I MADE A DEAL WITH THE HOCKEY BOY
Nora Jensen has a plan for everything.
Senior year? Mapped out. College applications? Done. Feelings for Cole Whitaker, Millbrook High's infuriatingly charming hockey star?
Absolutely, categorically, not part of the plan.
But when Cole shows up at her locker with that look — the desperate one he'd never admit to — and says you owe me one, Nora finds herself agreeing to the most ridiculous favor of her life. One family dinner. One fake girlfriend. Simple, clean, transactional.
Except nothing about Cole Whitaker turns out to be simple.
Not the way he remembers her coffee order without being asked. Not the way he describes his favorite color as pre-game ice, before they turn the main lights on. Not the way he looks at her on the porch after dinner like she's something worth keeping — and she's supposed to be pretending he isn't looking at all.
Nora made a deal.
She just didn't read the fine print. The part where fake dinners turn into real conversations. Where negotiated terms start feeling a lot like feelings. Where the boy you agreed to pretend to love somehow becomes the one person you can't imagine pretending about.
The rules were simple.
Don't hold his hand.
Don't look at him like you like him.
Don't fall.
Two out of three isn't bad.