Just Pretending

by Leah Rooper, Kate Rooper

  “You’re thanking me?” I murmur. “Is there anything else?”

  His face changes, softens. That sweet smile graces his lips. “There are a million things to say to you, but only one place to start. Do you think you could give me—Tyler Evans, ex-Prince of Perienza, hockey player, painter, and boy hopelessly in love with the Queen of Eldonia—another shot?”

  The air crackles and explodes around us. “Yes.” The word breezes out of me and gives me wings. “Yes, to every version of you. And to every version we become…together.”

  I see a flash of his smile before my eyes close and his mouth covers mine in a staggering kiss. His arms wrap around me, lifting me up off the ground.

  When I finally fall back down to my feet, my arms still draped around his neck, he pulls away slightly. Our noses touch.

  “I was really hoping you’d say that.” He grins.

  “Well, it’s not every day you have a whole art gallery dedicated to you.”

  “I told you I’d do it,” he says, hoisting me up in the air again. I bubble with laughter.

  “There’s one thing,” I say as he twirls me down. “Only this. Never tell me how I should feel again. Because when I decide something, I do it with my whole heart. All of me.”

  “Never again,” he says. I feel his words in the air.

  “Because Tyler Evans, ex-Prince of Perienza, hockey player, painter, I’ll have you know that the Queen of Eldonia saw these painting and saw you, all of you.” I stare into his blue eyes. “And she loves you. I love you.”

  “I love you, Eva.”

  I lift up on my toes until our lips touch, sealing the words with a kiss.

  Together, Tyler and I loop around the gallery, taking a closer look at the paintings and reminiscing over the memories that inspired them.

  “I made Millie take the presents I brought,” I say, looking at the painting of Keira the reindeer. The longer I look at it, the more unsettling it becomes. “And because you just proclaimed your undying love for—”

  “I don’t think I ever said undying.”

  I whirl around at Tyler, and he holds up his hands in a defensive position. “I’m just warning you that in the case of a zombie apocalypse, don’t expect zombie-me to come around looking for kisses.”

  Is this what I’ve signed up for? I roll my eyes and bump against him. “All I’m saying is you can’t get mad at me for giving presents. It’s Christmas.”

  “I’m not mad.”

  “Good.” I pull out a small box from inside my coat pocket. “Because I have something for you.”

  He studies the box for a moment, then takes it from me and lifts up the lid. He pulls out a small spiral notebook.

  “You told me I was a great motivator,” I explain as he starts flipping through the pages. “So, I wrote down our story. Or basically every time you got close to kissing me, and how I felt about it. I thought you’d be interested in reading that. I-I tried to write neatly.” I look up at him. “Do you like it?”

  His eyes drift from the pages up to mine. “I love it.”

  “IT’S JUST SO BEAUTIFUL!” I hear someone screech from the back of the store.

  “Shh, quiet, Madison! They’re having a moment!” says a male voice.

  “They’ve had, like, one thousand moments already. We gotta get to the game!” says another.

  “Do you even have a heart beneath that flat chest, Alice? How someone like Captain Tremblay could love you—”

  Tyler looks down at me, a sheepish expression on his face. “I guess I should grab the gang now. They helped me set this whole place up, and they’ve sorta been hiding in the back the whole time.”

  “Oh my gosh!” I clutch his shirt. “What time is it? We’ve got to get you to the game!”

  In the next moment, Hayden, Alice, Madison, and my brother swarm out of the back of the shop. Hayden and Daniel grab Tyler and slap him on the back while Madison and Alice throw their arms around me.

  “So, you forgave him!” Alice grins.

  “Yes,” I say, my smile almost breaking my face.

  “Of course, she had to,” Madison says. “I forgave Daniel, and all he did was drive me to an audition on his death-trap of a motorcycle.”

  “Actually,” Alice says, eyeing her best friend, “wasn’t it Daniel who had to forgive you?”

  “Nuance.” She waves her hands in front of her face.

  “Your game!” I shout at them. “We have to go!”

