All Chapters of Fake Dating The Alpha Hockey Captain: Chapter 31 - Chapter 40

SierraI peeked at Asher from the other side of the rink entrance and felt that old familiar twinge in my chest. It wasn’t fear this time. Someone must have been anticipating that’s the best way to describe it: excited, nervous, like I was going to bite my nails down to the quick while I was waiting for something to happen. under the sleeves of my hoodie, bits the fingers this way and that, My mouth curved into a grin I didn’t bother hiding.Almost a whole day had passed, things had been quiet, they just sort of faded away. Hush always had a brief life. With us. And the way people looked when we entered a room together. His name trailed behind him like an unending whisper.And yet, there he was, leaning against the trophy case like just another regular kid waiting for his girlfriend. His hair was still wet from practice, his shoulders relaxed, chuckling at something Jonah said as if the world hadn’t been keeping us under constant surveillance recently. aware as if my phone hadn’t bu

SierraI had realized something was off the second I left my dorm.It wasn’t loud. It wasn’t obvious. It was like the morning too was light and airy, like a room where the furniture had been shifted just enough to throw you off balance.I had my phone in my hand, Asher’s name still glowing on the screen from a text I hadn’t sent.I slid it into my pocket and headed for my first class.People watched me again. I tried to ignore it, but it followed me anyway, the slight pauses in conversation, the way eyes lifted and tracked my movement before sliding away.By the time I got to the academic quad, my nerves were tight as a wire.I survived the first lecture without really hearing a single word. My notes were struggling; half lines were drifting off into the margins. After the professor let us go, I waited a moment longer before rising, breathing, as I waited for the room to clear.“You okay?”I glanced up and saw Lila, who two rows in front of me.“Yeah,” I said out of habit. She didn’t

Sierra They gave us a crummy little conference room with crummier coffee – like fluorescent light and burnt coffee beans were going to make this feel right. I sat between Asher and Dad at the long table, my bruised elbow pulsating in tune with the wall clock, while a council liaison in a navy blazer paged through a folder dense enough to be wielded as a weapon.“Thank you for coming on short notice,” she said, voice smooth and measured, like everything she said had to pass through three legal filters before it hit the air “We’re here to speak on issues of safety, optics, and tension within the packs on campus” “You have the incident reports,” Asher said “Campus security has been notified. Someone shoved my mate down a flight of stairs and followed it up with anonymous threats That’s not optics That’s escalation”Ahead of us, the elder with the too-tight tie cleared his throat “No one is downplaying the importance of the event,” he said “Although there are fears that transferring pa

SierraSleep never showed up. It lurked on the border of my vision, close enough to taste, then evaporated every time I closed my lids. Each time I made an attempt, the same visuals pushed back in. The hearing room. Sebastian’s calm smile. Asher all by himself.At some point, I stopped pretending and got out of bed. The dorm was still in that special, immutable way just beyond midnight’s reach, all the day’s bustle bled away. My phone buzzed just once, in my hand.rink.I put on a hoodie and some sneakers and went out into the cold.The rink was sat like a dormant beast on the periphery of the campus, all steel and glass and darkness. The security lights were weak, but the side door was open, just like I knew it would be. Asher hated locked doors.Within me, it was the air that struck first. Sharp, enough to make my lungs hurt. The ice was faintly aglow beneath the lights overhead: perfect, empty, a blank slab of white waiting to be inscribed.Asher was already at center ice, skates l

Sierra.I showed Asher the message without saying a word.His jaw clenched as he looked at it, a muscle twitching beneath the bruise already forming there. “Inside,” he said in a low tone. “Not out here.”We turned and walked back to the rink.“My bad – forward it to Evan,” he said. “And screenshot everything from tonight.”My hands trembled as I was doing that. Not from fear exactly. More like anger that had nowhere to go.“Who is she?” I inquired. “Really.”“Don’t know,” Asher says, a hint of irritation in his voice. “But there’s someone who wants us to believe she’s important.”“Maybe she does.”He met my gaze then, really looked at me. “You think Sebastian sent her.”I didn’t have to answer, but I did. “I think someone did. The timing’s too perfect. New transfer right before the hearing? Right after the forum went sideways?”Asher’s phone buzzed. He looked at it, and then showed me the screen.*Evan: Got your forward. Running it now. Also — Lila Chen, transferred from Ridgeway th