Page 86 of The Fake Date Agreement

I feel like I have a constant voice in the back of my head, whispering all the ways I can fuck things up or fail.

He half-shrugs. “Doesn’t mean I’m not afraid sometimes.”

I’m going to be late to help Reid study, but I’m not ready for this conversation to end. “About?”

“Letting the team down when they need me, and that I’ll hurt the people I care about.”

“Why would you hurt them?”

“My dad mostly.” His smile is mirthless. “We’re a lot alike. He cheated on my mom a lot. He wasn’t there for me and my brother when he should have been.”

I frown. “It doesn’t sound like you’re alike to me.”

Everything I’ve seen of Caleb has led me to believe that he would be there for his teammates and friends if they needed him. He was there for me when he barely even knew me.

“Come on, I’ll drive you back. But you’ve got yourself a date, Myers.”

Fake, I remind myself as I climb into the passenger seat and Caleb closes my door.

He means a fake date. None of this is real, remember?

Chapter 21

Reid

“You’re goingto drop that weight on your foot,” Theo warns, snapping me out of my thoughts.

I abandon my barbell rows and put the weight on the black gym mat. He’s right. I am way too distracted to lift such heavy weights.

“Is it your brother?” Theo asks, dragging a towel over his face.

We’re all in the gym to work on our conditioning. The assistant coaches, Jase Conner and Lucky Lynch, weave around the gym equipment, making the odd corrections to our forms.

Our trainer, Zach Palinsky, a dark-haired former hockey player in his late thirties, is over with Coach, probably filling him in on who needs to put more work in and who’s been slacking. When both their eyes slide my way, I get on the mat and start stretching.

Everyone on the team knows how hard I’ve been pushing Coach to take on Ryder as an assistant coach. But that’s not the only worry occupying my mind.

I’m starting to panic that I’m running out of time to complete my paper. Tobie is helping, but what if I left it too late to catch up?

She’s with Caleb today since Coach gave Caleb two days off. He’s back to training and the ice tomorrow, and he’s probably counting down the minutes.

Theo glances at Lincoln. “You need to have a word with Hallie, Sweet.”

The six-four-four defenseman scratches his hair. “What’s Hallie done now?”

“She looked like she was going full-on momma bear on Tobie during the last practice,” Theo says.

We all look at him.

He shrugs. “I’ve seen the look before, and when I asked her about it, she was way too close-mouthed. You know how protective she can be.”

“Over,” Sweet corrects him. “The word you’re looking for is over. Ever since Meredith, she’s gotten worse.”

Lincoln has been Sweet ever since he opened his locker and the grocery store candy aisle fell out. He likes candy, but he’s also sees the best in people. It’s why he missed the fact his ex wasn’t as interested in him as she was in what she could get out of him.

He never saw it coming.

Not all girls who hang around the rink are like that. Some of the guys are in happy, long-term relationships, but enough have been burned, while others are the ones doing the burning.

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