I Swear I Still Hate Him (Atlas Lawson) novel Chapter 12

Chapter 12

Chapter 12

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Emery’s POV

It was exactly 5 p.m., and the Linchester swimming team had gathered for practice. After some light backstrokes and time trials, Coach gave his usual mix of encouragement and low-key threats… “Swim like your scholarship depends on it…which, to be fair, it kinda did.

Now, practice was over and we were back in the locker room, dripping wet, half-dressed, and exhausted.

Meg strolled in like she owned the place, her hair in a perfect braid and a wicked grin on her face. “Hey, Cupcake.”

Ugh. The nickname. Look, as long as no one called me ’29 Seconds’ again, I’d survive it.

I looked up, mustering my best fake smile. “Hey.”

She smirked. “So… you ready for the ritual?”

I gave a cheerful little nod like I wasn’t already planning my funeral. “Yup. Totally.”

“Now that’s the spirit.” She turned around and snapped her fingers. “Banny!”

Jazz, bless her soul, bounced in holding a literal woven basket filled with folded pieces of paper. What was this, dare Jenga?

“Pick one,” Meg said, shoving it right in my face like it was a scented candle and not my potential social downfall.

My hand hovered above the basket, but then I froze. “Wait, just curious, what exactly are in the dares?”

Meg giggled like a Disney villain. “We don’t know, dummy. You pick one and then you find out.”

“That’s comforting,” I muttered.

Jazz chimed in with a reassuring smile. “Don’t worry, Emery. They’re just silly little dares.”

“Yeah, Cupcake, last year Samantha had to streak across the football field completely naked,” Lisa added casually, like that was normal.

Sam, now bright red, covered her face. “Oh my God, I still have mightmares.”

“Oh, come on Sam, it was bold. You wore a helmet. That was peak confidence,” Jazz said, all chipper.

Lisa rolled her eyes. “And you have a killer body. It was practically performance art.”

Sam grinned. “I do have one.”

“Mine was worse,” Lisa jumped in, flipping her wet hair dramatically. “I had to tell Professor Norman I was obsessed with his briefcase. The man gave me a TED Talk on it. I was trapped for two hours. TWO. HOURS. And now he waves at me in the halls like we’re briefcase besties.”

Everyone cracked up.

Okay, so maybe this wasn’t as scary as I thought. Just some dum dares and awkward laughs. I could do this. I was Emery Collins. I could swim the 100m butterfly in under a minute, I could definitely handle a dare.

Right?

I reached in, picked a paper, and unfolded it.

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Chapter 12

And then nearly choked.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I muttered, eyes wide in disbelief

Jazz leaned in. “Ooooh! Read it out!”

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I slowly lifted my gaze, like a prisoner awaiting judgment. “Make out with one of the players on the hockey team.”

Silence.

And then….

“Oh my God,” Lisa gasped dramatically, her accent making it sound like something out of a Jane Austen novel. “That’s amazing.”

“I’d volunteer,” Sam added, “but I already did three of them.”

Jazz cackled.

Meanwhile, I was having a full-body shutdown. My fingers clutched the tiny slip of paper like it had personally betrayed me. My cheeks were heating. My jaw? Unhinged.

“Does it have to be make out?” I asked, desperate. “Can it be like a peck? A polite handshake with passion?”

Meg looked way too amused. “Nope. Full-on make out.”

I closed my eyes.

Of course. Of course I’d pull the one dare that involved hockey players. Because my life was a joke. A cosmic comedy.

And guess who was the star player on the Linchester hockey team?

Atlas freaking Lawson.

I swear, the universe had jokes.

The dining table felt like a war zone.

Me on one side…nervous wreck.

Atlas on the other, calm, cool, completely unbothered, flipping through a book like we weren’t in a slow-burning emotional thriller called My Life Is Falling Apart: A Memoir by Emery Collins.

And the worst part?

He wasn’t even reading something smart and boring like The Rise of Capital Markets. Nope. This boy, this 6’2″ ice god, was curled up with a freaking romance novel.

Of course. Of freaking course.

I leaned back in my chair, one leg tapping uncontrollably under the table while I twisted a strand of my hair over and over again. My eyes were locked on Atlas, but not in a romantic I’m-s-in-love kind of way.

No.

More like I-might-die-and-it’s-your-fault kind of way.

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Chapter 12

Make out with a hockey player, the dare had said.

Real. Make Out.

Not a cute peck. Not a little side-of-the-mouth church-kiss. No.

We’re talking full lips, possible tongue, maybe some wandering Hands if things got weird.

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And it had to be with one of them. The golden boys of Linchester. The five-time champions. The ones everyone practically worshipped.

If I kissed the wrong one? The one who didn’t like me? I’d be the girl rejected by a hockey god. My name would end up on Reddit. There’d be memes.

But if I kissed Atlas?

I shivered.

Not because I was cold.

Because the very idea of kissing him made my brain short-circuit.

Then that annoying little voice in my head whispered:

“It’s not that bad.”

I glared at him across the table.

He was flipping a page like nothing in the world mattered. His jaw flexed just slightly. His lips….ugh, those lips. I’d heard Nancy Brown rave about them for months last summer. Said he was a great kisser. Said he ruined other men for her. Said she still thought about that night on the lake dock.

And now my brain was thinking about it too.

Gross.

I smacked the side of my head gently. “Get it together,” I whispered under my breath.

Just then, Atlas shut his book with a soft thud, his brows pulling together as he looked straight at me. “You know your foot stamping isn’t as quiet as you think it is, right?”

My head fell dramatically to the table. “Ugh. Sorry. I’m just on the verge of life and death.”

He leaned back in his chair, arms crossing over his chest. “What

And that’s when it hit me.

Like-boom.

Lightbulb.

Genius mode activated.

If there was one person who knew the ins and outs of every sing player on the hockey team, who was single, who was allergic to commitment, who had a girlfriend back home in Minnesota, it was Atlas freaking Lawson.

And I was literally living with him.

I sat up fast, eyes wide, scooting closer to his side of the table. “What’s the relationship status like on your team? Y’know…

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single, taken, situationships, hookups with evil exes? Anything 1ould know?”

Atlas gave me the most suspicious look ever. “Why are you askit?”

Oh crap.

Right. The stupid dare rules. Don’t tell anyone or the dare gets worse.

I cleared my throat and shrugged, playing it cool. “Just curious.”

He narrowed his eyes like he didn’t believe me for a second, the slowly reached for his book again.

“I don’t know,” he said flatly.

I blinked. “What?”

“I said, I don’t know,” he repeated, eyes already back on the page

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I leaned in, eyebrows high like I was trying to read the fine print on a shady contract. “What do you mean you don’t know? You’re the freaking captain. You’re literally on a group chat called Stick Bros. You guys shower together after games!”

Atlas didn’t even blink. “Doesn’t mean I keep tabs on their love lives.”

I squinted at him. “I find that hard to believe. Surely you guys talk about it?”

He looked away like he was thinking, actually thinking. And for a second, I had hope. My brain already started writing a thank-you speech to the universe. Thank you, stars. Thank you, roommate arrangement system. Thank you, fate.

But then the jerk said, “No.”

With a grin.

My shoulders slumped. “Atlas, come on. Help a sister out.”

“I’m not gonna sit here and give you a rundown of my teammates’ love lives,” he said, casually flipping another page of his stupid romance novel like we weren’t in the middle of an emergency.

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