25. Anthony

“Well done, boys!” Coach beamed at us from the middle of the locker room. “Let’s keep that momentum rolling, all right?”

We all cheered. Hell yeah, we needed to keep this rolling. We’d absolutely stomped Miami tonight, snapping their nine-game win streak with an 8-2 blowout and extending our win streak to three. I’d even finally scored my first goal of the season.

I fucking loved nights like this. Nights when the whole team just gelled perfectly, and when I was playing the kind of hockey I knew I could. These nights were addictive, and I hoped the season was full of them.

D’Angelo had the MVP helmet from our last win, and he held it up. “Great game, guys. Beaus, you stood on your head. Third and fourth lines, you were killing it out there. But I think we all know where this is going.” He met my gaze across the room and gestured at me with the helmet. “Blueliner with two assists and a goal tonight. Good work, Aussie.”

I grinned as I got up. He handed me the helmet, gave me a quick hug and back slap, and said over the cheers of our teammates, “You killed it out there, man. Keep it up.”

I nodded sharply. “I will.” He let me go, and I put on the helmet. Ugh, two months into the season, and this thing already stank to high heaven. “Good game, everyone. Let’s see if we can make it four in a row!” That prompted more cheering, and we all continued stripping off jerseys and gear.

I was almost giddy from the night we’d had. The night I’d had. The first dozen or so games of the season, I’d been struggling hard, but I was finally finding my stride. I’d drawn a number of penalties but hadn’t taken any in like five games. I’d notched six points over the last three games, including three tonight, which had earned me second star. Hell, I’d probably been in the running for first star, but Beaus deserved it after forty-seven saves against a team full of snipers.

I was still smiling like a fool when they let in the reporters. Honestly, I didn’t mind talking to them most of the time. They sometimes expected me to have some long, profound answer when all I wanted to say was, “We sucked tonight,” but they weren’t bad. Our team reporter had a good rapport with all of us, and she managed to have interesting questions that required thoughtful answers. I appreciated that.

But as I was peeling off my chest protector, I caught sight of a reporter who made my teeth grind. Cole Tandy. Ugh. Did he have to be in town tonight? Apparently so.

Tandy lived to stir shit up. If he couldn’t find drama, he’d create it with clickbait headlines. There was the time he titled an article something about Chicago’s star goalie rushing to the hospital and missing a game at the last minute, making it sound like he’d had a medical emergency. Turned out the goalie’s wife had gone into labor. Another time, Tandy had ominously reported that negotiations were “at a standstill” between the Bobcats and D’Angelo, and half of Seattle’s fanbase had panicked, thinking we were about to lose our captain. No, the parties involved had just agreed to pause negotiations until the off season so D’Angelo could focus on playing. Two weeks after the playoffs ended, he’d signed a six-year extension that would likely carry him through to retirement.

So I never liked seeing Tandy lurking around the locker room. How he still had press credentials was a mystery to me, though I’d heard rumors that he’d threatened to write an exposé about the League shutting out journalists. Which meant the clubs all had to play nice with him, and so did we, because he wouldn’t hesitate to write a piece about a player getting spicy with him.

I fucking hated that asshole. And I really hated how he kept glancing toward my stall as I answered questions for our team reporter.

Oh God. Was I on his radar tonight? Fuuuck. I’d rather get yelled at by Coach.

Sure enough, as the team reporter moved on to interview Simon, Tandy sidled up to my locker stall, phone up and recording. “Great game, Aussie!” he said with that phony-ass smile that meant he was fishing for something.

I gave him an equally fake smile. “It was a team effort.” A vague, canned answer, but this was the guy who’d take “thanks, I was happy with how I played tonight!” or “I played better than I have the last few games, so I feel pretty good about it” and turn it into a player claiming credit for the entire team’s victory. Slimy motherfucker.

“A fan posted some photos of you out and about with your cats,” he said. “How did you get the two of them to walk on leashes?”

