Page 45 of Bleacher Report
NHL’s Hunter Reed Off the Market?
Who Is Peyton Collins and How Did She Snag Hockey’s Hottest Bachelor?
Peyton Collins Scores Big—Is This Relationship the Real Deal?
I scroll, the captions all blurring together.
Some comments are sweet.
Some are skeptical.
And some…cutting.
He’s a player. He’ll chew her up and spit her out.
Didn’t he get spotted last month with that Brazilian model?
Pretty sure Bethany Richards isn’t done with him yet—girl better watch her back.
This is fake AF.
She’s just another puck bunny with a podcast mic.
My stomach twists, because I can’t stop myself from reading them even though I know better.
I swipe the screen off, pushing the phone away like it’s radioactive.
This is exactly why I made the rules. Why I told him no sex, no puck bunnies, no blurring the lines.
Because I’ve seen what happens when you believe in something that isn’t real.
The memory hits me before I can shove it down.
My dad, sitting in the bleachers at every single tennis meet, even after my injury, even when I quit.
Telling me I was still the best, even when I wasn’t.
He would’ve told me to trust myself.
To stop reading the comments.
To play the game my way.
I close my eyes and breathe him in, like he’s still sitting across from me, coaching me from the sidelines.
But I can’t call him now.
I can’t call anyone.
Because right now, the person I’m pretending to fall for…is the only one who could actually break me.
Chapter Ten
Hunter
Slade Matthews’s basement is already loud when I walk in—game controllers clicking, trash talk flying, and Wolf yelling at Luka to stop screen-peeking.
I check my phone one last time before tucking it into my pocket. Peyton and I have been texting on and off all day, mostly her still trying to downplay the fact that she woke up halfway on my side of the bed with drool on her chin, and me doing everything I could to tease her about it. Not to mention that I caught her off guard with that photo of me without my practice jersey on.
