Chapter 7 – Lights, Camera, Meltdown
I have faced down math pop-quizzes, cafeteria mystery meat, and a six-foot defenseman trying to body-check me into mid-ice orbit, but nothing—nothing—has ever terrified me like the blinking red eye of Sunny Hwang’s camera.
It blinks again.
I swallow. Hard.
Sunny leans forward, the very picture of polite predation. “So, Lucas—” she says, drawing out the name, “—what do you really think of Rae Kim?”
Translation: Confess something juicy on tape, preferably before the bell rings.
Across the couch, Lucas—wearing my jeans, my hoodie, and the kind of wide-eyed panic I usually reserve for horror movies—stares at me like say something before we both combust.
All right, Rae. Channel your inner Captain Cold-Heart Park.
I clear my throat, lower my voice an octave, and aim for casual confidence. “Rae is… talented.” Good. Non-committal. Safe.
Sunny’s brow arches. “Talented? That’s it?”
Sweat trickles down my temple. Talented is apparently not explosive enough for the lunchtime gossip machine.
“Uh—she’s also dedicated,” I add. “Works harder than anyone I know.”
Sunny smiles like a shark. “Harder than you?”
“Absolutely,” I say, deciding offense is the best defense. “She sketches during class, after class, on the bus—sometimes she forgets to eat.”
Lucas coughs—a soft, stunned sound. I just outed one of my habits while trying to pass as him. Brilliant.
Sunny’s grin widens. “Sounds like you watch her pretty closely.”
“Team captain notices everyone,” I bluff. “Comes with the job.”
She pivots. “And, Rae”—her eyes swing to the real Lucas—“you confessed to Lucas last week. Any regrets?”
Lucas inhales sharply. I can practically hear him scrambling for something that sounds like me but won’t explode our cover. He fiddles with the edge of my sleeve. “Regret? No. Embarrassed? Definitely.”
That is… painfully accurate.
Sunny beams. “So if Lucas had feelings for you now, would you give him a second chance?”
I can’t breathe. Neither can Lucas. The silence stretches, gets brittle.
My fight-or-flight toggles back and forth at supersonic speed. One wrong word and the entire school will scrutinize us until the swap secret rips wide open. But an honest word might destroy Lucas’s carefully built image—and maybe tangle emotions we aren’t ready to untangle.
Sunny taps her pen on a clipboard, eating up the tension. “This is a safe space,” she lies sweetly.
Now or never. I lean into the mic. “If”—I swallow—“if I ever deserved Rae’s feelings, I’d be smart enough not to reject them.”
Lucas’s mouth drops open. Sunny’s eyes ignite.
Did I seriously just flirt with myself on live camera?
The lights feel ten degrees hotter.
Sunny pounces. “So you do like her!”
“People change,” I mumble. “Opinions change.”
“Lucas is full of surprises today.” Sunny swivels to Lucas-in-my-body. “Rae? Your response?”
Lucas looks at me—panic, wonder, something else—then turns back to Sunny. “I think…” He pauses, shoulders squaring like he’s skating into a power play. “I think everyone deserves a second chance. Even stubborn hockey captains.”
I forget how lungs operate.
Sunny claps like she just scored the gossip championship. “Well! To wrap up, my exclusive with our favorite maybe-couple will air on the Morning Buzz live-stream right after school.” She winks into the lens. “Stay tuned, Granville High!”
The red light dies. Cameras click off. My pulse does not.
Sunny stands, all sugary menace. “Thanks, you two. That was gold.”
Lucas tries to speak, fails, finally squeaks, “Live-stream?”
“Oh, definitely.” Sunny shoulders her bag. “Coach Dad gets first look, of course. See you on the ice, Park.” And she sashays out, satisfied.
The door shuts. Silence crashes in.
Lucas rounds on me. “Gold? That was a nuclear detonation!”
“I panicked!”
“You practically proposed on camera!”
“I was improvising!”
He groans, burying my face in his hands. “Coach will see that. The team will see that. My mom will see that.”
“I know.” I sink onto the little couch, gear creaking. “But look on the bright side—”
“There is no bright side!”
I hold up a finger. “Everyone’s so busy freaking out about our ‘romance’ that no one’s talking about your weird skating or my chem flop. Misdirection, see?”
