Page 187 of Faking the Goal

Very sexy.

So now, when the nightmares wake me up, that's pretty much it. Game over. I lie there until my alarm goes off, drag myself through classes, survive my shift at work, then stumble back home hoping exhaustion finally knocks me unconscious before my brain has another opportunity to ruin my night.

That has basically been my routine since the semester started: sleep badly, wake up worse, and consume enough caffeine to qualify as a workplace safety violation.

By evening, I'm standing rinkside at the Warriors' first home game since winter break, running on maybe three hours of sleep and enough caffeine to make me look less like a sleep-deprived college student and more like a woman currently possessed by the spirit of a very enthusiastic crackhead.

Which is probably why I'm taking my job as Kentaro Azuma's number-one fan a little too seriously.

"THAT'S RIGHT, BABY! NOT IN MY MAN'S HOUSE!"

The words leave my mouth at approximately the same volume as the goal horn just as Kentaro catches another shot cleanly in his glove.

Several heads turn in my direction.

I lower my camera from my face and grin.

"What?"

The woman beside me, who has been screaming herself hoarse for the Warriors since puck drop, somehow finds me excessive. Her nose scrunches as she slowly turns back toward the ice.

Wow.

Judged by a hockey mom wearing a foam gator hat.

That feels significant.

I lift my camera again and track Kentaro through the viewfinder as he tosses the puck to the referee and settles back into position in front of the crease.

I'm technically here to work.

And I am working.

I have approximately four hundred photographs on this memory card proving it.

Granted, an alarming percentage of those photographs feature the same six-foot-two Japanese goalie, but that's simply good journalism. Kentaro is one of Ridgewater's best players. The fact that he also happens to be my boyfriend and looks offensively hot in goalie gear is completely irrelevant.

Fake boyfriend.

Whatever.

Tonight, I'm wearing his jersey for the first time.

His actual jersey.

Not one I bought from the campus store. Not some generic Warriors shirt with AZUMA printed across the back. The navy-and-white jersey currently hanging almost to my thighs came directly out of Kentaro's closet this afternoon after I casually mentioned that wearing his number to the game would probably help sell our relationship.

He handed it over without hesitation.

I may have been considerably less casual once I put it on.

There's something dangerously intimate about wearing a man's name across your back. Especially when that man is Kentaro Azuma and his stupidly enormous jersey practically swallows you whole.

I've rolled the sleeves enough that my hands are actually functional, which is important considering I'm supposed to be photographing a hockey game instead of standing here sniffing the collar like a fucking weirdo.

Not that I did that.

More than once.