Livestreaming My Cheating Hockey Star Fiance novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: Going Live
Hanna opens the equipment room door on a live stream of 212,000 viewers and finds her fiance with her best friend, takes off her ring on camera, and watches Cassidy end the stream and Brady say the channel belongs to the team.
I had 212,000 people watching when I opened the equipment room door.
They had come for a sweet little season-opener surprise.
Earlier that evening I had stood in the arena parking lot with my phone held out in front of me.
"Brady forgot his lucky tape," I told the chat, and held up the white roll. "So his fiancée is delivering it before warm-ups."
The hearts came up the screen in a flood.
That morning Brady had kissed my forehead over the sink and said, "If I lose tonight, it's on you, Ostrowski. Your coffee is too good."
Cassidy had walked me through it from her car, with the laptop open on her knees and her voice in my earbud.
"Don't text him," she said. "The surprise is the content. I'll keep the chat warm."
She had also told me which door. Brady had messaged her that he was in the equipment room, by the ice-resurfacer entrance.
"Why would he message you?" I had asked.
"Because your phone's on do-not-disturb for the live, babe. Go. Two million people love you."
She sounded warm and a little bossy, as she always did.
Cassidy had been my best friend since we were twelve.
She was the one who held my hair back at nineteen, and the one who taught me how to talk to a camera without freezing.
I walked down the tunnel with the cold smell of the ice coming up around me.
Soren Lund came out of the locker room in his pads and saw my phone.
He turned around and went back in without a word.
Soren did that every time I filmed. Brady said it was because he was shy.
I laughed it off to the chat and kept walking.
"Okay, we're at the door," I whispered. "Everyone be quiet."
The chat filled up with little crowns and crying faces.
I pushed the door open with my shoulder.
Brady had his back against the rack of spare sticks.
His jersey was on the floor.
Cassidy was against him, in her cream sweater, with her hands in his hair.
Her laptop was not in her car. It was on the bench next to them, closed.
I stood there with the tape in one hand and the phone in the other.
Brady saw the light on the phone first.
"Hanna." He stepped away from her, and his voice cracked. "Hanna, please. Turn it off."
Cassidy turned around.
Her lipstick was across her chin, and she did not look sorry. She looked caught.
"Han," she said. "Han, wait."
The number on my screen read 340,000.
It was climbing fast, and the chat had stopped sending hearts.
I turned the phone around so the camera had all of us in the frame.
"This is my fiancé, Brady Kessling," I said. "And this is my best friend, Cassidy Mahoney."
My voice came out steady, which surprised me.
"I've known her for fifteen years. I've been engaged to him for fourteen months. You're watching me find out together."
"Don't do this," Brady said. "Not on camera."
"You proposed on camera."
I pulled the ring off my finger. It caught a little on my knuckle.
I put it in his hand and closed his fingers over it.
"I'm done," I said. "I won't be your content."
So I stepped out.
I was three steps down the tunnel when the phone buzzed in my palm.
The stream was gone.
The screen said: This broadcast has ended by the channel administrator.
Cassidy was the administrator.
She had ended it from the laptop on the bench, before I was even out of the tunnel.
Brady caught up with me by the loading door and grabbed my arm.
His face was wet and handsome and furious.
"You can't post that," he said. "Hanna, listen to me. You can't put that anywhere."
"Let go of my arm."
"You signed the content agreement. The channel isn't yours. It's the team's. Calder Media owns the name, the handles, all of it."
He said it low and fast.
"If you post one frame of tonight, they'll sue you for four hundred thousand dollars."
I stared at him.
I had signed something at Cassidy's kitchen table the week after he proposed.
She had said it was a standard sponsor form.
Brady let go of my arm when a heavy hand came down on his shoulder.
Soren Lund stood behind him, still in his pads.
He did not look at Brady.
He held up his phone, and on it was the stream's last frame, with my face and the ring and the door.
"I recorded all of it," he said to me. "Every second. I'll send it to you."
His voice was low and rough.
"Don't delete anything, and don't sign anything. Come with me."
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