Chapter 3: Date Me

ELARA.

“Like hell I did.” Kyle’s voice cut through the room like a blade. 

He stared down at me like I was some sort of stain in his room. His arms were crossed over a sweat-damp T-shirt that clung to his chest, and every line of his body screamed that he wanted me gone.

“Who the fuck are you,” he demanded, “and how the hell did you get into my house?”

I pushed myself up against the headboard, the sheets sliding around my waist. My head throbbed really hard. “I’m Elara. And about the other part… I’d also like to know the answer to that. I have absolutely no idea.”

I noticed, absently, that he looked like he had just come from a workout—skin still flushed, hair pushed back, the sharp lines of his face more cut up close than they ever looked from across a rink. For a second I wondered why I had spent so much time hating him.

Then I remembered.

Mason.

“You think this is a joke?” His voice climbed high, echoing in the room.

“I know it’s not. I’m sorr—”

He shoved his phone in my face so fast I flinched. 

The screen showed a photo of me from the night before, shoes dangling from one hand, dress twisted, clearly drunk, stepping through what must have been the entrance of his house. 

“People fucking saw you,” he said. “And now they think I’m sleeping around.”

I stared at the image until my eyes burned. Heat flooded my face. 

I pressed the heel of my hand against my forehead. “I’m so sorry. I’ll make a video and tell everyone it was a misunderstanding.”

He let out a short, humorless laugh. “A misunderstanding. You think they’ll believe that?”

“They should.”

“This isn’t about the fans.” He pulled the phone back and started pacing the room. “The NHL called me this morning. They’re threatening to pull my contract. A scandal is the last thing I need right now.”

The words landed with weight. I knew enough about his situation—everyone on campus did—to understand what that meant. Years of work, the kind of future most people only dreamed about and somehow I had dragged my disaster into the middle of it.

“What do you suggest I do then?” I asked, quieter than before.

He stopped pacing and faced me fully. The anger in his eyes hadn’t cooled. “There’s only one way to get them off my back.”

“How?”

“I have to make them believe you’re my girlfriend.” The words came out sharp, almost spat. “And to do that I have to sell it to the fans too.”

For a second the absurdity of it almost made me laugh, even through the headache. “You know, that’s a very weird way to ask a girl out.”

“The fuck?” He scoffed, his eyes wide in disbelief. “You think I’m asking you out? You’re not even my type, I’m doing this to save my career.”

I swung my legs over the side of the bed and stood, ignoring the way the room tilted. “Well, you’re not my type either. So let’s wrap this up. I want to leave now. Thank you for your hospitality.”

I moved toward the door and he stepped into my path.

“You’re going nowhere.” He said sharply, his gaze burning into me. “You create a scandal like this and you think you can just walk out?”

“That’s exactly what I’m doing.” I tried to push past him.

His hand closed around my upper arm and pulled me back. Suddenly we were face to face, close enough that I could feel the heat coming off his skin and see the darker flecks in his eyes. 

The air between us felt charged and my gaze dropped for half a second to his mouth before I could stop it.

He released me like the contact had burned him.

I shoved past him, yanked the door open, and stormed out into the hallway, then down the stairs and out into the morning light.

The second the cold air hit my face, reality caught up.

My car.

I had no idea where it was.

I fumbled my phone out of the pocket of my dress and unlocked it with shaking fingers. The most recent chat was with a middleman whose name I didn’t recognize.

Sold. 70% off original price. 

Cash transferred.

Seventy percent.

I had bought that car with months of double shifts and money I still owed. And sometime during the blackout I had sold it for a fraction of what it was worth.

“Fuck,” I whispered, the word cracking in the middle. Frustration crashed over me so hard my vision blurred.

I scrolled further, looking for the buyer’s name.

Mason Reed.

My heart slammed against my ribs hard enough that I thought I might actually be sick. 

I was still staring at the cracked confirmation of the car sale when the phone rang.

Unknown number.

I answered it immediately, my voice coming out rough. “Hello?”

“Elara Bennett.” The voice on the other end was calm and pleasant. “We need to talk about your payment.”

My stomach tightened. “I recently just transferred fifty percent of the total amount—"

“That’s not going to be enough.”

I frowned, pressing the phone harder to my ear. “What do you mean? I still have a few days left on the original schedule. I can make up the difference, I just need a little more time.”

“According to the agreement you signed,” the voice continued, smooth and unhurried, “the amount you owe has doubled.”

I went completely still. “What? I never agreed to that.”

A soft chuckle drifted through the speaker. “You did. Check your email. We just sent a copy of the contract. Read the back page carefully this time.”

My fingers felt numb as I switched the call to speaker and opened the attachment. 

The document loaded slowly and the first pages were exactly what I remembered—the loan amount, the repayment schedule, the aggressive interest I had signed off on in a haze of desperation months ago when all I could think about was buying Mason that car. 

I scrolled faster, heart hammering.

Then I reached the back page.

A second clause sat there in ink so faint it was almost invisible unless the screen was tilted at just the right angle. 

Additional conditions. 

Automatic doubling of the principal if certain payment windows were missed—windows that had never been clearly explained to me. 

I had been scammed from the start.

The realization settled over me like cold water. 

Every double shift, every skipped meal, every risk I had taken to put that car in Mason’s hands had been feeding a debt that was engineered to grow the moment I stumbled. 

And I had stumbled hard.

“This isn’t legal,” I shouted into the phone.

“It is binding,” the voice replied. “You have seven days to begin the new payment schedule. We’ll be in touch.”

The line went dead and the phone slipped from my hand and hit the pavement with a sharp crack. 

For a moment I just stared at it, breathing too fast. I bent down slowly and picked it up. 

The screen was cracked now, a spiderweb of fractures across the glass, but it still lit up when I touched it.

A news alert notification popped up.

Gossip Hub: New read.

I tapped it before I could stop myself.

It opened to a video file and without thinking I pressed play.

The video was only twenty seconds long. The quality was grainy, but not grainy enough. 

Loud moans escaped the phone speaker.

I watched the way the girl arched, the way her fingers dug into the sheets, the familiar birthmark on her left shoulder blade that no amount of blurring could fully hide. 

The room was one I recognized instantly—the same hotel bedroom where Mason had first convinced me to stay the night months ago.

It was me.

One of the videos from his laptop that I had supposedly deleted and broken.