Fake Dating My Ex's Favourite Hockey Player - Chapter 87: Chapter 87

EMILIA
There’s probably something mildly concerning about how the second Liam and I start competing, I lose all sense of my surroundings.
I stop noticing the crowd pressing in around us, the blaring sounds from a dozen machines, the fact that the smell of popcorn wasn’t, in fact, just a delusion born from hunger and adrenaline. A group of kids huddle by the claw machine, yelling as a stuffed bear slips from the metal pincers, and I’m hit with this weird, almost bittersweet déjà vu.
“Have you ever noticed every place you take me is wildly fun?” I say, scanning the room with him in search of the air hockey table. Liam mumbles something about them having moved it since he was last here. “You’re either losing at arcade games, failing to win me stuffed animals, or crashing weddings. It’s all very moving. And, somehow, always deeply humiliating — for you.”
His brow twitches. For a brief second, I wonder if this is the one jab too many and his face is about to shatter into stone chips. “Sounds like I’ve rubbed off on you,” he says flatly. “Because you haven’t won anything since that first round.”
“That’s because you strategically held off on bringing up air hockey,” I say, smug. “I don’t mean to brag — except I absolutely do — but I’m a beast at it.”
I pause. A small smile sneaks onto my face, quieter than the ones before, touched with something old and a little sad.
“I used to wipe the floor with Luther and Diana.”
Liam looks over at me then, a flicker of something softer passing through his expression before it vanishes. “Guess I’ll finally be getting justice for them.”
“All you do is talk big.”
“True,” he says, a cocky glint returning to his eyes. “But I win even bigger.”
“Keep telling yourself that, Calloway.”
Then, casually, he waves down a guy in a faded staff shirt. “By the way, air hockey’s been moved, right? Near the photo booths now?”
The staff nods, pointing vaguely to the back corner.
“Thanks, mate,” Liam says, then glances back at me. “And to answer your earlier question — about why everywhere I take you is fun — it’s because it’s not a date unless you’re having a good time. And you,” he adds with a smirk, “don’t exactly strike me as the type who enjoys watching fish for fun. Salivating over Squidward, maybe, but…”
I swat his arm, but my brain’s already caught on something more important. “This is a date?”
He blinks, caught mid-smirk. “You mean you didn’t know?”
“You never said it was a date,” I say, trying and failing to sound unaffected. Like my heart isn’t clenching in my chest. “And— and— dates aren’t supposed to be like this.”
We stop walking. The noise of the arcade fades just a little as we turn to face each other in the kaleidoscope glow of a claw machine.
His head tilts slightly, eyes narrowing like he’s trying to solve a puzzle. “Like what?”
“I…” I falter. The words tangle somewhere between my throat and pride. “I’m supposed to dress up. Get my makeup done. Wear something fancy. Something that makes it obvious.”
I gesture vaguely to my outfit. It’s cute. But not ‘date cute.’ Not ‘wearing the dress we fought over in that overpriced shop’ cute. Not what I’d have chosen if I knew this was supposed to mean something.
Liam’s expression softens, the usual teasing fading into something quieter. “You look perfect. Just like this.”
I shake my head, maybe a little too fast. “You don’t get it. Dates aren’t supposed to be so casual.” I gesture vaguely between us. “We’re supposed to be dressed up. At some candlelit restaurant. Sitting across from each other, talking and ordering food that sounds better on the menu than it actually is.”
He watches me with that frustrating mix of amusement and scrutiny, head tilted just enough to make me feel like I’m under some sort of microscope. His lips, soft and pink, are tugged into a frown.
“And?” he prompts.
I blink, momentarily thrown. “And… that’s how it’s done.”
Liam raises an eyebrow. “That sounds terrible.”
A laugh escapes before I can smother it — short, involuntary, almost embarrassed. “It kind of was.”
I don’t say more. I don’t say that every “date” I’ve had before, always at Zane’s side, felt like a scripted performance. Like being pretty and charming and grateful was the minimum entry fee. I don’t say that I used to stare at the candlelight because it was easier than pretending I was being seen by the man who enjoyed watching me squirm and fall at his feet for a moment of his affection.
I don’t say that fun always felt like something I had to earn later — after the right dress, after the right smile, after everything else looked good enough from the outside.
Instead, I fold my arms and press my fingers into my elbow, like maybe I can press the discomfort back in. “It’s just… dates are supposed to feel like effort.”
“They are,” he says, so easily it throws me off. “But not the kind you have to rehearse.”
I frown. “That doesn’t even make sense.”
“It does,” Liam says, stepping closer. His hands lift to my shoulders, warm and steady, gently coaxing my attention back to him. “In just a few hours, I’ve learned that you’re terrified of heights, have an unhealthy attachment to Squidward—”
“It’s not an attachment.”
“—get scarily competitive in arcade games and then completely flop, and have the worst comebacks in gaming history—”
I glare at him. “That’s actually so rude.”
His mouth twitches with the effort not to smile. “And still. Still. I’ve never had more fun with someone in my life.”
My breath catches.
“When I take the woman I like out,” he goes on, voice lower now, more careful, “I don’t care what she’s wearing. I care that she’s close enough for me to hear her laugh. That she smells like that perfume she only pretends not to like. That she’s not pretending anything. If you're not smiling, my love… then it’s not a date to me.”
His hand brushes behind my ear, tucking a strand of hair back, fingertips lingering for half a second longer than necessary. His gaze doesn't flinch from mine.
I swallow.
“If you want,” he adds, more gently now, “we can start over. We’ll dress up. Find the fanciest restaurant in the city. You can order something overpriced and impossible to pronounce, and I’ll pretend to understand wine pairings. We’ll call this one a warm-up. A trial run that failed.”
There’s an ache in my throat — not sadness, exactly. Something messier. Something that feels like being seen.
“I don’t want to start over,” I say quietly.
His eyebrows lift, just a little.
“I just…” I hesitate. “I think I need to relearn how to enjoy things.”
“You’re already doing it.” His voice is soft, and stupidly sincere. “You’re here. With me.”
I nod, almost imperceptibly.
Liam smiles like he’s been waiting for that answer all day. “Then it’s a date,” he murmurs — and before I can process it, he leans in and kisses me.
It’s soft. Sweet. The kind of kiss that makes my stomach flip and my toes curl in my shoes. I go up on my tiptoes without thinking, chasing more of it, leaning into the warmth of his mouth and the way everything about him feels so easy to fall into.
But then he pulls back — way too soon — and laughs, low and amused, his breath brushing my lips. “Emilia,” he says, glancing around dramatically. “There are children present.”
If it’s possible to spontaneously combust from embarrassment, I do.