Chapter 5

Chapter 5: The Proposal

*Rhys*

My morning started like every other morning. Alarm at five. Gym by five-thirty. An hour of weights before my body even fully woke up, followed by a shower and a breakfast I don't particularly enjoy but eat anyway because my nutritionist would have my head if I didn't.

By seven, I was pulling on my jacket, mentally running through the day's schedule. Practice. Film review. A sponsor call I was already dreading.

Then my phone started buzzing.

Once. Twice. Then it didn't stop.

I ignored it the way I ignore most things before eight in the morning. Texts from teammates usually mean somebody's hungover or somebody wants to trash talk about fantasy hockey. I figured it was one or the other.

It wasn't.

By the time I actually looked at the screen, I had forty-three missed notifications, a dozen texts, and three calls from Marcus, my agent, who does not call three times before eight unless something's on fire.

*Get to the facility. Now.*

I got to the facility.

Marcus was waiting in the media room, pacing, his phone glued to his hand like it might explode if he set it down. The second he saw me, he held the screen up in my face.

"Explain this."

I looked. My stomach dropped straight through the floor.

It was the video. Last night. Me, catching Sloane on the sidewalk, her hands against my chest, both of us frozen there staring at each other like nobody else existed. Someone had slowed it down. Someone had added music. Someone, somewhere, had decided this was the most romantic thing they'd ever seen in their life.

"It's nothing," I said. "I caught her. She almost fell."

"Two point three million views," Marcus said, like I hadn't spoken at all. "In twelve hours. It's still climbing." He scrolled, turning the phone toward me again. "Look at the comments."

I didn't want to look at the comments. I looked anyway.

*They're clearly in love, look at his face.*

*Who is she?? I NEED to know*

*Rhys Calloway is actually soft for someone, screaming*

*Ship it. SHIP IT.*

"People have made a hashtag," Marcus said. "There are edits. Fan accounts. Somebody already made a theory thread about how long you two have secretly been together."

"We're not together. We can barely stand each other."

"Doesn't matter," Marcus said, setting the phone down and finally looking at me properly. "What matters is what this does for you. Rhys, you've been in the Player of the Season conversation for three years straight, and every single year, you lose it to someone with a bigger personality, better sponsors, more buzz. You're the best player on that ice and everybody knows it, but the voters don't just look at stats. They look at the story. And right now, the entire internet has handed you a story."

"I'm not doing that."

"You haven't even heard what I'm proposing."

"I don't need to hear it. Whatever it is, the answer is no."

Marcus crossed his arms, unbothered, which should have worried me more than it did. "Fake date her. One season. Public appearances, a few interviews, let the cameras get exactly what they already think they're seeing. It humanizes you. It gets the sponsors excited. It puts you in every headline for the right reasons for once, instead of the usual 'ice cold Calloway' angle they love running."

"Sloane would never agree to that."

"You'd be surprised."

Something in his tone made my jaw tighten. "What does that mean?"

Marcus glanced toward the door, and right on cue, it opened.

---

*Sloane*

I walked into the facility thinking I was there for some kind of media opportunity. That's what the message said, *potential collaboration, please come in at your earliest convenience* and considering my bank account, I wasn't about to ignore anything with the word "opportunity" in it.

Then I saw him.

Rhys was standing near a table, arms crossed, looking like he'd rather be anywhere else on the planet. Somehow that made two of us.

"What is he doing here?" I asked, before anyone had even said hello.

A man I didn't recognize stepped forward, smiling in the practiced way people smile right before they ask you for something. "Miss Reyes. I'm Marcus, Rhys's agent. Thank you for coming in."

"You didn't say he'd be here."

"I think you'll want to hear this out." Marcus gestured to a chair. I didn't sit.

He pulled out his phone and showed me the video. I'd already seen it, half the city had already sent it to me by then but watching it again, on a stranger's phone, in a room with Rhys standing right there, made my stomach twist in a whole new way.

"It's gone viral," Marcus said. "Millions of views. People think you two are together."

"That's absurd."

"It's also useful," Marcus said. "We'd like to propose something. One hockey season. You and Rhys, publicly dating. A few appearances, some coordinated media, nothing you don't approve first. It boosts his public image heading into the Player of the Season vote. It gives you visibility too, a journalist with a national spotlight on her doesn't stay a junior reporter for very long."

I stared at him. Then at Rhys, who was watching me with an unreadable expression, arms still crossed, like he was waiting to see how long it would take me to laugh in his face.

"You want me," I said slowly, "to fake date him."

"Correct."

"Him. Rhys Calloway. The man who splashed me with a puddle and drove off without so much as a wave."

"I'm aware of your history," Marcus said, entirely too calm about it.

"Are you," I said. "Because I'm not sure you understand the full scope of it."

"It doesn't have to be perfect," Marcus said. "It has to be convincing."

"Those aren't the same thing," Rhys said, finally speaking, looking straight at me like it was a challenge, "but I'm sure she already knew that."

"I know a lot of things," I said. "For instance, I know this is the worst idea I've heard all year, and I work in news."

Something flickered at the corner of his mouth, gone almost before I caught it.

"No," I said, to Marcus, though I said it while still looking at Rhys. "I'm not doing that. There is no version of this where I pretend to date a man who can't even apologize for ruining a two-hundred-dollar coat."

"Think about what it could do for your career," Marcus tried. "The exposure alone"

"I don't want exposure that comes from lying to the entire internet about my personal life." I grabbed my bag off the chair I hadn't sat in. "I have enough going on without adding a fake boyfriend to the list. Especially this one."

"Careful," Rhys said, dry as ever. "I might start thinking you don't like me."

"I might start thinking you're finally paying attention."

I looked at him one more time, and for a second neither of us said anything, the silence doing more than either of our usual sniping ever did.

"There is no amount of money," I said, "that would make me fake-date you."

Then I turned and walked out, my heels clicking hard and fast against the floor, my whole body still buzzing with disbelief.

Marcus didn't chase me. He didn't even raise his voice. He just called after me, easy and unbothered, like he already knew something I didn't.

"If there's anything we can do to change your mind, Miss Reyes, you know where to find us."

I didn't slow down. I didn't answer.

I just kept walking, furious, until I was outside and the cold air hit my face and I finally let myself breathe.

---

*Rhys*

The door swung shut behind her.

I looked at Marcus. "I told you she'd say no."

Marcus didn't even flinch. He just picked his phone back up, scrolling through something with the same maddening calm he'd had the entire meeting, and said, without even glancing up at me,

"Give it a week.”