behind the camera - fake dating sports romance (wlw)

Chapter Thirty-Nine

MILLIE

I know I'm in trouble the second the plane touches down in Vancouver.

It's the kind of cold that bites at your skin through your clothes—sharp and unforgiving, like the city knows I'm returning to a mess I didn't have time to care about. March in Vancouver is always fickle. Nothing like Florida. Rain clings to everything, the air is wet and heavy, and patches of old snow still line the curbs like the city can't quite decide if it wants to thaw yet. I don't blame it. I don't know how to thaw either.

I haven't checked my phone since we landed in Florida. There are texts—dozens, maybe hundreds. My agent. My coach. Julian. The team group chat. PR. Media. I'm trending on Twitter. I know that much from the brief, nervous scroll I did two nights ago while Harper was in the shower, just long enough to see my name attached to the word fake over and over again.

Someone leaked it. Or guessed. I don't know which is worse.

Fake girlfriend. Fake relationship. Fake storybook romance. And the thing is—I don't care. Not really. Not in the way I should. Because all I've cared about for the past eleven days is Harper.

I glance to my right, and she's there beside me. Small in her seat, hunched slightly under my hoodie like she's still trying to disappear. Her knees are drawn up. Her short hair is flat against her head from the flight. Her eyes are blank, glassy, tired. Her hand is wrapped around mine under the blanket.
She hasn't said more than ten words since we left Florida.

I stayed because I couldn't leave her. Because she didn't ask me to stay, but she also didn't tell me to go—and that silence felt more like a plea than anything else.

I stayed for the quiet moments in that stuffy hotel room when she would cry so hard she couldn't speak. I stayed for the mornings when she barely moved. I stayed for the funeral, the wake, the ashes, the way she looked like someone trying to survive in a world she didn't ask to be born into. I stayed because I couldn't imagine doing anything else.

She lost her mom. Her person. And I love mine too much to even imagine the depth of that kind of loss. I watched her walk through it. I watched her fall apart. And somewhere in the middle of that, I think I realized I don't know how to be anything other than hers anymore.

I don't know when it happened. But I know it's true.

The plane doors open with a hiss, and Harper doesn't move until I gently tug her hand. "Come on, baby," I whisper—soft, instinctive. I don't even think about the word. It just comes. She stands, silent, her eyes never really focusing. She looks smaller in my hoodie than she should. Like grief has eaten half her body weight and all of her fire.

I help her with her carry-on. She doesn't fight me. She hasn't fought me in days. Not when I brushed her hair back. Not when I bought her meds or forced her to eat toast. Not when I wrapped my arms around her in the dark just to make sure she remembered someone was still breathing beside her.

When we step into the terminal, the air shifts. It's like reality hits both of us at once.

Vancouver is home, but it's also loud. It's movement and expectation and my life before all of this. Before her mom. Before that hospital hallway. Before I saw Harper fall to her knees in front of a closed casket and broke a little right alongside her.

Now we're back. And the world didn't stop for her grief. It didn't stop for mine either.

My phone buzzes again. Another text from Julian.
The press is spiraling. We need to talk. Now.

I tuck the phone back in my pocket. I'll deal with it later. I glance at Harper again—she's staring out the airport windows like she's trying to remember what home is supposed to feel like. Her lashes are damp. I loop my arm around her waist, gently. She leans into me.
Not like a girlfriend. Like a lifeline. And I let her.