behind the camera - fake dating sports romance (wlw)

Chapter Thirty-One

MILLIE

I hate this in-between part—the stretch of time after the ceremony and before the reception when everyone scatters like puzzle pieces trying to find the next picture. I know she's here somewhere, just a few doors or hallways away, probably posing with people who never bothered to show up when she needed them most. Laughing on cue. Holding the bouquet like it doesn't weigh anything. Smiling that gentle, practiced smile of hers that most people believe is real.

But I know better now. I've learned the difference.

I'm not doing great without her. I want to see her. I want her eyes on me, that tether between us pulled tight again. I want to touch her hand, her back, her hair. I want to get her away from all these people who keep interrupting my thoughts, who want to talk to me like I'm the one they came here for.

I've signed so many napkins and programs I've lost count. Posed for half a dozen awkward phone photos. Smiled until my cheeks hurt. I've heard every variation of the same ten questions—When are you back on the ice? Are the rumors true? How go you know Shannon?—and I've given the same mechanical answers every time.

"I'll be back soon."

"I'm feeling great, thanks."

"No, the doctor hasn't cleared me yet."

And my personal favorite, offered with a perfectly practiced smile to some curious guest with a too-tight dress and a camera phone already recording: "My girlfriend's in the wedding."

I probably shouldn't have said that. I don't know what Harper wants me to call her in front of these people. Girlfriend might be a line I wasn't supposed to cross—not because it's a lie, but because this is her world. Her past. Her people.

And I am not one of them.
I want to be.
I want to be the person she says mine about when no one's listening. The one she looks for across a crowded room not because she's nervous or out of place, but because she just wants me close.

And maybe that's what makes us more alike than I ever realized. We both know how to put on a show for the world. We both understand what it costs to be wanted and watched, to be good on command. But underneath all that, when we're alone, she softens. I soften. We become real. And I think I'm addicted to that version of us, the private one no one else gets to see.

Eventually, I slip away.

There's this little cove just outside the reception hall—a narrow pocket of space between a row of glass doors and the hedged edge of the terrace. It's quiet here, dim and echoey with distant laughter, and for once, no one follows. I tuck myself into the corner, out of sight, hands deep in my pockets, head bowed like I'm praying for this whole night to fast-forward to the part where she's in my arms again.

My ribs feel too tight. My skin's too thin. There's a buzzing under my skin I can't shake off, the hum of being seen too much by strangers who know my name but not my heart.

But I'd do it again. I'd walk into that ceremony a hundred times over, endure all the stares and whispers, just to be here today. For her.

Always for her.

"You hiding, Bennett?"

I look up, and there she is—head tilted into the little cove, bouquet of delicate white flowers hanging loosely from one hand like it's an afterthought. Her dress is still perfect, a little rumpled now in that way that makes it better, more lived-in, more hers. She's smiling. Not the public one. The real one. The one that stretches slow and unsure across her face like she's not entirely convinced she's allowed to be this happy.

She's never looked more beautiful.

"I guess you know me too well, Lane," I say, voice low and a little hoarse.