Page 222 of The Fake Date Agreement

I leap out of my seat and press my tub of popcorn into Nessa’s hands. “Can you hold this?”

I let go before she’s agreed to take the jumbo size tub I thought would ease my nervous energy.

I hate confrontation. Literally hate it. Will never ever like it.

Except now.

“You have some nerve coming here,” I snap at my ex-boyfriend. “You run Caleb over with your car, and you’re here to watch him play.”

My voice rises with each word as spectators hush up and lean closer.

“Look, can we talk about this later?” Marc darts them a rapid glance. “The game’s about to start.”

I cross my arms. “No, because you’re leaving. Right now.”

He blinks at me like he can’t believe I would ever suggest such a stupid thing.

“You’re leaving,” I repeat.

“But the game?—”

“You nearly killed the team captain. What the fuck is wrong with you that you now want to watch him win?”

“It was an accident,” he hisses, getting to his feet with another rapid glance at our eavesdroppers.

“Anaccident?”

He rakes a hand through his blond hair. “I wasn’t thinking, okay. I just… they were using you, and they?—”

“No, theyweren’t. You got pissy because I wasn’t crawling back to you like you thought I would. You knew exactly what you were doing. I bet your proposal was just a way to get back at them, and you’d have turned around and cheated again the second they stopped paying me attention.”

There’s a bubble of silence opening up around us, and it is getting bigger by the second.

When I look down at the ice, the players who were busy warming up are staring at us.

Everyone is watching.

Caleb has pulled his helmet off, and he lookspissed. So does Javier. Theo and Lincoln are holding Reid by each arm, probably to avoid him killing Marc and getting arrested.

“I’m not going anywhere,” Marc says, sitting down.

I stand there for two seconds, frustrated, annoyed, andpissed.

Marc shouldn’t be here. Yes, he loves hockey. This is the biggest game of the year, and he never misses a game and all that crap, but he nearly killed Caleb.

If there were a person who deserves to have their season ticket ripped up, it’s him.

Caleb, Reid, and Javier should be focused on the game, not have to deal with my attempted murdering ex-boyfriend who has a season ticket he doesn’t deserve. They fought for me. I need to fight for them.

But how?

I start looking for an usher or security to throw him out, then I stop.

I don’t need forty-eight hours to figure out the perfect thing to say.

It comes to me like the universe has decided to stop punishing me with the kiss cam and rewarded me with an idea instead.

I pull out my cell phone.

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