I hesitated. That was all he wanted to ask me about? My cats? Guard still up, I met him—and his phone—with my best media smile. “Oh, they’re easy. Put them in harnesses as kittens. Get them used to the leash.” I shrugged as I dropped onto the bench to take off my skates. “It’s really not hard, and taking them out lets them burn off some energy so they don’t destroy my house.”

He laughed. “They do seem, uh, large?”

I snorted. “They’re both twenty-plus pounds. Trust me, when they get the zoomies, the whole neighborhood feels it.”

“We might have to check with the UW seismology center and see if they’ve picked up any vibrations from that direction.”

I managed a chuckle, though I was still suspicious. I highly doubted Tandy had suddenly decided to dive into human interest pieces about our personal lives. Not unless there was some really juicy “human interest” for him to report, and my cats walking on leashes couldn’t possibly make that cut.

Still filming me with one phone, he took out a second and started thumbing through something on the screen. I glanced up at him, and the twist of his lips made my stomach drop.

Then… the piece connected.

The last time I’d been out walking the cats…

The last time we’d encountered fans who recognized me…

Oh…

Shit.

But there was no escape, and with Simon standing right there beside me, Tandy showed me his other phone and loudly asked, “What can you tell us about your new cat-walking buddy?”

The way Simon’s head snapped toward us sent a rush of panic through me.

Goddamn you, Tandy…

I took the phone and peered at the image. It was, of course, Wyatt and me, walking along a path with our small herd of critters. I was saying something, and Wyatt was laughing.

Simon loomed over me, having apparently abandoned his own interview. My neck prickled with my ex’s proximity at the same time my spine tingled at the sight of Wyatt’s easy smile. I was undoubtedly blushing, too, but fortunately, I was still hot and probably flushed from the game, so I didn’t think anyone noticed.

With a shrug, I handed back the phone. “Oh, yeah. That’s my friend Wyatt.”

Tandy’s eyes flicked toward Simon, then back to me, and one eyebrow arched. “Your friend?”

“Um, yes?” I laughed. “I do have friends, you know.”

Beside me, Simon bristled. I didn’t look at him, but I could feel him stepping away, probably back to his own interview, and it was all I could do not to throw my skate at Tandy’s head.

Really, dude? Seriously? Are you honestly trying to stir up drama between me and the man you think I’m still dating? Fuck you, prick.

“Ah, so he’s a friend.” Tandy thumbed through something else on his screen. “I didn’t realize people brought friends to the team Thanksgiving.”

He showed me the phone again. This time it displayed one of several group photos the team’s media gurus had posted from the holiday. In this one, I sat between Wyatt and Simon at the huge table, and the three of us smiled for the camera, same as everyone else in the room.

“His plans got canceled at the last minute.” I shrugged again. “I wasn’t going to leave him by himself, and Russell didn’t have a problem with an extra guest. It’s not as unusual as you might think.” I pasted on that media smile again. “The Bobcats are a family. Friends are included.”

Tandy scowled. Then he lowered the phone he’d been filming me with and pocketed both of them. “Thanks, Aussie. See you next game.”

I kept my big smile in place. “Any time, man.”

It was all I could do not to roll my eyes as he stalked away. I did laugh and shake my head, but my heart was also pounding. Was Tandy trying to stir shit up between Simon and me? He was the shock jock type, and it wasn’t below him to instigate drama between rival players, but I’d never pegged him for someone who’d actually try to cause issues in someone’s personal life.

Whether that was his intent or not, he’d succeeded. It didn’t even matter that Simon and I had split up—he was pissed. He wouldn’t look at me in the locker room. After I came back from showering, he was waiting for me to join our teammates and eat, and he looked thrilled. All through eating with our teammates, he was unusually quiet, which had me shifting nervously and barely able to keep any food down. Why was I even worried about what he thought? So what if I had to listen to him bitch in the car on the way home? We weren’t together anymore, so it was none of his business if I was more than friends with Wyatt.

God, I wish.

Wait, what?

