The Rewritten Script

The last thing Maya Lin remembered was the taste of stale office coffee and the blinding pain of a cardiac arrest at her desk on the forty-second floor.

The next thing she knew, she smelled Axe body spray and floor wax.

Maya blinked. The sterile white of her office cubicle was gone. Instead, she was standing in a hallway lined with blue metal lockers. The air was thick with humidity and the unmistakable, gym-sock scent of teenage boys.

She looked down at her hands. They were manicured. Bright, aggressive crimson. She was wearing a plaid skirt that cost more than her rent in her previous life, and a cashmere sweater that was definitely dry-clean only.

"Bella?"

The voice was deep, hesitant, and cracked slightly on the second syllable.

Maya looked up.

Standing in front of her was a boy. He was tall—impossibly tall—with broad shoulders that strained against a navy-blue hockey jersey with a white "C" stitched on the chest. He had messy brown hair, eyes the color of warm honey, and a jawline that looked like it had been chiseled by a generous god.

He looked terrified.

Maya’s brain short-circuited. She knew this hallway. She knew that jersey. She knew *him*.

This was Liam "The Locomotive" West. The tragic hero of *Ice Cold Love*, the trashy YA novel Maya had secretly binge-read during her lunch breaks.

And if he was Liam, and she was the one holding the crimson-nailed hands... that meant she was Bella Sterling. The Queen Bee. The villainess. The girl who, in Chapter One, destroys Liam’s confidence right before the State Semi-Finals.

*The script,* Maya realized with a jolt of horror. *It’s happening right now.*

In the book, Bella is supposed to say: *“I never loved you, Liam. You’re just a high school jock with no future. We’re done.”*

Liam would then go onto the ice devastated, miss a pass, get checked into the boards, and tear his ACL. Career over. Life ruined. Tragic ending.

Liam shuffled his skates on the rubber matting. He looked like a puppy waiting to be kicked.

"Bella?" he asked again. "You said you needed to talk to me before warmups? Is everything okay?"

Maya looked at him. She looked at the sweet, anxious boy who was destined for a lifetime of regret and a limp.

*Not on my watch,* Maya thought. *I hated that ending.*

She took a deep breath. She channeled every ounce of corporate assertiveness she had possessed in her past life.

She stepped forward, grabbed the front of his oversized jersey, and yanked him down.

She kissed him.

It wasn't a tentative peck. It was a movie-star, sweeping-music, confetti-cannon kiss. Liam froze for a second, his body rigid with shock, before he melted. His arms came around her, bulky with elbow pads, holding her like she was precious glass.

When Maya pulled back, Liam looked like he’d been hit by a stun gun. His eyes were wide, his face flushed a brilliant red.

"I..." He cleared his throat. "I thought... you looked mad."

"I was just focusing," Maya lied smoothly, her voice sounding lighter, younger than she remembered. She smoothed the front of his jersey. "Listen to me, Liam. You are going to go out there, and you are going to skate circles around them. You’re the Locomotive, right?"

"Yeah," Liam breathed. "Yeah, I am."

"Then run them over," Maya commanded. She gave him a dazzling smile—one that felt weird on Bella’s usually sneering face. "I’ll be in the stands. Waiting for you."

"You're staying?" Liam asked, hope radiating off him like heat. "Usually you leave before the second period."

"I'm staying until the buzzer," Maya promised. "Now go. Win."

Liam grinned. It was a blinding, lopsided smile that made Maya’s new teenage heart do a traitorous flutter. He turned and jogged toward the locker room door, actually clicking his heels together in the air as he went.

The door swung shut.

Maya leaned against the lockers, exhaling a breath she felt like she’d been holding since her previous life ended.

"Okay," she whispered to the empty hallway. "Script flipped. Now, what the hell do I do for the next two hundred pages?"

\---