Chapter 1 : The Problem With Zane Jaxon

ALESSIA’s POV.

Zane Jaxon was doing it again. The part where I was asking him questions and he was staring at me like he’d rather be anywhere else than answer questions about the game. I hated him. I hated interviewing him and sometimes wondered how my brother managed to put up with the bastard for this long.

I looked down at my notebook, then back at the hockey captain sitting across from me. He was still in his black Northbridge jersey, his dark hair slightly damp from the shower and pushed carelessly away from his forehead. There was a small cut near his lower lip, probably from the game, and somehow it only added to the unfairness of his face. Zane Jaxon was ridiculously handsome, and I could only imagine why his ego had managed to climb higher than Mount Everest.

I adjusted the recorder between us and tried to ignore the fact that he’d barely spoken to me for the last few minutes. “Okay,” I said, flipping through my notes. “Let me try that again. How did you feel about tonight’s win?” I asked, looking at him hopefully because I needed something—anything—that I could actually use in tomorrow’s article.

“Good.”

I stared at him.

He didn’t seem to notice my disappointment. His elbows rested on his knees, his fingers loosely clasped together as he looked at me with the same unreadable expression he’d worn since sitting down.

“Good?” I repeated, hoping he’d understand the question hidden inside the question. “That’s all?”

He gave a small shrug. “Yeah.”

Of course.

I pressed my lips together and looked down at my notebook, resisting the urge to write Zane Jaxon has the vocabulary of a six-year-old across the page. Left to me, his opinion wouldn’t matter, but unfortunately, he was the captain, and his words were needed for the school paper. Words I usually had to pull out of him like I was conducting an interrogation.

“The team was down by one in the second period,” I continued, trying another angle. “What changed?”

“We played better.”

My pen stopped moving.

I slowly raised my eyes to his face. “That’s your answer?”

He nodded once.

I let out a quiet breath through my nose. “You know, Zane, most people manage to use more than three words when they’re being interviewed.”

His eyes remained on mine for a moment before dropping to my notebook.

I couldn’t tell whether he’d been insulted or simply didn’t care.

Probably the second one.

I turned the page. “Fine. What did you tell the team during the break?”

“We needed to score.”

I looked at him in disbelief.

“That was the entire speech?”

Another shrug.

I leaned back in my chair and stared at the ceiling for a second. “You’re making this incredibly difficult.”

He didn’t answer.

When I looked back at him, his expression hadn’t changed, but there was the slightest movement at the corner of his mouth.

I narrowed my eyes. “Are you laughing at me?”

“No.”

“You almost smiled.”

“I didn’t.”

I studied his face, but whatever had been there was gone. He looked as indifferent as ever, and I hated that I couldn’t tell whether he’d actually found me amusing.

I dropped my gaze to my notebook again and moved on before I could embarrass myself further. “Whatever. Last question. What do you think Northbridge needs to do to keep this winning streak going?”

“Keep winning.”

My mouth fell open.

For a second, I genuinely didn’t know what to say.

Zane looked at me.

I looked at him.

Then I slowly closed my notebook.

“You know what? We’re done.”

He stood almost immediately, picking up the jacket he’d left beside him.

“Okay.”

I watched him pull it on, irritation crawling up my spine. “You know, one day I’m going to interview someone who actually wants to talk to me.”

He glanced at me briefly.

Then, with absolutely no expression on his face, he said, “Good luck.”

And walked away.

I stared after him for several seconds before looking down at the useless collection of answers in my notebook.

Good. We played better. We needed to score. Keep winning.

I wanted to scream.

Instead, I shoved my notebook into my bag and stood.

This was why Zane Jaxon was my least favorite person to interview.

At least, that was what I told myself.

I found Kendra outside the arena, waiting for me with two cups of coffee in her hands. She took one look at my expression and immediately started laughing, which only made the irritation I’d been carrying since the interview worse.

“Don’t,” I warned as I took the cup from her.

“I didn’t say anything.”

“You didn’t have to. I know that laugh.”

She fell into step beside me as we headed toward the parking lot, and I didn’t even have to explain what had happened before she asked how bad the interview had been. I opened my notebook and showed her the pathetic collection of answers I’d managed to get from the captain, and her laughter grew louder when she saw that most of my page was filled with crossed-out questions rather than actual quotes.

“He’s a maniac,” I muttered, snapping the notebook shut. “I asked him how he felt about the win, and he said good. I asked what changed during the second period, and apparently the team simply played better. Then I asked what he told them during the break, and he told me they needed to score. As if I hadn’t already figured that out from watching the game.”

Kendra tried to hide her smile behind her coffee, but I caught it anyway. I gave her a pointed look and continued complaining before she could defend him.

“I don’t understand how Adrian can spend so much time with him. If I had to sit across from Zane Jaxon every week and listen to him give me three-word answers, I’d have quit by now.”

“You haven’t quit,” she pointed out.

“Because I have standards.”

“You mean because you like your job?”

“That too.”

She laughed, and I couldn’t help smiling a little despite myself. That was Kendra. She could turn almost anything into a joke, even my growing hatred for the most irritating man on campus.

We walked a little farther before she glanced at me with a suspicious little smile. “You know, for someone who supposedly can’t stand him, you talk about Zane an awful lot.”

I immediately frowned. “Because he’s annoying.”

“And?”

“And arrogant.”

“And?”

I looked at her. “What are you trying to do?”

“Nothing.” Her smile widened. “I’m just listening.”

I rolled my eyes and looked ahead, but she wasn’t going to let it go. I knew her too well.

“He’s also completely aware that every girl on this campus thinks he’s attractive,” I added, mostly because it irritated me that it was true. “He walks around like he owns the place.”

Kendra laughed softly. “Well, does he?”

“No.”

I paused.

Unfortunately, there was no convincing argument against his looks.

Zane Jaxon was handsome. Painfully so. He had the kind of face that made people look twice without meaning to, dark hair that never seemed to stay perfectly in place and a body built from years of hockey. Even when he was sitting there looking bored out of his mind, he somehow managed to look like the sort of guy girls wrote entire fantasies about.

I hated that I had noticed.

“I still don’t understand the obsession,” I said, taking another sip of my coffee.

Kendra gave me a knowing look but, thankfully, didn’t say anything.

For once, I was grateful.

Because the truth was, I had started noticing Zane too.

Not in the way the girls at his parties did. At least, that was what I told myself. I wasn’t interested in his reputation, and I certainly wasn’t interested in becoming another name on whatever invisible list he seemed to keep.

But lately, I had begun noticing little things.

The way his expression changed when he was with Adrian. The way he laughed with his teammates after a good game. The way girls seemed to gather around him without him ever having to ask.

And, most annoyingly of all, I had started wondering what it would take to make him smile at me.

I immediately pushed the thought away.

Absolutely not.

Zane Jaxon was my brother’s best friend.

He was crazy.

And I was not interested.