I shook the thought away and focused on the chicken I was eating. I did not have a crush on Wyatt. Yes, he was attractive. And sweet. And considerate. And—

I did not have a crush on him. He was just a really nice guy who made my house feel a lot less empty now that Simon had moved out for good. Just because I enjoyed spending time with him—just because I always got a little flutter of happiness when I came home and saw him—didn’t mean anything.

Did it?

Or maybe I was just going insane. That was entirely possible. And that one defenseman had knocked me into the boards pretty hard earlier; maybe I was concussed and didn’t even realize it.

It was also possible I was still overwhelmed with emotions after I’d gotten a weather alert on my phone earlier. It was pretty benign, just letting me know the roads would probably be slick tomorrow morning. That meant the temperatures were going to drop tonight after we’d had a few hours of rain.

I was fine with driving in shitty weather—I had lived in Boston for a while, after all—but what had shaken me to the core was thinking of Wyatt and Lily. The thought of them sleeping out in that made me sick to my stomach. My mind had cycled through the same thing it had every time I’d thought of them out there on the street. What if we hadn’t crossed paths? What if Lily’s skin infection hadn’t given me a reason to insist they should stay longer? What if they’d left after that time was up?

It would’ve been so easy for them to be out there right now, shivering and struggling to make it through another bitterly cold night.

But they were safe, warm, and fed in my house right now, thank God. They were going to be okay. When I came home tonight, they’d be there with my cats. They were fine.

“Hey, Aussie.” Russell jostled me into the present, and he met my gaze across the table. “What was Tandy on your ass about? He trying to dig up rumors or some shit?”

Oh. That.

Despite the way my stomach tied itself in knots over the subject, I laughed and rolled my eyes. “Yeah. Some fan saw me out with Wyatt, and Tandy decided we were on our honeymoon or something.”

The guys at the table laughed. Simon, too, though not with a lot of enthusiasm. Just enough to keep up the act and convince everyone around us, but not nearly enough to convince me.

Ugh. The drive home was going to be long as hell.

Nova poked at some green beans on his plate. “Tandy is shit. They need to keep him out of locker room.”

“That’ll be the day,” I muttered.

Our teammates all murmured in agreement. Everyone in the League hated Tandy. Everyone. But until he crossed an actual line, the League didn’t have grounds to kick him out. One team had already tried, and that hadn’t ended well.

“Maybe we should invite him out onto the ice,” Simon said. “Use his head for target practice.”

“Put him in goal,” Beaus said. “With no pads on. I mean, he’s the one who says goalies are all pussies for wearing that much gear, so let him put his money where his mouth is.”

“Put some pucks where his mouth is,” Nova said.

More nods of agreement.

At least I wasn’t the only one. I still felt weird about that conversation with Tandy, but I didn’t believe for a second he’d actually stirred up any questions among my teammates. They knew he was nothing but a bullshit instigator, so unless he had photographic evidence of me blowing Wyatt or something, he wasn’t going to convince the Bobcats that I was cheating on Simon. Or that Simon and I were having problems. Or that two queer players couldn’t function on the same team, which he’d outright stated after we’d come out as a couple.

“Think I could convince the club to ban him for harassing us?” I gestured at Simon and myself. “Because coming in and insinuating crap about me and a friend kind of seems like harassment to me.”

“I’d back you up,” Russell said. “I didn’t hear the conversation, but Cars told us about it.” He nodded toward Simon. “I think you guys have a case for asking the team to—”

“Not a good idea,” Simon said flatly, and he stabbed a piece of cauliflower for emphasis.

My other teammates exchanged glances. I studied Simon and asked, “Uh, why not?”

He turned a frosty look on me. “Because he’ll just start trying to dig up dirt as retaliation. If he’s banned from the locker room, I guarantee he’ll think that means he stepped on a nerve, and he’s going to keep digging.”

I almost said, “So what? He’s not going to find anything.”

But I didn’t. Because if Tandy kept digging, he would find something. Namely that Simon was no longer living in our house. Instead of catching the big story that Anthony Austin was cheating on Simon Caron, he’d stumble right into the truth—that we’d broken up.

If we just left well enough alone, Tandy would think his fishing expedition had failed, and he’d go looking for someone else to harass.

