My first thought is something has happened to Lennon’s parents or his family or something, but he’s apologizing to me. Why would he need to do that if—

“What happened?” I ask, more frantic than I intend. My mind jumps to the worst conclusions, all of which involve him and his stupid magazine.

“There was a photo,” he whispers. He can’t even look at me.

“Photo?” I croak.

Images of Matt Jackson getting a blowjob flood my mind before I shake them away. I haven’t done anything in public.

“What kind of photo?” I say cautiously.

“Of you and me.”

“No, I was careful. I’m always careful.”

Ask Ash. He was constantly bitching at the lack of PDA.

The treehouse springs to mind, but paparazzi wouldn’t have been able to see in, and that’s if they even knew where my parents lived and if they had a reason to follow me. Which they don’t.

Lennon still refuses to give me eye contact. “The game. The press box.”

“All we did was talk.”

“People are already speculating, and the photo … I look half in love with you, for fuck’s sake.”

“Only half?” I mock.

There has to be some mistake. They can’t come to the gay conclusion just because I sat next to Lennon during the game.

Lennon thrusts his phone in my direction, and it’s open to an article about me supposedly switching teams. And he has a point. The way he’s looking at me … hell, it makes me fall for him even more.

I’m not sure I’m ready for what that means though, and the way my heart beats erratically in my chest, I know I can’t deal with this right now.

That doesn’t stop me from reading the article.

I huff. “Babe, did you actually read this article?”

He lifts his head. “No, but—”

“One of the guys near us in the press box must’ve seen us being close or whatever and figured I was asking questions about being a journalist. It speculates I’m leaving hockey for journalism.” I give his phone back to him to let him read. “Apparently, I only set off gaydars of the queer variety.”

Damon and Maddox already knew, and Jet figured it out, but whoever wrote that article is oblivious.

Just when I think I can relax, Lennon shakes his head.

“I got a phone call from my coworker. They’re running a story. They said you were gay and wanted me to confirm.”

All the air leaves my lungs. His magazine is running the story?

“Can’t you stop it?” I yell and then hate myself when Lennon winces. “I’m sorry. I’m not yelling at you. I’m freaking out.”

“Yell at me,” he whispers. “Yell at me because I deserve it. You’ve been risking more than you used to, and I don’t want—”

“That was my choice. This is neither of our faults, and right now, we need to focus on the more important thing of either beating this story to the press or getting your editor to squash it.”

Lennon stares at me with an expression I can’t read. Surprise, maybe? Shock? All I know is he doesn’t start moving.

“Do you want to call your editor or should I?”

Finally, he snaps out of whatever’s holding him back and he starts tapping away on his phone. His finger hesitates over the number.

“Damon,” he says. “We should call Damon first and see what he knows. I don’t want to give away anything to my editor if we don’t have to. If we call and tell him to squash it, he’ll ask why we need to.”

“Yeah. Do that. Call Damon and put him on speaker.”

It rings a few times before Damon picks up. “Where’s Ollie?”

No hi, no how are you, just where’s Ollie. That can’t be good.

“Uh, I’m right here,” I say. “You’re on speaker.”

“You two have got to be more careful. That photo of you guys—”

“It’s so hot,” a voice calls out from the background. I think it’s Maddox. “It’s like foreplay porn.”

“Ignore him,” Damon says, “but he has a point. Unless you want this to come out—”

“Well, that’s just it,” Lennon says. “It has. Or … it will. I got a call from a guy I work with. He’s running a story about it, but they want confirmation from me. Which I didn’t give. Obviously.”

Damon hesitates, and I can practically hear his gears turning from here.

“Where did the story come from? If this photo is the only source, there’s no way they can print that without opening themselves up to a lawsuit, because it’s nothing. You’re smiling at each other. Yeah, we know it’s more, but that’s only because we know.”

“Wait, so there’s been no talk in the media this morning about this?” Lennon asks.

I don’t let the hope trying to claw at me take hold, because no news means they haven’t beaten us to the punch yet.

“I have Google alerts for all my clients, and this was the only thing this morning.”

“I want to beat them,” I say.

“Like, beat them up?” Damon asks. “I know that’s a hockey player’s MO, but I don’t think it’ll work off the ice.”

Lennon smiles, but it quickly falls when I glance at him. He also looks away as if I’ve scolded him. I want to reassure him, but at the same time, I can’t even focus on us right now. I need to get my head in the zone. I need to salvage my career.

My worst fear for the past six years is happening, so I need to focus on that first and foremost.

“No,” I say. “I mean I want to come out before they can out me. It’s been the one thing I’ve wanted—control over how my news comes out. They can’t force me out like they did to Matt.”

“Okay,” Damon says, slipping into full-on business mode. “First thing we need to do is get you back to New York. We need to track down your PR department and the GM, and then we’ll need the head coach for the press conference. If we do this right, we can have it over and done with by tonight.”

“I have Ava’s phone number—the PR rep,” Lennon says.

When I cock my head at him, he shrugs.

“We’ve kind of become friends.”

“Give me the number.” Damon’s voice is authoritative, and this is exactly why I knew to hire him the moment I met him. “Then get a flight to New York, and I’ll call you.”

“Are you still in Boston?” I ask.

“Nah, Maddy and I drove back last night after the game. Stay off all social media just in case, try not to draw attention, and I hate to say it, but maybe you guys should go separately to the airport. I dunno if you’re coming out and announcing your relationship, but you don’t want to add fuel to the fire before you can tell everyone yourselves.”

