Page 1 of Fake Out Hearts

Chapter 1

Theo

Steaming hot water from the team shower pounds against my scalp and runs down the length of me. It’s almost enough to distract me from my disaster of a failed pass tonight. Almost.

The rest of the Aces are shouting and bantering in the showers around me, but their voices meld into a jumble of background noise as scenes from the game we just played flash in my mind like I’m playing it all over again.

“We’re down to the wire, but Camden has the puck and what could be the start of a real turnaround here, folks!”The announcer’s booming voice echoes in my head, urging me on. The game is tied and there’s less than a minute left on the clock, but that’s all the time I need.

A wet towel claps against bare skin and a shout rings out in sync with the crowd howling in my memory.

The Prowler’s nervous goalie steels himself as I hurtle toward him, picking up speed like a freight train. There’s nothing in my way, and the poor fucker knows I’m about to hit him with everything I’ve got.

“Wake up, Camden!” Noah, our team captain, barks, and I can’t tell if I’m hearing him in my memory, in reality, or both.

I keep hammering down the ice as my vision turns black at the edges and every muscle in my legs screams along with the crowd. They know as well as I do that I’ve got this. They’ve seen me sink easier shots than this before.

“Camden!” Noah’s voice shouts from two worlds at once.

One of the Prowlers appears out of nowhere, trucking at me from my right like his life depends on it, and I panic. Fuck, he’s moving too fast. I’m not gonna make it.

“Goddamn it, Camden!” Noah’s voice hounds me again.

This time I look. Noah is farther up the ice and alone to the left of the goalie. If I act fast, I can pass to him before the asshole Prowler chasing me figures out what’s happening. If Noah takes the shot from there, the goalie will never see it coming and the game is guaranteed to be ours. But I’ve got a wide-open shot from here!

“Did you get hit so hard you lost your hearing or something?” Noah asks and shoves me gently.

I almost fall on my face as someone checks me from behind. The rink blurs around me while I fumble, and when I stabilize, my face blazes as I see my least favorite person rocketing down the ice in the other direction with the puck.

“That Kaplan guy has gotta be the biggest prick around,” Reese, our left winger and co-captain, says from the other side of the showers like he’s reading my mind, and I snap out of my daydream. The other Aces must have finished cleaning up a while ago, judging by how dry and clothed they all are. But Noah is standing there and looking at me like I grew a second head.

Fuck. How long have I been zoned out?

“Right? And we were on our A-game tonight too,” Sawyer, our defenseman says, and my eyes dart away from Noah’s piercing blue pair. We both know damn well Sawyer isn’t including me in that after my shitty play cost us the game against our biggest rivals tonight.

“Home ice advantage, I guess,” Reese offers with a shrug, but our goalie, Grant, scoffs and shakes his head.

“No such thing. We fumbled it.”

“Alright, alright, enough with the pity party. I’m ready to forget about tonight.” Maxim Federov, one of our forwards, holds his hands up. “Who’s down to get this press crap out of the way so we can go drink away the sting?”

“Don’t have to ask me twice,” Reese says and heads for the door. Everyone follows him, even Grant, which is a shock. Well, everyone except for Noah. He watches the rest of the team file out of the showers into the locker room and leans against the wall beside me with his arms crossed.

“You alright?”

I look up at him with the same cocky grin that’s won over the media and the fans for years.

“Yeah, I’m fine.”

“You sure about that? That’s twice today you’ve locked up on me,” he says, and I flinch.

“Just enjoying the hot water. Don’t worry about it.”

It’s bullshit, and I can tell from the look he shoots me that he’s not buying it. Why would he? Everyone’s seen that my game has been off all season, but even I don’t know why. It’s like I’ve lost my spark, that drive that kept me hungry and hustling. I keep trying to get out of this rut, but nothing is working and it’s really starting to piss me off.

If I’d just taken the fucking shot… hell, even if I’d passed to Noah, it would’ve changed everything, I’m sure of it. But I froze and Kaplan won the goddamn game because of it.

Noah’s not gonna let my crappy playing off the hook forever, but I definitely don’t want to talk about it right now, so I towel off, get dressed, and square up to look him in the eye because he’s still staring at me expectantly.

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