Power Play With My Fake Boyfriend
"You called me a spoiled princess who wouldn't last five minutes in the real world."
"You hacked my team's group chat and sent my rookie hazing photos to the entire athletic department."
Ivy Chen and Nate Callahan have history. Bad history. So when a reality TV show, a brother's scholarship, and one NHL reputation crisis collapses them into the same luxury off-campus house, fake dating, shared bed, live cameras it should be simple.
Pretend. Survive. Walk away.
Except Ivy already knows something she can't unknow: her anonymous 2 a.m. best friend, the one she's been trading secrets and stupid hockey memes with for months, the one who feels like the safest person she's never met is him. Nate. Her brother's grumpy, broody, insufferable captain.
The guy who stress-bakes at midnight after losses. Who has a hidden playlist of cheesy 2000s power ballads. Who looks at her sometimes like she's not a problem to solve anymore.
"This isn't real," she reminds herself daily.
The staged touches say otherwise.
Because somewhere between sharp barbs softening into playful teasing, stolen kisses that linger way past necessary, and quiet unguarded moments the cameras never quite catch the list of reasons she can't stand him stops growing.
Then comes the night after overtime, Nate still in his game-day suit, eyes warm in the low kitchen light.
"So what happens when the cameras stop rolling?"
His thumb brushes her jaw. Soft. Certain.
"Who said we're stopping?"
One semester. One championship run. One expiration date.
Neither of them is counting down anymore.