Page 256 of Faking the Goal

His thumb moves once across my cheek, but his expression remains serious. "As long as we're in this relationship, I'm a one-woman man, trouble. I don't flirt with other women. I don't keep my options open. And I sure as hell don't cheat."

Something warm and painfully giddy bursts through my chest.

"I'm yours," he says, holding my gaze. "Why the hell would I be looking at another woman when I already have you?"

Oh, fuck.

The words hit somewhere far deeper than they have any right to, especially with the way he's looking at me when he says them—like this isn't reassurance he had to think about. It's simply a fact.

"So you don't like Emma?"

"No, I don't. We're just friends." There isn't even a second of hesitation before he adds, "I told you. I'm a one-woman man."

The relief that rushes through me is embarrassingly immediate, and I have to fight the stupid grin threatening to spread across my face. I swallow instead, scrambling for something to say before he realizes how ridiculously happy that answer just made me.

"You better be," I tease. "If I catch you cheating on me, I won't be very forgiving."

"Never going to happen."

"Pretty confident."

His hand slips from my cheek back to my waist, pulling me closer as we fall into the rhythm again.

"Because I have no interest in anyone else."

I search his face, trying to figure out what the hell I'm supposed to do with that.

No interest in anyone else.

Does he mean because he actually wants me? Or is this just Kentaro being Kentaro—taking our agreement seriously because we made exclusivity one of the rules and, fake or not, he gave me his word?

I honestly can't fucking tell anymore.

That's the problem with him. Lately, everything he does feels like it means more. The way he touches me. The way he looks at me. The things he says when it's just the two of us and there's nobody around we need to convince. Sometimes I'm so sure there's something real underneath all of this that I can practically feel it.

And then that stupid little word comes creeping back in.

Fake.

Giving me a perfectly reasonable explanation for every single thing I desperately want to believe means something else.

*****

The announcer's voice fills Caroline's dorm room as the broadcast cuts to commercial, leaving us with a replay of some insurance ad I've already seen three times tonight.

My eyes drift to the score in the corner of the screen before I reach into the bowl between us and steal another handful of popcorn. Ridgewater is up by one going into the third, which should probably make me feel better, except watching Kentaro play from a laptop instead of my usual seat at the arena has me weirdly restless.

I hate away games.

Actually, no. I hate this particular part of away games.

Because apparently Kentaro Azuma has decided that whenever the team leaves town, I'm no longer allowed to spend the night at the hockey house by myself. Not that he phrases it that way. He gives me the very reasonable explanation that Caroline's dorm has twenty-four-hour security downstairs, students coming and going at all hours, and far too many witnesses for my stalker to comfortably try anything.

Which is how I've ended up here again, wearing one of Caroline's fuzzy blankets across my legs while we watch our boyfriends play hockey several states away.

Well.

Her boyfriend.