Page 64 of While You Were Trending

I swallow hard. “So yours is…what? Convince me to give you all the tricks to being on a reality show?”

“No.”

“That’s all I get?No?”

“I want to play hockey again.”

I tilt my head. “What?”

“If my socials get big enough, if this show does well enough, then maybe I’m good for entertainment value for professional hockey again. Maybe an expansion team would want me. Or a team with falling ticket sales.FoxycouldGo Thereand be the retired hockey player who makes a triumphant return, all captured in a self-made documentary that would save a team. Stupid, right?”

My heart thumps hard in a way that I don’t like.

I’d feel for any guy in his situation, but just like racking him in the nuts, I don’t want to feel sorry for Declan.

But I was a hockey girlfriend with a marketing degree.

Utterly fascinated by the inner workings behind the scenes.

Ticket sales. Merchandise. Licensing. Endorsements. Partnerships.

It’s not just a game.

It’s an intricate business model.

The game comes first—the competition to be the best on the ice—but all of the gears and levers pulled off-ice are what build fanbases and make teams profitable.

With social media, the players are stars now. Go to a game, and you see them doing segments on the jumbotrons, playing goofy games or talking about which of their teammates would be most and least likely to survive a zombie apocalypse or kiss the wrong person on a kiss cam.

He’s not wrong that a fan base could love him enough to convince a team to give him a chance.

“It’s not stupid to want to do what you love,” I tell him, hating that I sound like a brat, knowing I need to get up and leave, but part of me—part of me wants to be as big of a dick to him as he was to me all of those years.

Another silence falls between us, but this one—this one’s heavy.

There’s a vibe.

Something unspoken.

He’s probably thinking about how much he loves playing with Alex. That that was half the joy of his professional career, getting selected for the same team as the guy he’d been besties with since their freshman year of college.

Not that I have any clue if they were still playing together when Declan retired.

I quit hockey when I broke up with Alex, and then I quit harder after I tried to stop his wedding three months later.

Quit watching. Burned my merch. Pretend when I hear a team name that I can still recite stats about that they’re talking about football or baseball or soccer.

Left social media entirely.

Set up a block on our internet router so that I’d never see his name again.

I tell people he’s happy, but honestly?

I have no fucking clue.

I’ve buried my head that deep in the sand when it comes to my ex, and I like it that way.

“You love living here,” Declan finally says.