All Chapters of I MADE A DEAL WITH THE HOCKEY BOY : Chapter 1 - Chapter 6

The Whitaker house was warm and loud and smelled like garlic bread, and Nora had made a critical tactical error.She had not prepared for how much she would like it.She'd expected awkward. She'd dressed for awkward, dark jeans, a nice blouse, the kind of outfit that said 'I'm a good influence: without trying too hard. She'd rehearsed answers to standard parent questions in the car. She had a strategy.What she had not strategized for was Cole opening the front door before she even knocked, like he'd been watching for her, and saying, "You actually came," with something so genuinely relieved in his voice that it knocked all her prepared sentences clean out of her head."We had a deal," she said."Right." He exhaled. "Okay. Ground rules recap: we've been dating for two months, we met through Maya Chen because she's both our mutual friend and she already knows so she won't blow it—""You told Maya?""She's my emergency contact, she had a right to know." He said it so fast she almost mi

It was Maya's idea, technically."If you're going to be convincing," she'd said Tuesday morning, with the tone of someone who had been thinking about this for approximately forty-eight hours straight, "you should know things about each other. Real things. Couples know things.""We're not a couple," Nora said."Fake couple. Same rules apply."And that was how Nora found herself sitting on the bleachers above the ice rink on a Wednesday afternoon, watching Cole run drills with the rest of the Millbrook Wolves while her calc notes sat unread in her lap and she tried very hard to focus on integration by parts.She had come because it made practical sense. She should know what his practice schedule looked like. She should be able to talk about hockey with some degree of competence. This was research.This was definitely not because the ice rink was the only place she'd ever seen Cole Whitaker look completely at peace.He was fast. She'd known that, abstractly — everyone in school knew Cole

Maya ambushed her at lunch."Okay," she said, sliding into the seat across from Nora with the energy of someone who had been physically restraining herself all morning. "We need to talk about this morning.""There's nothing to talk about.""Derek showed up, Cole defended your honor, and then you two had a moment in the hallway that I could feel from my locker thirty feet away."Nora stabbed a grape with her fork. "We did not have a moment.""Nora. I watched you walk to first period. You were doing that thing.""What thing?""The thing where you're hyper-aware of exactly how close he is to you and you're pretending you're not." Maya leaned forward. "Which means something changed."Something had changed. Nora just wasn't ready to examine what, exactly, or when."We're fake dating," she said. "We're supposed to look convincing.""That," Maya said, pointing at her, "was not fake-dating energy. That was 'I'm having a crisis about my feelings' energy."Before Nora could respond, Cole droppe