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

40 Chapters

Chapter 31: A Class Am Not In

Roxanne's POV The library was quiet the way it always was on Monday mornings. The serious kind of quiet where everyone present had made a decision about being there and intended to honour it. I found my usual table near the window, set up my notes, and opened the Pack Law and Governance draft I was supposed to have finished by Wednesday. It wasn't my class. The Omega-track equivalent I actually attended was in a building across campus and covered basic pack compliance in a way that assumed the students reading it would never need to apply any of it. My clients were Alpha-track. Their assignments needed to be convincing. Which meant for two years I had been working through the same curriculum they were, on my own time, without the credit. The irony had stopped being funny somewhere around semester three. I read through the draft introduction and reached for my pen. "This entire assignment is a waste of time." The voice came from the table directly beside me. Entirely unbother

Chapter 32: You Made Notes

Roxanne's POV Alice opened the door before I knocked. "She's here," she announced, to no one in particular, and stepped back to let me in. "It's past seven." "I'm not late," I said. "You're not early either." She took my jacket. "He's in the sitting room. Dinner in forty minutes." "Is it pasta?" I asked. She smiled, small and satisfied. "Yes." I found Tyson at the coffee table in the sitting room with what appeared to be an actual physical folder of notes, which was so unexpected that I stopped in the doorway. "You made notes?" I asked. He looked up. "Sit down." "You made notes." I crossed the room and dropped onto the sofa opposite him. "On paper. With a pen. In a folder." "My father is thorough. The preparation should match." He pushed the folder across the table toward me. "Read the first page." I picked it up and opened it. The first page was a list. Things he will ask. Things he will imply. Things you should never say. "This is really terrifying," I said. "He's th

Chapter 33: Dinner Time

Roxanne's POV The pasta was really good. I didn't say that out loud immediately because I had some dignity left, but it was good and I was eating it with the focused appreciation of someone who had been living on dining hall food for four years and knew the difference. "Where is Alice?" I looked around the dining area. The table was set for two. "She should eat with us." "She already ate." Tyson picked up his fork. "She always eats before service." "Service." I looked at him. "You just called dinner *service.*" "That's what it is...." "It's a meal, Tyson. Between people who exist in the same space." I looked at my plate. "She should sit down." "She prefers the kitchen." He said. "Did you ask her?" I asked. He paused. Just slightly. "She has a routine..." "So you didn't ask her." I picked up my fork. "Next time ask her." He looked at me for a moment with an expression I couldn't fully read, then looked at his plate. "Yes ma'am." I rolled my eyes at him. I ate a bite of th

Chapter 34; We Need To Talk

Charlotte's POV I was coming back from the laundry room when I spotted Roxanne turning the corner from the direction of the Alpha residential block. "Hey" I fell into step beside her. "How did it go?" "Informative." She glanced at me. "The meeting got moved to Friday. His father pushed it forward." "This Friday?" I asked. "Yep." She confirmed. "Roxie..." "It wasn't relaxing." She pushed through the stairwell door and I followed. "We went through everything. What he's going to ask, what to say, how to sit." "How are you feeling about Friday?" I asked. "Like I'm going to sit across from the man who decided my childhood and convince him I'm voluntarily in love with his son." She glanced at me. "Perfectly fine." "You'll be convincing." I said. "I'm always convincing. That's the skill that got me into this situation." She shifted her bag. "What else happened?" I looked at her. The stairwell went quiet except for our footsteps. "Tyson also brought up Ryder." She said finally.

Chapter 35: It Wasn't A Mistake

Charlotte's POV Roxanne looked at me, looked at Ryder, looked back at me. "I'll see you upstairs," she said. She walked past both of us without touching either of us and turned the corner and I listened to her footsteps fade and then it was just the corridor and Ryder standing at the end of it and four feet of floor between us that felt like significantly more. He waited until the footsteps were completely gone. "You left," he said. "It was early." I kept my voice level. "I had things to get back for." "It was seven in the morning, Charlotte." He held my stare, not moving from where he was standing. "You were gone before I woke up. I reached over and you weren't there and there was nothing. No note, no text, nothing." "I didn't want to wake you." I said. "So you thought disappearing was the kinder option." His voice wasn't harsh. I looked at the wall for a second, then back at him. "Okay." I exhaled. "The truth is I woke up and panicked. Your arm was over me and the room

