Soft Launch

About the book

Social media rule number one: check which account you're logged into BEFORE you post a photo of your team's terrifying starting goalie asleep on your shoulder. I posted it to 82,000 followers at 1:14 a.m. It was deleted in sixty seconds. It was screenshotted in forty-two.

Sadie Marsh runs the Charleston Breakers' social feeds on cold oat milk lattes and four hours of sleep. One pothole on I-95, one wrong account, and her blurry bus photo—caption: The Wall has fallen—is trending nationally by sunrise. So is the team's ticket queue. Which is a problem, because the owner needs sellouts to stop the franchise from moving to Baltimore, and he's just decided Sadie's accident is his new marketing plan.

Anders Lindqvist doesn't smile, doesn't give interviews longer than four words, and guards his private life like a five-on-three penalty kill. The fans call him The Wall. He calls the fake-relationship scheme a lie—right before he pulls out a Sharpie and starts writing rules. Sadie shouldn't be wondering why the printout of her disaster photo is taped inside his locker door. He says it's evidence.

The deal: fake date until average attendance hits seven thousand and Charleston is safe. Rule one: no shared beds. Rule two: no affection off-camera. Rule three: his family and his past stay off-limits. Rule four: she never asks why he needs the league to believe he's taken.

Then Sadie learns Anders has a tell—two taps of his stick against the boards, every single time he lies. And when a national camera asks if it's love and he answers "strictly professional," she hears it, echoing down the tunnel: tap, tap. The only question left is which lie the taps were counting—and which rule The Wall breaks first.