  “Right,” Alice says, darting to the door, and throwing on her coat. “There’s enough room in the van now that lover boy’s paintings are gone.”

  Five minutes later, we’re standing in front of Alice’s van…or at least where her van used to be parked. Now it’s just a giant mound of snow.

  “This is going to take hours to dig out!” Alice cries.

  “Weak Americans!” Hayden yells and dives toward the snow. He shoves off five great heaps with his hands, but there’s still no van in sight.

  “The cab company says it’s a five-hour wait!” Madison lowers her cell from her ear. “If they can come at all.”

  “Try Uber!” Daniel cries, sinking to his knees. “Try Lyft! Try anything! Without all of us—or at the very least, without Bell—the Falcons will definitely lose against the Ice Wolves tonight, and we’ll miss our shot at the playoffs.”

  “Without me there to intimidate him, Freddy will totally take out our offense!” Alice kicks the snow.

  Tyler pulls his hat down over his ears. “I’m so sorry, you guys. This is all my fault.”

  An anxious knot burrows in my stomach as I stare at my friends’ defeated faces. Hockey is the most important thing in the world to them. There has to be some way to get through this snow storm.

  I peer down the empty streets.

  Then, it comes to me. An idea. A crazy, Falcons-worthy idea.

  I glance back at my friends. “I’ll be right back.”

  Before any of them can stop me, I take off into the snow, disappearing into the white haze. My face is flushed and red, and I blink rapidly to clear my vision. Finally, I careen to a stop beside the only non-snow-covered vehicle on the street and look up at the driver. “How much for a ride?”

  He looks down at me, alarmed. “Are you kidding? I’m not going anywhere in this! We’re just hunkering down until the worst of the storm passes!”

  I peer down the white street back at my friends, huddled together outside Fred Evans’s shop. They all came together to support their teammate, and in a way, to support me. To bring us together. I’ll be damned if I can’t find a way to get them to their game. I turn back to the driver. “How much to buy it all?”

  Five minutes of negotiations—and five thousand dollars later—I pull up in front of my friends in my new purchase.

  “Well,” I say, “I found us a way to the game.”

  Their stunned faces stare up at me. “Is that a…” Hayden asks.

  “A horse-drawn carriage!” I smile proudly and snap the reins. My two Clydesdale horses neigh proudly. It may not be a reindeer and sleigh, but it’ll do.

  “You can get this through the snow?” Alice asks, looking from me to the horses.

  “You bet she can!” Tyler says and jumps up beside me. “Believe me, Eva can do just about anything.”

  The rest of the team exchanges skeptical looks. Then Daniel shrugs and leaps in the back. Alice, Hayden, and Madison follow suit.

  “All ready?” I look back at them, huddled together in the carriage. Something bubbles inside me. All this time, I hadn’t been missing one single regular experience. Maybe what I’d been searching for all along was this—my friends, my team. Being a part of something bigger.

  Tyler puts a steady hand on my leg. I look through the snow at the empty streets. I flick the reins, and my horses surge forward. “Let’s go play some hockey!”

  …

  Tyler

  I take a deep breath and take it all in—the roar of the crowd, the crisp smell of the rink, the feel of
my pads tight against my body, the flash of blue as my teammates dart onto the ice. I savor it all.

  We made it with two minutes to spare. They weren’t going at Keira-on-reindeer-bars speed, but those horses were fast. Coach Zabinski looked like he was going to pop every blood vessel in his temple. Thankfully, he did some yoga breathing Daniel’s mom has taught him, and he turned from dark purple to just a raging pink.

  If we win this game, the Falcons can keep going on our quest for the league championship—the last chance we have of winning it before we all move on.

  If we lose…

  Well, lose, and we find a new dream. There’s always something out there to fight for.

  I look into the stands. Evangeline is sitting there, wearing her Falcons jersey. She smiles encouragingly and waves. Millie and Dad walk through the stands and sit beside her. Dad hands her a bag of popcorn. The image makes my chest feel full and warm.

