Chapter 3 – Jax

They made us meet in the empty athletic department conference room like we were signing a peace treaty after a war neither of us wanted.

I got there first. Habit. Always early, always ready, even when the only thing waiting for me was a disaster. The long table was covered in call sheets, branding packets, and a stack of NDAs so thick it looked like a threat. A camera was already set up in the corner, red light blinking. Another one faced the opposite wall. They weren’t even pretending this was private.

My agent, Marcus, stood by the window scrolling through his phone. He didn’t look up when I walked in.

“She’s late,” he said.

“She’s probably trying to talk herself out of it.”

Marcus finally glanced at me. “Don’t be an asshole when she gets here. Smile. Be charming. Do the thing you’re supposedly good at.”

I dropped into a chair and stared at my hands. The knuckles on my right hand were still split and yellowing under the tape. Every time I flexed them I felt the impact again..bone on bone, the wet sound of Vale’s nose giving way, the way the arena had gone silent for one perfect second before everything exploded.

The door opened.

Avery Quinn walked in like she was entering a courtroom instead of a conference room. Black hoodie, messy bun, zero makeup, expression sharp enough to cut glass. She didn’t look at me. She looked at the cameras first, then at Marcus, then at the stack of papers like they personally offended her.

Dana from the production team followed her in, all bright smile and clipboard.

“Perfect, you’re both here. Let’s keep this efficient. We need the first joint photo today, a short statement, and then you two will walk across campus together for B-roll. Casual. Natural. Like you’ve been talking for weeks.”

Avery laughed once, short and cold. “We’ve never spoken.”

“Even better,” Dana said cheerfully. “The slow-burn arc sells.”

I stood up because sitting felt wrong. Avery’s eyes finally landed on me. Up close she looked tired. Not the kind of tired you get from one late night...the kind that sits in your bones. There was something brittle in the way she held her shoulders, like one more push and she’d snap.

“Harrington,” she said, voice flat.

“Quinn.”

Marcus cleared his throat. “Great. Chemistry already. Let’s go over the ground rules. Publicly, you two are newly exclusive. No other dates. No contradicting statements. You appear together at least three times a week for the cameras. Privately—”

“There is no privately,” Avery cut in. She still hadn’t sat down. “You’re paying me to pretend. That’s it. Don’t confuse the two.”

Dana’s smile tightened. “Of course. But the audience has to believe it. Which means you need to sell the early tension. The push and pull. The ‘I can’t stand him but I can’t stay away’ energy. Think you can manage that?”

Avery’s gaze flicked back to me. Something ugly and honest passed between us for half a second. She saw the tape on my hand. I saw the way her jaw locked when she looked at it.

“I already can’t stand him,” she said. “The rest should be easy.”

Marcus made a sound like he was swallowing a laugh. I wanted to tell him to shut up.

Dana clapped her hands once. “Wonderful. First photo. Stand closer.”

Neither of us moved.

“Closer,” she repeated, still smiling.

I stepped around the table. Avery didn’t step back, but she also didn’t lean in. We ended up close enough that I could smell the faint citrus of whatever soap she used and the sharp edge of her anger. The camera shutters started clicking.

“Arm around her waist,” Dana instructed.

I hesitated. Avery’s eyes warned me not to.

I did it anyway. My hand settled lightly against her side. She was warmer than I expected. Rigid.

“Now look at each other,” Dana said. “Not like you want to kill each other. Like you’re trying not to want each other. Big difference.”

Avery tilted her face up. For the cameras it probably looked intimate. Up close it looked like she was deciding where to stab me first.

“This is the stupidest thing I’ve ever agreed to,” she said under her breath, lips barely moving.

“Join the club,” I muttered back.

The shutters kept firing.

Dana finally lowered her phone. “Perfect. That’s the tension we needed. Now—campus walk. Ten minutes. Talk about something normal. Classes. Weather. Anything that isn’t how much you hate this.”

We were herded out into the hallway. The second the conference room door shut behind us, Avery pulled away like my hand had burned her.

She didn’t look at me as we started walking. Cameras trailed at a distance, pretending to be subtle.

“You know this doesn’t fix anything, right?” she said quietly, eyes forward. “One viral punch and suddenly you’re the victim who needs a girlfriend to prove you’re not a monster. Cute.”

Something hot and defensive rose in my chest. “You don’t know shit about me.”

“I know enough.” Her voice stayed low, but it shook on the edges. “I know guys like you get second chances until the day you don’t. And I know I’m the prop that makes the second chance look earned.”

I stopped walking.

She took two more steps before she realized, then turned. The cameras were still far enough back that they couldn’t catch the exact words, only the body language.

“I’m not asking you to like me,” I said. The words came out rougher than I meant. “I’m asking you to cash the check and do the job. Same as me.”

For a second her face cracked. Not into softness but into something rawer. Exhaustion. Resentment. The kind of quiet desperation that only shows when someone thinks no one is looking closely enough.

Then it was gone.

“Fine,” she said. “We do the job. We smile for the cameras. We give them the story they paid for. And the second the last episode airs, I never have to look at your face again.”

She turned and kept walking.

I followed, because the cameras were watching, and because right now following her was the only direction I had left.

Behind us, Dana’s voice floated down the hallway, bright and pleased.

“This is going to be gold.”