All Chapters of Falling For The Hockey Captain: Chapter 21 - Chapter 30

AVA'S POVPAPER RAINThe papers keep falling even after security drags Jill through the exit doors, her screaming fading into the general roar of the crowd, replaced almost instantly by a thousand different conversations erupting at once. I watch people around me snatch pages out of the air, heads bent together, phones flashing as they photograph whatever's printed on them."Get one," Alfred says, already shoving past a row of stunned spectators to grab a page fluttering down near our seats.My hands are shaking as I take it from him, scanning the print. Financial statements. Names. Dates going back three years, my father's name highlighted in yellow marker alongside Chase's father and at least four other families I don't recognize, all connected to payments the athletic department never publicly disclosed."Oh God," Emma breathes, reading over my shoulder. "This is everything. Everyone."Down on the ice, play has stopped complet

AVA'S POV TWENTY MINUTES Twenty minutes has never felt so much like a countdown to an execution. We leave the media room in a daze, reporters still shouting questions behind us that Coach's liaison fields with practiced deflection, and by the time we make it back to the relative privacy of the coaches' hallway, my hands are shaking so badly I can barely hold my phone. "What could she possibly have," Chase says, pacing the narrow hallway. "Timestamps. Evidence. What is there to even prove beyond what we just admitted to?" "I don't know." I lean against the wall, trying to steady my breathing. "Screenshots, maybe. Something from Leon's texts to Priya. Or" I stop, a horrible thought crystallizing. "What?" Chase's eyes snap to mine. "The night at the club," I say slowly. "When I kissed you. Leon and I talked about the plan beforehand, at the table, before I ever walked over to you. If someone overheard that conversation" "Someone could have audio," Chase finishes, dread creeping

AVA'S POVJILL'S MOTHER"That can't be a coincidence," I say, staring at the photo until the faces blur together."It's not," my father says quietly, and something in his voice tells me he's already several steps ahead of us, pieces clicking into place he clearly wishes weren't there. "Marcus Whitfield and Diane Whitfield  Jill's mother remarried after their divorce, changed her name, which is why the connection wasn't obvious. But I remember now. Jill's father worked in the athletic department. Before all of this, before you girls were even friends.""Jill never mentioned that," I say slowly, though even as the words leave my mouth, I'm remembering small things  offhand comments Jill made over the years about her father being "difficult," about her parents' bitter divorce, about visits to her dad that always seemed to end in tension nobody wanted to explain further."Would you have?" Chase says gently. "If your father got pushed out of a

AVA'S POVEMMAFor a long moment, I can't make my brain accept what my eyes are telling me."Emma?" My voice comes out small, disbelieving, echoing strangely against the water lapping beneath the pier. "What I don't understand.""I know." Emma steps closer, hands shoved into the pockets of a jacket I recognize, one she's worn a hundred times curled up on our couch watching bad reality TV together. "This is the part where you're supposed to be shocked. Confused best friend, right? The one who held your hair back after the birthday whiskey. The one who sat with you every single night this week while your entire life fell apart.""You were the one blowing it up," I say, the horror of it settling in slowly, sickeningly. "The texts. The photos. Whitfield's number. Jill" I stop, another piece clicking violently into place. "You told Jill to go public at the game, didn't you? Fed her just enough information to make her think it was her own idea."E

AVA'S POVBEFORE HE EVEN ARRIVEDChase reads the article three times, and each time his face grows a little more ashen, like the words are physically draining something out of him."That's not true," he says finally, voice tight and controlled in a way that scares me more than shouting would. "It can't be true. I earned my spot. I tried out like everyone else, freshman year, alongside forty other guys fighting for six open positions.""Call your father," I say gently. "Right now. Before you let this sit and fester into something worse than it might actually be."He's already dialing, hands unsteady, and I watch him pace the length of my childhood bedroom while the call connects, his father's voice tinny and distant through the speaker."Chase, it's early, what—""Did you arrange my spot on the team before I even enrolled?" Chase's voice cracks with the effort of keeping it level. "There's an article, Dad. A photo of you with some 'business partner,' timestamped a year before I got her