Page 95 of Fake Shot

Chapter Thirty-Six

JULES

Idon’t know what it is about watching my fake fiancé fight my ex-husband, but it does something to me—elicits some sort of primal need to claim him and be claimed by him. I don’t even want to know what Brock said that made Colt fling him to the ice and pound the shit out of him; I just want to kiss his face and tell him how much I love him for it.

Wait . . . what?

“What’s wrong?” Audrey asks, glancing over at me after we watch Colt skate off the ice. Below us, Drew is lining up for a faceoff, but Audrey’s eyes are flitting between her fiancé and me, her face contorted into a worried grimace.

“For a second there, I just had this thought that terrified me.”

“Yeah,” Audrey says, throwing an arm around me and squeezing me to her side as she looks back at the ice. “Love can be like that.”

How does she know what I’m thinking? “But I don’t . . . I can’t . . .”

“Yeah,” Audrey says, “you can. It’s okay, Jules. Don’t you think, after everything, after the way he keeps showing you he cares, that it’s okay to trust him? Okay to care about him in return?”

“I’m so scared,” I whisper, reaching across my body and taking her hand where it rests on my shoulder, squeezing her fingers. “I can’t fall for him. Not when we already agreed it was all fake.”

“How long do you think it’s been since it was fake for him?” she asks quietly while her gaze darts back and forth, following the puck along the ice. Now that Colt’s not in the game, I’m just staring at her, trying to figure out what she’s talking about.

“What do you mean?”

“When’s the last time this felt fake? Like the last time that you thought he was just putting on a show for people?”

I think back, before this weekend when we went away, trying to figure out when things changed. It didn’t feel fake at the party, even though I was worried he was only touching me, only paying attention to me, for show. But that was the last time I needed to worry about it, because from that moment on, whether it was just the two of us or we were with other people, there was never a moment that it felt like we were pretending. No, as soon as I stopped reminding him it was all pretend, it stopped feeling fake.

And the way he takes every opportunity to touch me, to hold me, to tell me he cares and that he’ll wait and that I’m worth it... it can’t be fake for him either.

He’s slowly, brick by brick, dismantling the walls I’vebuilt around my heart. He said I had to be the one to take those walls down, but he’s doing it for me every single day in the way he shows me how he feels.

“Oh my god,” I gasp, and instead of looking at me in shock, Audrey just smiles. Lauren looks over at me from the other side of Audrey. Jameson headed to the locker room the second that Colt got a game misconduct, so at least he’s not here to witness his sister realizing she’s in love with his best friend.

“I knew you’d find the right person someday,” Audrey says. “I just never thought it would be Colt.”

My laugh is almost a bark. “Yeah, me neither.”

Teenage me couldn’t even have dreamed up how great he actually is. And the fact that I thought this whole thing was “safe” because there’d be no way he’d ever have feelings for me? The irony is too much.

“I always kind of thought it would be him,” Lauren says, one eyebrow raised.

“Did you now?” I ask. I’m so tempted to say that the only reason she could believe that would be because she didn’t know what happened in Vegas. But none of that seems to matter anymore, so I hold my tongue. “I need to go see him.”

Audrey tells me how to get to the door closest to the locker rooms. “You’re going to have to text him to come meet you, though. They won’t let you in there.”

And then I’m running up the stairs to the exit and following her directions. I don’t text him, though, I call. When I get his voicemail, I tell him where I’m waiting for him. I’m only standing there, chatting up the security guard, for a few minutes before a loud cheer goes up in the arena,which I assume either means the Rebels scored again, or we won the game. Maybe both.

And then the heavy metal door flings open, and Colt is striding through the door in his suit, heading straight toward me. He wraps me in his arms, burrowing his face into my neck and breathing in deeply.

“You good?” I ask.

“Yeah,” he says, but doesn’t let go. Instead, he clings to me like I’m the only thing holding him up.

I pull back, cupping his face in my hands and looking every square inch of him over. “You sure?”

“I’m completely fucking positive, Tink. I feel fantastic.” Then he kisses my nose and says, “Let’s go.”

We’re at the Neon Cactus having a drink with his teammates when the text comes through.

---