying, but I’m sure that’s coming.”

Jack lolls his head in a circle. “You’re the worst. How can you be such a dick to your own kid?”

“I’m protecting him. You’ll understand when you have a child of your own someday.”

“I have one, thanks.”

Claws sink into my heart, thinking of Jack with his mini teddy bear collection for Stanley. “You’re not taking Jack from his family,” I say. “You’ve done enough to him.”

Father isn’t deterred. “The beauty of this situation is that half the work is done for me. Jack will comply for the same reason you will.”

Jack’s face snaps to me.Logan.

“I’ve watched the boy skate, he has real talent. Unless someone broke his knees. He’d heal fine, but he’d never land a triple axel the same way again.”

I’m white knuckling the wooden arms of the chair. Wrapping my hands around his neck wouldn’t help matters. There are six men in the room now—looks like it took four to wrangle Jack and they have souvenir wounds to tell the tale. If Jack weren’t handcuffed, we could take them.

“I kicked that one in the balls,” Jack says to me, laughing about it as if we’re the only two in the room.

“Silence,” Father says. “This is what’s going to happen. You two are going to find your love again.”

“Sorry, dude. I don’t love him anymore, and he loves Lo,” Jack says.

Father grinds his teeth. “I know that. At least, I know you both believe that. You loved each other once; you can love each other again. This is about your future, Rhett. Logan isn’t good enough for you.”

Jack laughs. “This is insane. All the time we dated, you hated me.”

“I didn’t. I gave Rhett my permission to marry you.”

“Dude, for real?” Jack says, but that question is for me.

“Yeah.” God, I was pathetic.

“Okay, so you’re just an asshole then, Maxwell,” Jack says. “What do I have to do?”

Tears blink from my eyes. Jack’s a real hero, rushing in to save his family. I want to be more like Jack.

“We’ll need to build a relationship for you two on socials. Then you’ll have a fast wedding. You get a few more years of hockey, Jack, and then you’re retiring to raise a family.”

Jack rolls his eyes. “This is gotta be the stupidest thing ever and it takes the fake boyfriends thing way too far.”

No kidding. Lo and I began as fake, then we were real, and now we’re back to a fake boyfriends sham, but with my real ex-boyfriend.

“You’ll be fake husbands. Only for a little while, I’m sure you’ll rekindle what you lost.”

“Not this time,” I say.

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