Between the Lines
False Start
By Carlo V. Santiago
Fifteen years in the NHL taught Cameron Torres two things: how to win a faceoff, and how to keep a secret. The second one is about to cost him his career.
With his endorsements bleeding out and his confirmed-bachelor image doing him no favors, Cameron's agent has a fix—fake a boyfriend, control the story, ride out his final season with his reputation intact. Simple. Strategic. The kind of play Cameron's good at.
Then Oliver Kent walks in.
The consultant hired to sell their romance to the cameras is calm where Cameron is coiled, steady where Cameron's spent a lifetime performing—and entirely unimpressed by the captain everyone else falls over. What starts as staged photos and rehearsed smiles becomes stolen moments in arena tunnels and a closed hotel door on the road, until the line between fake and real stops existing at all.
But Oliver is carrying a secret of his own. One that reaches into the worst thing that ever happened to Cameron. One that could end his career, his trust, and the first real thing he's let himself want in years.
They faked it for the cameras.
Then it got real.