Chapter 36: Dinner With His Father

Roxanne's POV The formal dining room was in the east wing of the main academy building. A room I had walked past a hundred times without ever going in, because rooms like that weren't for people like me. Tyson held the door and I went in. Cyrus Blackwood was already seated. I had seen him at pack events since I was twelve. Always at the front, always the largest presence in any room, always with the specific stillness of someone who had never needed to raise his voice to get what he wanted. His eyes moved to Tyson's hand at my back. Something shifted in his expression. "Roxanne." He said. "It's been some time." "Alpha Blackwood." I kept my voice steady. "Thank you for the invitation." He gestured at the chairs across from him. We sat. "Tyson." He looked between us. "You look well." "You look the same," Tyson said. The first course arrived and Cyrus picked up his fork and turned to me with the pleasant, precise expression I was already learning to be cautious of. "Te

Chapter 37: I'm Glad It Was You

Roxanne's POV We were outside and the cold hit us and neither of us said anything for a full minute.Just walked. Side by side, the academy building falling away behind us, the campus quiet at this hour."I'm sorry," I said finally.He looked at me sideways. "For what.""You just had a screaming match with your father in a formal dining room." I pulled my jacket tighter. "Because of me.""That fight was twenty years in the making." He looked straight ahead. "You just happened to be in the room.""He's way crueler than I expected," I said."He really doesn't know how to control himself," His jaw was tight. "He's been doing it my whole life. He picks the word that lands the hardest and he delivers it nicely and then he waits." He shook his head. "Tonight you got orphan who attached herself. Last year I got disappointment disguised as potential. The year before that my mother would have wanted better.""He seems like someone who's never satisfied," I looked at him."Yeah he is," He kep

Chapter 38: Good Influence

Tyson's POV Ryder was still up.I could see the light under his door from the corridor, which meant he'd either been waiting or he'd known I'd come here after. I knocked once and pushed it open without waiting.He was on his bed with his laptop, which he closed immediately when he saw my face."How did it go?" he asked."Worse than I expected." I dropped into the chair by his desk and sat back. "He called her an orphan who was trying to attach herself to use me."Reid stared at me. "He said that.""At the dinner table." I looked at the ceiling. "Your dad really has issues with his mouth." He said."He has issues with his personality." I said flatly. "I told him this was the reason why my mother left." I exhaled. "Then things got heated and I walked out."Ryder was quiet for a moment. "With Roxanne.""Yeah." I said. "She had to take me out or it was going to turn to a punching match."He looked at me carefully. "How is she?""She held up better than most people would." I pressed my k

Chapter 39: I'll Be There

Roxanne's POV I woke up hot.My body was warm in a way that didn't match the room temperature, like my body had decided to run at a different setting overnight without consulting me. I kicked the blanket off and lay there staring at the ceiling for a minute.My wolf was already awake.That was the first weird thing. She was usually quiet in the mornings, slow to surface, taking her time. This morning she was just, present. Alert and sitting forward like she'd been up for a while and had been waiting for me to catch up.What's wrong with you, I told her.She didn't answer, just stayed forward.I sat up and looked at the nightstand.The suppressant bottle only had two pills left. My appointment was in three days and I was already rationing and the bottle was nearly empty.The warmth probably nothing, stress did things to body temperature, last night had been a lot. The dinner, the walk back, everything Tyson said in the corridor.I got up."You look terrible," Charlotte said from her b

Chapter 40: She's Available

Roxanne's POV I found a table near the back of the library and sat down and opened my notes and stared at them.My wolf was still loud. The warmth from this morning was still there, sitting quietly between my shoulders, and Tyson's concerned face was sitting somewhere in my chest where I kept putting things I wasn't ready to look at directly.I'd been in the library for twenty minutes when my phone buzzed.Charlotte: have you heard about Skylar and Hayden Me: No what happenedCharlotte: They had a public argument last night apparently. people saw them and he left alone. word is they're done or close to it.I put the phone face down on the table and looked at my notes.So it was working.Six weeks of performing and Skylar was cracking and her relationship with Hayden was showing the fractures and the plan was doing exactly what it was built to do. This was the win. Tyson getting what he wanted.I picked up my pen and put it back down.My phone buzzed again, I looked at it.Charlotte:

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