✓ 𝐖𝐇𝐄𝐍 𝐄𝐌𝐌𝐀 𝐅𝐀𝐋𝐋𝐒 𝐈𝐍 𝐋𝐎𝐕𝐄, charlie conway

03 | take the fall, get hurt, act indignant!

Emma hears a call of "If we're gonna cheat, we gotta make those falls look real!" She sighs in resignation. When she asked Bombay to take initiative, she didn't exactly mean "Teach us how to become lying scumbags." She shakes her head as she watch the sorry scene in front of her. 

"Come on, make it look real," Bombay says. "Act hurt!"

"I am hurt."

"Good, good. Now say it again."

"Take the fall! Act hurt! Get indignant!" 

Emma keeps her mouth shut. This is so beyond stupid.

"Good! You guys are ready."

Oh, good lord.

At the next game, Emma's teammates probably collapse about a thousand times. Some real, some fake. And it's getting them nowhere. 

"Goldberg! Don't take the fall when they're shooting at you!" Bombay reprimands.

"Oh! Well, I guess you didn't explain that very well, did you?"

"He's out there, tumbling around on the ice because you told him to, coach! You're not even entitled to any sort of annoyance at this point. And to think that just the other day, you were complaining about us looking like idiots," Emma points out.

The ref skates over.

"District five! Cut the acting class. One more dive, I forfeit to the Jets!"

"What? I'm insulted by that!"

Bombay watches as a group of opposing players surround Charlie and push him into the boards, jostling him around. Emma is watching from next to her coach, chewing on the rubber spout of her water bottle. Gross, but she really needs something to do.

"Charlie!" Bombay calls, hands cupping his mouth. "That guy is twice your size. So next time he gets you in a corner like that, I want you to grab your eye like it's cut and then hit the ice! Got it?"

Charlie looks at him scornfully. Emma almost reaches out and hugs him, but then she remembers that he's not sweet Averman, or Jesse, or Peter, or Adam, so he would go ballistic.

Charlie looks at her and kind of wishes she would hug him. Wait, what? No, he doesn't. Ridiculous.

Charlie gets back on the ice, flustered from his out-of-the-ordinary thought, and gets caught in the same situation. Bombay nods in approval and stares at Charlie expectantly.

Charlie mulls his options around in his head. If he does what Bombay wants him to do, they could win, according to him. But if he does it, Emma will sigh and walk away with a look of disappointment on her face. What? Damn it, Charlie, why the hell do you care what she thinks? He tells himself he cares because Emma is the type of person to have a good opinion of everybody, so if she thinks you're a bad person, you know you've lost in life.

"That's it, Charlie!" Bombay yells. 

A coach yelling "That's it!" when his player's cornered and practically being beat up by a bunch of other boys is probably the most obvious sign of cheating or some suspicious activity. The ref's stupid for not picking up on it.