  The last few months have been a study in disaster—if my life were a painting, it would be a calamity of colors.

  But I wouldn’t have it any other way.

  It wasn’t easy to become Tiberius, but it was even harder to say goodbye to him. But he did teach me a lot. Life isn’t going to wait for me to catch up. I’ve got to soar into the horizon.

  As I stare at Eva’s beautiful face, I know any dream is possible, just there beyond the stroke of my brush.

  I take another deep breath and turn back to the rink.

  There’s still one dream to chase.

  It’s time to soar.

  Epilogue

  Tyler

  Eight months later…

  “Do you remember the look on his face when Evans got right in the blue paint and blocked the goaltender’s view?” Alice laughs so hard she’s out of breath. “I thought their captain was going to kill you!”

  “He probably would have,” I say, “if Hayden and Daniel didn’t skate up then!”

  “You better never forget I lost a tooth for you, bud!” Daniel bares his teeth, revealing a black gap.

  “We know.” Madison sighs dramatically. “How many times are you guys going to retell that story?” She shoots a glare at Daniel. “And when are you going to get that fixed?”

  “I kind of like it,” he says. “It’s a battle wound.” He sticks his tongue through the gap and wiggles it.

  “Ew!” Eva says, burying her face into my chest. “That’s gross.”

  Everyone laughs, but Hayden laughs so hard, he nearly falls over in his lawn chair. The six of us sit outside in Hayden’s big yard, a bright fire bursting in the fire pit. Even though it’s dark, the late summer air is still warm, and the fire is there purely for marshmallows and hot dogs.

  My cheeks hurt from smiling so much…and my shoulder hurts a little, too, from being wrapped around Eva all night—not that I would tell her that. Being in a long-distance relationship is not easy, and I want to savor every moment with her. Even though from now on, I’ll get to see her whenever I want.

  Madison shakes her head. “Seriously, though, do we need to re-cap that game every time we’re together? Like, we were all there! We know about Tyler’s sweet blocks, and Alice’s spin-a-rama goal, and Hayden’s hat trick, and Daniel’s tooth flying through the air and me having to dig it out of a pile of bloody ice shavings.”

  “And what about the part where Dwayne got so mad at Daniel’s penalty, he threw a pretzel at the ref and got kicked out?” Eva says, giving a very unladylike snort. Everyone starts laughing again.

  “How can you not want to relive that night?” Hayden says, his voice booming. “That was the best night of my life!” Alice coughs and pokes his arm. “Besides the night we first got together,” he says hurriedly.

  She smiles. “I’m just bugging you. That game was definitely the best night of my life!”

  “What about you?” Eva says, looking at me through her dark lashes. “What was the best night of your life?”

  “I dunno,” I say. “That was a good one…but I have to think.”

  That game was definitely up there. The final game. After coming back from a poor showing in the regular season to barely squeaking into the playoffs, the Chicago Falcons had been definite underdogs for the Championship Cup. But we played our asses off. Each round of the playoffs was more intense than the last. But somehow, someway, we came together. We came together and soared.

  And we won the league championship.

  The Championship Cup sits in the circle with us, gleaming orange and red in the firelight. It’s the culmination of not only some freaking good games of hockey, but of years of hard work, of coming together as a team. It comes from struggles and mishaps and fallouts, but no matter what, we came together, too.

  “You know,” Alice says quietly, “it’s a little sad.”

  “What is?” Madison says.

  “This.” Alice gestures at all of us. “Now that it’s August, this will be the last time we’re all together like this for a while. After tonight, we’ll be spread all over!”

  A blanket of heavy silence falls over us. It’s true. Two months ago, Hayden was drafted to his brother’s NHL team in Chicago, and Alice will be staying here to play for the competitive women’s team. Daniel got drafted to an NHL team close to his hometown of Long Island, so he’ll be living with his grandparents. Thankfully for him, it’s only a few subway rides away from Madison, who will be studying acting at Julliard.