Lucas lowers his hands. “That’s… actually not the worst point.”
A fragile truce hovers.
Then the door bursts open.
Coach Hwang strides in, Sunny trailing behind with a silent told you so smile. Coach’s eyes pin me—Lucas’s body—to the wall.
“Park,” he says, voice like cracking ice. “Interview’s going viral already. You and Kim”—he jerks a thumb at Lucas—“in my office. Now.”
Lucas and I exchange a single look: we’re dead.
Coach’s office is a claustrophobic closet of framed plaques, trophy photos, and the faint smell of menthol liniment. He motions us into rickety chairs while Sunny closes the door and plants herself beside him, laptop open, volume up.
Our interview plays again. My stomach cartwheels as I watch us flirt with each other in hi-def, thirty-second delay.
Coach folds his arms. “Care to explain?”
Lucas opens his mouth—no sound. My turn. I lean forward, mustering captain-level seriousness.
“It’s… complicated,” I say.
Coach arches a brow high enough to disappear into his hairline. “Try me.”
My mind sprints. Think, Rae—Lucas—whoever you are. We need a story: plausible, distracting, not too testable. And we need it fast.
I inhale. “We’re… testing team focus.”
Coach blinks. “What?”
“Morale exercise,” I barrel on. “With scouts coming, rumors are flying. We figured if we control the narrative—pretend to have personal drama—people will fixate on that instead of pressuring the team. Less distraction on the ice.”
Sunny’s eyebrows shoot up. Even Lucas looks impressed—ish.
Coach, however, is granite. “You staged a fake relationship for strategy?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And your sudden decline in practice?” he grills.
“Part of the act,” I lie, wishing I’d stretched this morning. “Throwing off rival schools who stalk our social feeds.”
Lucas coughs politely—my cue. He leans in, voice steady. “We’re committed to winning, Coach. Anything to get an edge.”
Coach studies us, eyes sharp. Seconds tick. I can almost hear my heartbeat echo off the plaques.
Finally, he snorts. “Ridiculous… but creative.” He leans back. “If this circus affects regionals, you’ll skate suicides until graduation. Understood?”
“Understood,” we chorus.
Sunny closes her laptop, almost pouting that Coach didn’t detonate. “Interview stays up?”
“For now,” Coach decides. “But you two better deliver on the ice.”
He waves us off. We stand, legs jelly.
In the hallway, we exhale simultaneously.
Lucas whispers, “That was… genius?”
“Or suicidal,” I mutter. “We just promised to win to justify our fake romance.”
He rubs the back of my—his—neck. “We were already supposed to win.”
“Minor complication: I can barely stay upright.”
“Minor complication,” he echoes with a grim laugh.
We walk in strained silence until the stairwell empties. Then Lucas stops. His gaze finds mine, softer than I’ve ever seen it.
“Back there… you said if you deserved my feelings you wouldn’t reject them.” He swallows. “Was that acting?”
My pulse stutters. “What do you think?”
He steps closer—my own features inches away. “I’m not sure what’s real anymore.”
I look at him, really look; freckles across my own nose I never noticed, worry lines I thought only I felt. “Me either,” I admit.
The bell rings overhead, jolting us apart.
Lucas clears his throat. “We need to hit last-period attendance or people will talk.”
“Right.” I force a smile. “Meet at the rink after? Work on skating?”
“Yeah.” He hesitates, then squeezes my arm. “Thanks… for saving us in there.”
A surprising warmth blooms despite borrowed muscles. “Team sport, remember?”
He flashes a quick grin—my grin—and jogs downstairs toward my art class.
I’m halfway to the locker room when my phone buzzes—Lucas’s phone, actually.
Unknown Number:
I KNOW YOU’RE LYING. MEET ME UNDER THE BLEACHERS BEFORE PRACTICE IF YOU WANT THIS TO STAY QUIET.
Attached is a screenshot: close-up of my falling-apart pass from yesterday, my awkward stance, the unmistakable terror in Lucas’s brown eyes—my terror.
Below it, one line:
“If the scouts see that, say goodbye to your scholarship.”
I stop cold. Whoever this is, they have footage that could ruin Lucas’s future—our future—before we’ve even figured out how to swap back.
Practice starts in thirty minutes.
And someone in this school is blackmailing us.