The Hockey Star Wasn't My Baby's Father. His Father Was

001: ELARA POV

I jolted awake to the sound of my dorm door slamming open, heart hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird.

“Elara! You need to see this. Right now.”

My roommate, Mia, stood in the doorway, phone clutched in her hand like a weapon. Her eyes were wide, a mix of horror and something uncomfortably close to excitement. I sat up slowly, the oversized hoodie I’d slept in slipping off one shoulder.

My hair was a tangled mess from another restless night, and my mouth tasted like regret and cheap coffee from the night before.

“What’s going on?” My voice came out hoarse. I hated how small it sounded.

Mia crossed the room in three strides and shoved her phone under my nose. The screen glowed with the campus gossip page—•Hawks Exposed•. The headline hit me like a slap:

“Quiet Good Girl Elara Vale Knocked Up? Hockey Captain Ronan Hale Suspected Daddy!”

Below it was a blurry photo of me from last week, walking across the quad with my arms wrapped around my middle because the early spring wind had been brutal. Someone had circled my stomach with a red arrow and added a cartoon baby emoji. Comments flooded underneath.

“No way the ice princess finally got laid.”

“Bet it’s Ronan’s. He’s been staring at her like she’s the last puck on the ice.”

“She was supposed to be the last virgin in our year. Hypocrite.”

My stomach dropped. I wasn’t pregnant. I couldn’t be.

I scrolled frantically, breath shallow. Another post from ten minutes ago already had over two thousand likes.

Someone had dug up an old photo of me and Ronan from freshman orientation years ago—his arm slung casually around my shoulders, both of us laughing. The caption read: •Childhood besties to baby mamas? The timeline adds up.•

“I’m not—” The words stuck in my throat. “Mia, this isn’t true.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Then why is the entire campus tagging you and Ronan in the comments? And why does the post say the rumor came from someone who saw you buying a pregnancy test in town yesterday?”

Yesterday. My hands started shaking. I had bought the test, yes—but only because my period was two weeks late and the stress of midterms had me spiraling. It had been negative.

I’d thrown the box away in the public trash outside the pharmacy because I didn’t want anyone in the dorm seeing it.

Someone must have seen me. Someone had followed me. Or worse—someone had gone through the trash.

The room spun. I pressed a hand to my forehead, trying to breathe through the rising panic. This wasn’t just gossip. This was targeted. Someone wanted to humiliate me humiliated.

My phone buzzed violently on the nightstand. Once. Twice. Then it wouldn’t stop. Notifications poured in—Instagram tags, texts from numbers I didn’t recognize, even an email from the campus health center asking if I wanted to schedule a confidential appointment.

I ignored them all and opened my messages. There it was. From Ronan.

Ronan: What the fuck, Elara? My phone is blowing up. Call me. Now.

The last time Ronan Hale had texted me had been three months ago. A simple *Hey, stranger. Heard you’re still hiding in the library.*

I’d left it on read. Seeing his name now, demanding, made something old and familiar twist in my chest—equal parts longing and resentment.

Before I could type a reply, the door burst open again.

This time it wasn’t Mia.

Ronan stood there in all his six-foot-three glory, hockey jacket slung over one shoulder, dark hair still damp from practice. His jaw was clenched so tight I could see the muscle jumping. Those familiar green eyes—eyes that once knew every secret I had—locked onto mine with an intensity that pinned me in place.

“Out,” he barked at Mia.

She didn’t argue. She shot me a sympathetic glance and slipped out, closing the door behind her with a soft click that felt louder than a gunshot.

Ronan didn’t waste time. He crossed the small room, stopping just short of my bed. The scent of his soap and the faint smell of the ice rink clung to him.

“Tell me it’s not true,” he said, voice low and rough. “Tell me some asshole is making shit up to fuck with me before regionals.”

I swallowed hard. “It’s not true. I’m not pregnant.”

Relief flashed across his face for half a second—then suspicion took over. “Then why the hell is everyone saying you bought a test? And why are they connecting it to me?”

“Because we used to be friends,” I snapped, the words sharper than I intended. “Because you’re the big hockey star now and I’m… convenient. Someone saw me buy a test for my own peace of mind and decided to destroy my life with it. Happy?”

