Wicked lies

It starts with an interview. Ends with fake dating, shared toothpaste, and possibly falling in love.

Ella never planned to crash into Erik Wick, literal hockey star and walking chaos in a backwards cap. But when her cousin needs a last-minute favor, she steps in for an interview - and somehow ends up face-to-face with a charming, too-hot-for-his-own-good athlete who immediately decides she's fascinating.

She thinks it'll be a one-time thing.

Until she keeps running into him - at the hockey rink where she picks up the kid she babysits, at her college party on a boat, and eventually... in her own kitchen.

Because after one too many drinks and a full emotional breakdown about her life (psychology deadlines, nowhere to live, and an impossible class project), Erik offers her a solution that sounds completely insane:

Fake date him. Move in. Use him for her psych research.

In return, he gets to keep pretending he's taken - a lie he told months ago that's starting to unravel.

Erik is spontaneous, loud, and disarmingly sweet. He likes cats, knows exactly when she needs a distraction, and doesn't stop pushing until she calls him on his BS - even if she looks terrified after.

Ella is quiet, cautious, and barely holding it together. She bakes when she's overwhelmed, overthinks every word, and never expected the most chaotic person she's ever met to feel like her safest place.

They promised no feelings. Just three months of pretending. But some lies feel a lot like the truth... and some people are impossible to unlove - even when they were never supposed to be yours.