Page 15 of Play Your Part

Before my mom died, we were friends who told each other everything, but I hadn’t said a word to her about Justin. “I couldn’t tell you,” I said, my face heating. “I agreed not to tell anyone.”

Earning my ire, Alexei chipped in, “You told Gemma.”

I spoke directly to him. “You really are an asshole, you know that?”

“I would’ve kept the secret for you,” Deandra added, ratcheting up my feelings of guilt.

I placed a hand on her arm. “I was going to tell you at the start of last season, and then…”

She nodded, her eyes downcast to the table. “Right. I know.”

“What happened at the beginning of last season?” Alexei asked.

Shit. No way was I getting into this with him. “This conversation doesn’t involve you,Volkov. We’ll let you know when we need you.”

The air in the room shifted. Deandra stared at me, open-mouthed, at a loss for words for the first time in her life. I could feel the weight of Alexei’s stare and braced myself for his scathing words. They never came, which made me feel like even more of a jerk. He didn’t deserve me snapping at him, even if I didn’t like him. But I didn’t want to talk about what happened to my mom… especially not with someone who couldn’t care less about me.

Peter cleared his throat. “If anyone found out this wasn’t real, it would be a clusterfuck.”

“It’s a win-win-win,” Deandra said, pushing past Peter’s warning. Turning to me, she continued, “The team needs attention. You want to get back at Justin. Alexei needs people to like him so they want to watch him play.”

“People will want to watch him play because he’s good, not because of who he dates,” I said. A beat later, I realized my mistake after seeing the smirk on Alexei’s face. “Or so I’ve heard.”

“Kens,” Deandra said. “Some people will want to see him because he’s good, but no one willcareabout him because he’s good. He’s a player in a helmet who can do tricks. You can tell them his story—what makes him human, what makes him just like them. You show them a person, and they willwantto root for him. Even against their old captain.”

Dammit if Deandra wasn’t convincing.

“Ward will hate it,” Alexei added, not even trying to conceal the relish in his tone at the idea of making Justin angry. “And I don’t care if you want to get back with that asshole or get revenge on him—either way, you and I dating will get his attention. It will get you what you want.”

It unnerved me how he knew I wanted Justin’s attention, something I hadn’t even admitted to myself until that moment. I thought about the text from Justin after the photo went viral,So that’s how you want to play it.

He hadn’t questioned whether it was me in the photo, or if it really was what people assumed. Justin didn’t wonder how I’d held up after being dumped in one of the worst ways imaginable. He didn’t care about anything other than his image, his success, himself. Maybe I missed him and the life I imagined we’d have, but I also hated him. Hated that he could leave me behind.

Alexei wasn’t wrong; Justin would pay attention if I dated his nemesis.

But it was more than that. I thought about the list I found while packing my stuff at Justin’s place. The list born of my dissatisfaction with my life, something I tried to ignore, but it sometimes pushed its way to the surface despite my best efforts.

Six months since I wrote it and nothing had changed.

I neededsomethingto change.

But was this really that change? The risk I wanted to take?

“I want to talk to Alexei first.”

For too long, I’d taken a back seat in my own life, content to mold myself around what others wanted.

I stood from my chair and looked at Alexei. “Alone.”

I didn’t wait for a response before walking to the McIntyres’ backyard.

8

ALEXEI

Thedoorbarelyclickedshut before Kennedy hurled a question my way. “Youseriouslywant to do this?”

She caught a glimpse of her reflection in the sliding glass door and hurriedly smoothed wild stray hairs. I resisted my instinct to grin. I knew the concern with her appearance had nothing to do with me. Kennedy Cole didn’t care what I thought of her; she showed no embarrassment after she’d stumbled around drunk in front of me, and rambled about everything wrong with her life.

---