“Bullshit,” I tell him smoothly. “It’s there, you’re just too fucking chickenshit to acknowledge it.”

He opens his mouth to say something back to me, but then snaps it shut just as quickly. He stares at me a long moment, and I cringe a little when I see disappointment in his eyes that I’d take Vale’s side.

I should tell him though that I’m not taking her side. I’m taking love’s side, and if Vale were here right now, I’d tell her to get her head out of her ass too and work with Hawke to figure this shit out.

Some of the anger fizzles from Hawke’s eyes and his lips press together in a grimace. He gives me a little nod of acknowledgment for my position, but I can tell he doesn’t agree with a thing I just said. He turns away and walks into the showers, and I turn in the opposite direction, deciding on a longer run for my workout today, since clearly my session with Vale is not going to happen.

After I get done with my run, I hit the weight room and work on lats and shoulders, finishing up with some core work. I then head into the hallway that winds around the arena and do some reflex work. It’s one of my pregame rituals but I also do it when I need to think about something in my personal life.

I take a small ball, bounce it hard from the floor to the wall and then catch it as it comes back my way. But I do it fast, zipping the ball with lightning speed at the floor so it hits the wall and flies back at me in a nanosecond, only to sling it away just as quickly. Someone once told me I looked like Forrest Gump playing Ping-Pong and that I was moving so fast you couldn’t even track the ball with your eyes.

I liked doing this though while I let my mind wander, so that my inherent reflexes would get sharpened and my brain wouldn’t think too much about where the ball was. I did it so my body just trusted itself to snatch it from midair, and while my mind drifted from my actions of catching and throwing the ball, I could ponder other things.

I set up a quick pace, ball going from concrete floor to painted cinder-block wall then back to my hand. I walk down the length of the hallway as I do it.

Throw, bounce, grab, throw again.

“Max,” I hear from my left, and my rhythm is broken. My fingers miss the ball by a millimeter and it zings by me to hit the back cinder-block wall before bouncing off the back of my head.

I turn as see Garrett walking toward me.

“What’s up?” I ask as I bend over and pick up the ball, which is rolling away from me.

He comes to a stop before me and says, “I take it you haven’t seen it yet.”

“Seen what?” I ask as I snap the ball to the ground again. I get ten more repetitions in while I see from my peripheral vision Garrett pulling something up on his phone.

“It’s a SportsGab article,” he says, and I snatch the ball from flight as I turn to him.

“What the fuck’s a SportsGab article?” I ask.

“It’s like this online blogging community that has articles on all different types of sports stars, focusing in on their personal lives rather than the actual sports they play. Stevie apparently saw this a little bit ago, showed Olivia, and she called me.

I step to Garrett’s side and my gaze drops to the screen of his iPhone and I see a headline in big bold print that says, “Cinderella or Gold Digger?”

My eyebrows knit inward in confusion and I look back up to Garrett. He nods back down to the phone, which he hands to me and says, “Just read.”

I take his phone and with my finger start to scroll the article as I read along silently.

Cinderella or Gold Digger

By Camille Parks

SportsGab Contributor

While the hardcore hockey fans probably don’t give two iotas about this, you ladies that were holding out hope of finding your very own Max Fournier to come sweep you off your feet . . . hate to tell you but “too late.” It appears hockey hottie, Max Fournier, star goalie of the defending Stanley Cup champion Cold Fury team and current top ten candidate for Sports World magazine’s Hottest Sports Bachelor, looks to be officially off the market.

I had the pleasure of sitting down for a candid gabfest with Fournier’s sweetie, Julianne, and boy did she talk my ear off. I was also able to snap some photos of the two lovebirds while they attended a photo shoot for Sports World.

I look at a photograph that scrolls up next and it’s a picture from last night of me kissing Jules just before I went over to the wardrobe rack.

I scroll past it to the lines underneath.

They look like a genuine couple, right?

Well, on its face, it would seem so. Julianne has a sweet personality when you first talk to her, and she’s not shy at all about telling you how her romance with Max started. But the more of the story you hear, the more skeptical you get.

According to Julianne, Max saved her from possible attack by two very suspicious and aggressive men when she was working at a convenience store.

That’s right ladies!

She works at a convenience store.

Julianne went on and on, and then on and on some more, in nauseating detail about how Max was her hero and saved her from destitution. She apparently is raising some kids from a family member or something, but one has to wonder if this is a true Cinderella story or in the words of Kanye West, is she a Gold Digger?

I can’t tell, but to me, in this photo, I can see a hint of opportunism in her eyes, right?

Or is it just me?

I scroll to the photograph that comes up next. It’s with Jules smiling up at me, her hands on my chest, and she does not look like a fucking opportunist. She looks like she adores me.

Below that photograph are just a few more lines.

So pardon me if I’m being a little skeptical here, but I’m sorry . . . no one’s story is really that good. There are no real Cinderellas, and let’s admit it . . . we see a hot woman who is essentially a nobody on a celebrity’s arm, we all pretty much know what she is.

Right?

My blood pressure, which had been consistently rising as I read through the article, peaks out as I digest those last lines and my hand holding the phone starts shaking. I raise my eyes up to Garrett and he stares at me with sympathy.

“This is going to hurt her so bad if she sees it,” I rasp out, my head already spinning with how I can tell Jules about this.

“Whoever that chick is, she’s a fucking bitch,” Garrett growls. “Stevie already left a comment on that post trying to set the record straight, but man . . . I’d advise you not to read any more. Most of the comments aren’t nice.”