Page 39 of Play Your Part

A chorus ofOohsran through the reporters. Alexei Volkov had delivered them a sound bite that would make all of their stories. The tweet had over 150 comments, 1,000 retweets, and 8,000 likes. No wonder Deandra jumped for joy. Scrolling through the comments revealed most people sided with Alexei, but a small, strong minority thought Justin Ward had been done dirty by both the team and me.

“Um, no. Not sick burn, dude,” I said, clicking pause on the video. “What the hell is he doing saying shit like that?”

Zach’s laughing ebbed. “Was he wrong?”

I leveled him with a look. “Don’t make me kick you out.”

His laughter resumed, and I did think about kicking him out. In my deal to fake-date Alexei, nobody said anything about babysitting his kid roommate after preventing him from burning Alexei’s property. But then Zach grinned, and he looked like such a kid, giving me a glimpse of what it would have been like to have a petulant younger brother.

“I’d love to see you try. I might not be as tall as your boyfriend, but good luck getting me to leave. Especially when pizzas are about to get here.”Aboot.Canadian accents were so cute.

I didn’t think I’d get used to people describing Alexei Volkov as my boyfriend, which, I guess, wasn’t a problem since I only had to pretend for three months. Although, after he told the press aboutkeeping me satisfied, he might not live that long.

Zach played the clip again, laughing gleefully, as if he hadn’t heard the joke before. Meanwhile, I texted the link to Alexei followed byWhat the hell, Volkov?

We hadn’t seen each other since he got back, but we already had plans for our next engagement—the team Halloween party in three days.

Alexei’s response came almost immediately.I didn’t post that.

But you said it,I fired back.I don’t want the world (and my DAD) to think I’m sleeping with you.

This man seriously had the balls to respond.Why not? It’s a step up.

I sent him a GIF of a girl clicking a button on her remote with the word MUTE flashing on the screen. The rational part of me knew Alexei had only done what we agreed, but I hated people knowing this much about my personal life. Even if it was fake. And couldn’t he have put it another way? Sure, his snappy response made for a perfect sound bite, but he should have considered how it characterized me. Not that it mattered if people thought I jumped from one hockey player’s bed to another. I could do whatever I wanted, and it was no one’s business.

Except we’d made it everyone’s business.

Which was the real source of my problem, though I preferred taking it out on Alexei.

When the pizzas arrived, we took them outside to the deck. Unlike someone I knew, Zach didn’t complain every five minutes about the heat. Zach’s pizza looked utterly disgusting, piled high with all of those toppings, but at least it kept him distracted enough to not cause more destruction.

“How’d you end up living with Alexei?” I asked, pretending I didn't know to verify what Gemma told me.

“He offered, and I’m new to the team. And living in hotels gets old fast.”

“In other words, you didn’t have another option?”

Zach placed his pizza back on his plate, giving me his full attention. “I wouldn’t want another option. Two years ago, I watched him play on TV and now we share the same ice. I live with him. It’s wild.”

Great, another Alexei Volkov fan. “It’s not one of thosedon’t meet your herosituations?”

Zach’s eyebrows squished together in confusion. “You’re dating the dude. You know what he’s like.”

I shrugged, trying to make light of my accusation since, you know, I was supposed to be feigning that I, too, was a megafan of Alexei. “We only just started dating. We don’t know each other very well yet."

“I think what you see is what you get with Volk. He leads by example. He shows up early and leaves late. He pushes us without being a dick. People like him better.”

I picked up my pizza slice, trying to ignore the way my heart pounded a little harder. “What do you mean?”

“Justin Ward wasn’t everyone’s favorite.”

“Oh?” I asked around my bite of pizza, one hand covering my mouth.

Zach seemed oblivious to the way this subject had my haunches up. “Yeah, dude liked to give everyone shit. He worked hard, and he made sure you knew it. And he made you feel like shit for not keeping up. That’s with his own team. You already know how the rest of the league feels about him.”

I’d worried about Justin’s reputation from the start, but only because he dated through the Wolves’ staff. Sure, people thought he played dirty, but he was one of the best players in the league. I chalked the talk of Justin up to a mixture of testosterone and jealousy.

“No, I don’t watch much hockey.”

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