He ran a hand through his hair, pacing the tiny space between my bed and the desk. “This is bad, Elara. Coach already pulled me aside. The athletic director is breathing down my neck. If this blows up, it could screw my scholarship, my draft chances—”

“Your draft chances?” I laughed, but there was no humor in it. It came out bitter and cracked. “My reputation is being shredded online. People are calling me a slut, a liar, a hypocrite. I was the girl who never went to parties, who kept her head down. And now I’m the campus whore who trapped the hockey captain. But sure, let’s talk about your precious future.”

Ronan stopped pacing. Something shifted in his expression—guilt, maybe, or the ghost of the boy who used to defend me from playground bullies. He sat on the edge of my bed, close enough that his knee brushed mine.

“I didn’t mean it like that,” he said quietly. “I’m sorry. This is fucked up. But we need to shut it down fast. Together.”

Together. The word felt dangerous coming from him.

I looked away, staring at the wall where I’d pinned old sketches and quotes that used to calm me. “How? It’s already everywhere.”

“I’ll make a statement. Say it’s bullshit. That we’re not even—” He hesitated. “That nothing’s going on between us.”

“Nothing is going on,” I reminded him, though my voice wavered. Because that wasn’t entirely true anymore, was it? Not since he’d moved into the athletic dorm building and our paths started crossing in the shared lounge. Not since those late-night talks had turned into charged silences and almost-kisses we both pretended didn’t happen.

A sharp knock on the door made us both freeze.

“Elara Vale?” A stern female voice. “This is Dean Hargrove. Open the door, please.”

Ronan cursed under his breath. I pulled the hoodie tighter around myself and stood on shaky legs. When I opened the door, the Dean stood there with two campus security officers and—God help me—Kieran Wolfe leaning against the opposite wall, arms crossed, watching everything with those unnervingly sharp gray eyes.

Kieran. Ronan’s biggest rival on the ice and the only other person on campus who seemed to see straight through people. He didn’t say a word, but his gaze flicked from me to Ronan, then back, calculating.

“Miss Vale,” the Dean began, her tone clipped, “due to the serious nature of the allegations and the disruption this is causing, we need you to come with us to the administration building. Mr. Hale as well. There are… concerns about housing arrangements and potential policy violations.”

Housing arrangements. My blood ran cold. Because of a stupid shortage this semester, I’d been placed in the mixed athletic dorm—the same building as the hockey team. Ronan’s building. We weren’t even on the same floor, but apparently that didn’t matter now.

Ronan stepped up beside me, his shoulder brushing mine protectively. “This is ridiculous. She didn’t do anything wrong.”

The Dean’s eyes narrowed. “That remains to be seen. Rumors like this don’t appear out of nowhere, especially when they involve our star athletes. We’ll need statements. Medical confirmation if necessary.”

Humiliation burned through me. Medical confirmation. They wanted proof I wasn’t pregnant—or that I was. Either way, my body was now campus property for discussion.

As the security officers gestured for us to follow, my eyes met Kieran’s across the hall. He didn’t smirk like some of the other athletes would have. Instead, he gave one slow nod, almost imperceptible. A silent message: I’m watching.

It should have comforted me. Instead, it sent a shiver down my spine.

We walked down the corridor like criminals. Whispers followed us. Phones were out. Someone laughed. Another person shouted, “Congrats on the baby, Hale!”

Ronan’s hand brushed the small of my back for the briefest moment—steadying or claiming, I couldn’t tell. My skin heated under the touch even as my mind screamed at me to pull away.

This was wrong. All of it.

I wasn’t pregnant. I knew that.

But as we stepped outside into the bright afternoon light, cameras from the student newspaper flashing, I couldn’t shake the nagging feeling that something else was wrong too. Something deeper.

A fragment of memory flickered—warm hands, a low voice murmuring my name like it mattered, the scent of expensive cologne and something unmistakably masculine that wasn’t Ronan’s fresh-ice smell. Then it was gone, slipping away like smoke.

I pushed it down.

One crisis at a time.

Right now, I had to survive the Dean’s office, Ronan’s anger, the entire campus’s judgment… and the way Dominic Hale’s name kept trying to surface in the back of my mind whenever I thought about that missing night two months ago.

The night I’d gone to the Hale family house looking for Ronan.

The night I’d found his father instead.