Fake Dating My Ex's Favourite Hockey Player novel Chapter 144

LIAM

–

Emilia snorts against my shoulder but pulls away gently, nudging me with a quiet smile before moving to sit next to Lacey. She doesn’t say anything neither of them do

but they fall into a kind of easy silence, the kind that doesn’t need permission or apology.

—

They drink. Slowly. Quietly. Shoulder to shoulder, not facing each other, but not alone either.

By 3:47 PM, I’ve got two women sunk into their own exhaustion, tipsy on cheap beer and heavier thoughts. Lacey’s cup is on the ground, empty. Emilia’s head rests lightly on her friend’s shoulder. Neither of them is crying, but it’s the kind of silence that comes after you’ve felt everything all at once..

I sit with them. I don’t speak. Just stay close and keep an eye out, in case either of them needs a refill – or a reason to keep going.

It’s peaceful. For maybe five minutes.

Then Emilia hiccups.

“But… but…” she starts, blinking slowly at Lacey like her brain’s buffering. “If whales are mammals… does that mean they have belly buttons?” (1

Lacey gasps, fully scandalised. “Wait. Do they?”

Emilia turns to me. “Liam, do whales have belly buttons?”

“I’m not doing this,” I mutter, already regretting not cutting them off earlier. They’ve been at this for a while. First it was Santa, then some legend of some belly dancer, now it’s whales, apparently.

“Wait, no, I’m serious,” Emilia insists, pointing at me with the grace of a falling tree. It’s adorable. I pinch her cheeks and she tries biting my hand, but fails. “This is important, Liam. Listen to me.”

“They do,” I sigh. “All mammals have navels.”

Lacey throws her arms up in triumph. “I knew I felt a spiritual connection to dolphins.”

“Because of their belly buttons?” I ask.

She ignores me.

Emilia sways slightly and tugs on Lacey’s sleeve. “Do you think… if I became a whale, I could just float forever and not deal with taxes?”

“You’ve been having this moment for forty–three minutes.”

“But it’s peaking now,” Emilia argues. “We were just getting to the good part. I was going to tell Lacey about the time Zane thought my hair removal cream was shampoo-”

I take their empty cups and toss them, then return with water bottles. Neither of them wants it, of course.

“I want beer,” Lacey whines.

‘I want chocolate milk,” Emilia adds.

“You’re getting water. That’s what’s happening,”

Getting them moving is a slow, chaotic mess. Emilia keeps pausing to stare at her feet like they’ve just sprouted overnight. “Why are they so far away?” she asks, genuinely baffled. Lacey demands a piggyback ride on the grounds of “emotional injury and general cuteness,” arms already outstretched like she’s expecting a ride at a theme park.

I somehow wrangle them down the hallway, one under each arm. Emilia hums the Friends theme, barely hitting the notes. Lacey tries to chime in and ends up coughing like she’s been poisoned.

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