I slumped in my chair and focused on my food. “Yeah. You’re probably right.” I sensed my teammates getting ready to argue, and I quickly said, “I think we should distract him with a rumor about Nova secretly using jarred sauce for his ‘homemade’ wings.”

That earned me a green bean to the forehead, and everyone at the table howled with laughter, including Simon. Nova tried to scowl, but even he couldn’t help chuckling. The joke successfully derailed the conversation, too, and the rest of the postgame meal was spent coming up with progressively more outlandish rumors to let Cole Tandy get his hands on. In the end, we were all daring each other to tell Tandy that our GM was a reptilian, Coach Haskins had once literally eaten a puck after losing a bet, and Russell was secretly the father of Tal Markstrom, a rookie out of Los Angeles who was his much younger doppelganger.

The attempted gossip about my live-in friend was forgotten.

Or so I thought.

Simon had barely pulled out of the parking garage before he glanced at me and said, “I need you to level with me.”

“Um. Okay?”

“Are you and Wyatt a thing?”

“A thing? Like—” I sighed. “No. We’re not.”

He flicked his gaze toward me again, his jaw working as he drove.

“You know Tandy,” I said. “He’s just looking for something he can—”

“Yeah, but that doesn’t mean you need to hand him any gossip fodder,” Simon snapped.

I straightened. “Hand him—what are you talking about? I was literally just walking the cats with Wyatt.”

“Uh-huh.” Simon’s knuckles blanched as he gripped the wheel. “Is that really all you’re doing with him?”

The impulse to plead my innocence was almost too much to hold back, but I caught myself. Simon was the one person on the planet who knew damn well I had every right to do whatever the fuck I wanted with Wyatt.

While I was sick and tired of his accusations and I was damn sure going to stand up for myself, I didn’t want this to turn into a screaming match. So, I kept my voice even. “I don’t think it’s any of your business what I’m doing with him.”

“For fuck’s sake,” he growled, and thumped the heel of his hand against the wheel. “You are fucking him, aren’t you? And when the hell did that start? While we were still—”

“Whoa, whoa. Hold the fuck on.” I twisted toward him and narrowed my eyes. “I said it was none of your business, because it isn’t. We’re not together anymore. And that was your choice, Simon. Not mine.”

“Yeah, and you’re obviously real broken up over it if you’re already—”

“I’m not doing anything with Wyatt,” I snapped. “But even if I was, it’s not your concern anymore.”

“Except it is,” he said through his teeth. “Because we still have to sell the image of being happy together.” He gestured sharply over his shoulder with his thumb. “And now we’ve got reporters—Cole fucking Tandy, Anthony—sniffing around because you’re getting comfy with that guy in public. We have to keep up appearances until the season is over.”

“So, what?” I leaned against the door. “I can’t socialize? I can’t be seen in public with anyone? Because I don’t know if you’ve forgotten, but I date women, too.”

Simon’s lips twisted. I’d long suspected he didn’t care for the fact that I was bisexual—the first year of our relationship, he’d gotten weird any time he saw me near a woman—and sometimes I thought he tried to forget it. After all, he’d described us both as gay in interviews before. So he probably wasn’t happy about the reminder.

Tough shit.

“Look,” I went on. “If someone had a picture of me getting touchy-feely with someone or making out with them, then maybe we’d have something to argue about. But you and I aren’t together anymore, and Wyatt and I were literally just walking the cats and his dog.”

“And you brought him to Thanksgiving.”

“Yes, Because he’s staying at the house, and it would be rude to ditch him.” I shifted around again and leaned back against the seat, pressing my elbow in the door as I kneaded my throbbing temple. “I know Cole Tandy is a dick. And I know how to handle him and any rumors he tries to start. But where you and I are concerned? We’re over. Which means my love life isn’t your business anymore.”

I was genuinely surprised I couldn’t hear his molars grinding. Or that the car in front of us didn’t burst into flames from his glare.

The drive was about twenty minutes after that.

And neither of us said another word.