Way to put the pressure on something that’s too new to define for real. Yesterday, I may’ve called him my boyfriend, but as Lennon was quick to point out, it’s too early for that. I also don’t know how telling everyone we’re dating will affect Lennon’s career. In all this time, I’ve never even asked if he was allowed to get involved with an athlete he reports on.

“Think about it,” Damon says when I don’t say anything. “And if there is any paparazzi, always say no comment. It’s going to be okay.”

I don’t know if I believe him, but I want to. Matt won the Super Bowl the same year he came out. Surely, this won’t hurt my career too much. Maybe.

“What about my editor?” Lennon asks. “He’ll probably call again.”

“Don’t answer,” Damon says. “Only answer my calls, and we’ll speak soon.”

Silence descends as Damon ends the call, and now I’m the one avoiding eye contact with Lennon.

I need to wrap my head around the prospect of this actually happening. Years of trying to avoid this moment all comes down to a single photo and a rumor.

That’s kinda fucked up.

As per Damon’s instructions, Lennon and I leave the hotel separately and head for the airport in different cars.

I go home first to return my parents’ car and to get my charger and grab my shit to go back to my place in New York.

Ma and Dad look worried as they drop me curbside for the flight.

“I need to go to New York to talk to my agent, guys. It’s not a big deal.”

Yeah, I’m back to lying to my parents. If this comes down to press conferences and a media circus, I’ll give them a heads-up, but I don’t want to worry them for no reason or get Ma excited about the possibility either. If there’s a way out of this, I’m sure as hell going to take it, because this isn’t the way I wanted it to happen. Not by a long shot.

“I’ll be home in a few days. I might catch the game while I’m there, and hang out with Len—uh, Clark.”

Lennon thinks it’s hilarious my family won’t drop the name, but I find it hard to remember. He was only Clark to me that very first night I met him. In the six months following, he was the random guy who gave me hope, and now … now he’s the guy I want to have a future with if this doesn’t all blow up in our faces.

I’m about to invite the whole world into my life, and I don’t know two things: one, whether Lennon would be up for that, and two, if he even wants to continue this in the first place. We both travel for work, and unless he gets assigned to my team every year, our schedules are gonna clash. All I know is I want to try, and once this mess is over, whether I come out or not, I’m gonna make damn sure he knows how much I want to try. I think there will be a lot of naked time in the convincing process, and if that’s what it takes, then I guess I’ll have to be okay with that. It’ll be such a hardship.

I manage to get on the same flight as Lennon, but it fucking kills me to walk past him at the gate and pretend I don’t know him. It hurts even more when I glance back and see this complete and utter look of remorse on his face.

I sit across from him, a few seats down from where he is, and take out my phone. Shit. Still dead. When I move to a seat in the corner beside a wall with a power outlet, I feel Lennon’s burning gaze follow me.

The phone takes forever to power up, and my leg bounces while I wait.

Me: I wish I could sit with you right now. I want to hold your hand.

Lennon: Is that another Beatles joke?

Me: No, I just really want to touch you. After these last few days, I can’t imagine not touching you again.

There’s a pause where he stares down at his phone before he starts typing. With how fast his fingers move and how long it takes, I’m expecting more than the two words that come through.

Lennon: Me too.

I don’t know what to think of that. Especially when he refuses to look up at me.

Me: You look like your cat died. Most guys would love their … boyfriend type person to come out for them.

I watch for Lennon’s response as he reads my message, but when his eyes meet mine, he scowls.

Me: Too soon to joke about it?

Lennon: It will always be too soon. I may have fucked your career.

Me: My career will be fine.

Lennon: I may have fucked MY career too.

Me: Are there rules against us being together?

Lennon: No. At least, I don’t think so. I don’t know how it’ll work for a male reporter in a same-sex relationship with an athlete, because it’s never happened before, but for women, they’ve been discredited in their “biased” articles and hardly get any work.

Fuck. We’ve been so focused on my career we didn’t discuss his. I’ve been selfish in the past about my obsession with hockey, but I’ve never felt as bad about that as I do right now.

Lennon doesn’t make eye contact again, and I know this because I don’t take my eyes off him until the flight is called.

Being in first class, I board early, and then I sit and watch every person get on the plane, because I need Lennon to acknowledge me as he walks by. A smile … something.

When he appears, something warms my gut, and a sense of desperation takes root, but all that’s squashed when he walks by without even looking at me.

All I want to fucking do is talk to him, Damon and the media be damned.

I get the sinking feeling this is more than Lennon feeling guilty over possibly, maybe, ruining my career.

If my private life is going to be splashed all over the media, I want to at least have something to look forward to. But maybe he doesn’t want that life. He said his family are private people and want him to hide who he is. Maybe some of that has rubbed off on him. If it were up to me, I wouldn’t want the media breathing down my neck either, but that’s the career I chose. Lennon didn’t choose to be on this side of it.

The entire flight to New York, I keep overthinking everything. From what the media knows to what Lennon’s thinking and everything in between.

And when we land at JFK and find Damon waiting for us, I know for certain all my overanalyzing was for nothing because whatever’s going to happen has already begun.

Damon greets us with a grim smile. “Ava’s getting a hold of the GM and coach, and we’re meeting them all at the arena.”

Yup. There’s no stopping this.

I will not vomit. I will not vomit … Okay, I’m probably gonna vomit.