Fake Dating My Ex's Hockey Star Brother

The October morning is brilliant and cold, the kind of autumn that makes me think Ethan will finally answer his phone. My fingers drum against the steering wheel of my Subaru as I drive toward his place,another text left on read, another reminder that something isn't right. The statistics textbook I need sits in his apartment like some kind of ransom, and I don't have time for his forgetfulness. Not with Professor Mitchell's class on the horizon.

Something is off. I can feel it, that strange prickling beneath my skin that has nothing to do with the temperature outside. My wolf stirs inside me, restless and agitated, and she's not usually wrong about these things. Three years of being bound to Ethan hasn't dulled her instincts,if anything, they've sharpened. She doesn't like that he hasn't responded. She doesn't like a lot of things about him anymore.

I pull into the drive of his family's townhouse,one of those expensive properties in the Back Bay that screams old money and older expectations. The gate opens at my approach, familiar with the frequency of my visits. My hands grip the wheel tighter as I kill the engine. Nine-thirty in the morning on a Tuesday, and Ethan should be awake. He'd promised to have the book ready.

The front door is slightly ajar. That's the first real sign that something's wrong. Ethan's paranoid about security, always locking up, always checking twice. I climb the stairs toward his bedroom, and that's when I hear it,a male voice, low and urgent, followed by a female voice I don't recognize.

"My girlfriend's coming over," Ethan hisses from inside his room. "You need to leave. Now."

My stomach drops.

The door flies open, slamming against the wall with enough force to crack the plaster, and a red-haired girl bursts out, her blouse hanging open, her hair a tangled mess. She doesn't see me at first. She's fumbling with her bra strap, her lipstick smeared, and when she collides with me in the narrow hallway, she gasps like I've struck her.

I don't move. Don't breathe. I'm frozen at the threshold of something that should have been impossible, something that feels like a lie even though every sense I have is screaming the truth.

"Olivia." Ethan emerges from his room, hair messed up, chest bare, a sheet wrapped around his waist like some pathetic cover for what he's done. His eyes go wide, then calculate, then settle into something that looks almost defiant. "This isn't what it looks like."

Everything in me wants to laugh. The cliché is almost beautiful in its desperation.

"Then what is it?" My voice comes out steady, which is its own kind of betrayal. I'm shattering on the inside, fracturing like thin ice, but my voice is ice itself. My wolf is doing something worse than howling,she's going quiet, retreating into some dark corner of my psyche where she doesn't have to process this. "Because it looks like you've been cheating on me."

He reaches for me, and I step backward. The red-haired girl slinks past, muttering an apology that feels like salt in an open wound, and I realize I don't even care about her. She's a symptom, not the disease.

"Come inside," Ethan says, his voice taking on that smooth quality that has always worked on me before. "Let me explain. I was drunk last night. I don't even remember her. You know I'd never,"

"That's the problem." I step past him into his room,the room I've spent so many nights in, the room that smells like him and now smells like them. "You don't seem to remember anything. Not that you forgot my birthday. Not that you missed my pack's celebration last month. Not that you couldn't be bothered to answer a single text about the book I needed."

The room is a wreck,pillows on the floor, sheets tangled, her phone abandoned on his nightstand. I pick it up and throw it hard at his chest. He catches it reflexively.

"Why?" The word tears out of me. "Ethan, why? Three years, and you couldn't even have the decency to,"

"Because you're always so busy!" His voice cracks, and suddenly he's someone I don't recognize. Someone smaller, meaner, desperate. "Your stupid student council, your stupid study groups, your stupid family stuff with your pack. You've forgotten that I exist, Olivia. What am I supposed to do? Just wait around until you have time for me?"

The excuse is pathetic, and we both know it.

"You could have talked to me. You could have ended things. You could have done literally anything except this." I'm reaching for the chain around my neck,the one he'd given me on our first anniversary, the one that suddenly feels like a collar. "You know what I think? I think you liked having a girlfriend who was too busy to notice what you were doing."

I pull the chain off, feeling the clasp break. The pendant falls to the floor, a tiny gold heart that now looks like something that belonged to someone else.

"I'm done," I say quietly. "We're done. Get yourself another audience."

I turn to walk out, and he grabs my arm. "You'll never find anyone better than me, Olivia. I made you popular. I made you interesting."

The laugh that escapes me is hollow, but it's real. I pull my arm free and don't look back.

My phone buzzes the moment I'm back in my car. A call from my brother Noah.

"Hey, I've got a tutoring gig for you," he says, not bothering with hello. Noah's efficient like that. "Kid's on the hockey team, needs a stats tutor, pays well. You interested?"

I grip the steering wheel and try to sound normal. "Yeah. Yeah, I'm interested."