Page 151 of The Fake Date Agreement

“Deal with pressure. I was watching you play, and everyone was staring at you, and I could feel how badly they wanted you to score.”

The team needs me at my best, so do the fans, and so do I.

I shrug. “I try not to think about it.”

“And is it easy to do?”

I start to tell her yes, but her question makes me wonder if maybe that’s the thing throwing me off my game.

We’re building up to the thing I’ve wanted since recruiters started circling—win a championship in college and be responsible for making that win happen.

“Those expectations have been there for a long time.”

She scrunches her nose, her forehead furrows, and it’s clear she doesn’t understand.

I motion to the quad we’re crossing. It’s a big, green open space surrounded by buildings on all sides. It’s late, so only a few students sit on the grass, flipping through books or chatting in small groups. “Imagine crossing the quad.”

“So?”

“How did it feel the first time you did it alone as a freshman?”

She shivers. “I practically ran across it. I swear, everyone was staring at me. I felt exposed.”

A natural reaction for a girl from a small town in Nebraska suddenly surrounded by thousands of students.

I nod. “And now?”

“Now?” Her eyes drift over the quad. “Now I don’t even think about it. I just get to where I need to go, regardless of how busy it is.”

“That’s what it’s like. Before, I swear I could feel every eye on me when I was on the ice,” I explain.

She shivers again. “I felt it, and I wasn’t even on the ice.”

I squeeze her hand. “Then it became background noise. It’s there, but I can focus on it if I want or tune it out if it’s a distraction.”

And lately, it’s been a distraction.

I frown.

“What is it?” she asks.

I shake my head. “Nothing. Come on.”

But I can’t help but think of how I used to feel playing hockey. People used to cheer and crowd around, calling or chanting my name. And I would feed off their excitement. I’d want to impress them and give them my best.

It made me a better player.

I risked more. I was hungry for every single goal, even the ones with impossible odds that no one would go for.

And sometimes, I made the impossible happen. I can’t remember when that feeling went away. It just did. Suddenly, I started seeing the crowd as a distraction, not as something that had made me grow as a player.

Is that what’s throwing me off my game?

Who am I playing for? Me? Them? Or something else?

And why, at the cusp of entering the NHL at twenty-two, don’t I know something I should have known years ago?

I used to feel like I was a god. Then I met Reid and Javier, and when we were perfectly in synch, no one could touch us. It’s when people started calling us the Magic Three.

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