  And me… I stare down at Eva, tucked tight against me. In a few days, we’ll be flying to Eldonia and studying at the university together. Since I told Dad about my dyslexia, I finally feel like I have the courage to deal with it. Dad’s been finding resources all over the place, and we discovered the University of Eldonia actually has a lot of support systems. I can’t believe I spent so much time struggling alone, when all I had to do was be brave enough to ask for help.

  Besides school, Eva and I will both be busy—me, playing for the Eldonian Tomato Kings (Daniel’s name choice, obviously), and Eva with her queenly duties.

  But every day, I’ll get to look into her eyes and remember that dreams can come true—if you just have the courage to fight for them…although, having a princely disguise is handy, too.

  “I think I’ve figured it out,” I murmur to Eva.

  “Figured what out?” she says.

  “The best night of my life.”

  “Okay,” she says, a smile gracing her perfect mouth. “Tell me.”

  I look around at my circle of friends. We may not get to play together on the ice anymore, or see each other as often, but that doesn’t matter. Over the last two years, we’ve become more than friends. More than teammates. We’ve become a family. And if my father and Millie have taught me anything, it’s that love for family transcends time, space, or even death.

  We’ll be together until the end.

  “The best night of my life…” I say to Eva. “It’s ahead of me. Just over the horizon.”

  “Will I be there?” She smiles.

  “Definitely.”

  Because whether one of us is pretending to be a boy, or in a fake relationship, or maybe even disguised as a prince, there’s one thing I know for sure.

  We will always be Falcons. And Falcons always soar.

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  Acknowledgments

  It’s been an amazing ride with the Chicago Falcons, and we’re so grateful we got to explore the adventures of Alice, Hayden, Madison, Daniel, and now Tyler and Evangeline. These characters have made us laugh with their antics, which so naturally flowed onto the page. Getting to share these three stories with our readers is the greatest gift, and we will miss the Chicago Falcons very much.

  As always, our first thank you has to go to our lovely editor, Brenda Chin. It has been such a pleasure working with you over the last year, and such an immense learning experience. We want to thank yo
u for your insight, your mentorship, and of course, your honesty!

  We love, love, love our Entangled Publishing team! Big thank yous to Riki, Holly, Curtis, Melanie, Stacy, Liz, the Crush family, and everyone else! WE LOVE YOU!

  To our much-loved friends who have rallied behind us with the strength and enthusiasm of an entire hockey team, thank you. Every supportive message is treasured more than you will ever know.

  A huge thank you to our beloved family for their constant support and love. Auntie Jo, we wrote this book fueled by your red pepper jelly. Gaga and Grumps, we love you both so much! Although we live far away, we feel your love all the way from Mexico.

  Leah: Having dyslexia myself, I found writing Tyler’s struggle was incredibly personal. I want to thank my teachers and family for constantly supporting me, especially Kate who still corrects all my spelling to this day…including correcting every mention of “Couch Zabinski”. I also want to thank the little girl who never gave up, who wrote pages and pages of stories, even when the words and letters jumbled together. I’m glad I kept writing.

  Kate: To Graeme who loves me even when I ignore him for an entire month straight to write about Daniel’s crazy spaghetti antics and Tyler’s dramatic outbursts. Thank you for always fixing my fences (metaphorically and not). I could fill a book with my love for you, but then you’d have to read it when you could be relaxing at the lake, so I’ll just say this: you are my light and my lightning and I love you so much.

  And of course, to Mom and Dad, who have enthusiastically read everything we’ve ever written, no matter if it’s dinosaurs or Daniel Sacachelli. Thank you for believing in us, even after such masterpieces such as “Danny Dinner”. We’ll keep writing as long as you keep reading.

  Finally, we would like to thank our readers. This is the third and final book in the Chicago Falcons series, and we’re so proud we got to share all three stories with you. If you started with us at Alice’s story, thank you so much for coming on this wild royal ride! If you joined us here, thank you for picking up a story about a hockey playing pretend-prince. What a wild season this has been, and we’re so grateful you’ve been a part of the Falcons’ journey. So for now, that’s the end of third period, but we’ll see you in the next one.