CHAPTER TWENTY

N oah

This is not how I expected to meet Hiroshi Tanaka, one of Japan's billionaires, who made his fortune in electronics and decided to diversify everywhere.

Usually, I see his picture on the occasional magazine cover. Sometimes clips from his interviews appear on SlickSlide, as he sprouts wisdom so everyone else can become billionaires too.

He's slightly shorter than I envisioned, but no less impressive. Now his distaste is not focused on rising energy costs, but me.

"This is why my advisors told me not to buy an American team," he grumbles. "You two better come with me."

"Er...Of course, sir."

The others shoot us worried looks and begin to clear the glitter and balloons. This is not good. The team owner isn't supposed to know who I am, and he's not supposed to scold me.

My position suddenly feels precarious. Am I going to be sent away, after all? Will Providence still want me? I've been replaced there. Panic seizes my veins.

"I didn't realize locker rooms had turned into orgies."

"We were the only people kissing."

The team owner glowers. "You're the guy who fell on the ice."

I close my eyes. "I'm so sorry about that."

"So sorry you married one of my star players? I believe you Americans call that a Cinderella story. Makes it difficult to send you away now, doesn't it?"

I stiffen. I didn't expect to be called out on our plan so thoroughly.

Finn slides his hand into mine and leans against my shoulder. "We're in love, sir."

My heart flutters at his words, even though I know this is all pretend.

"Americans," Tanaka murmurs. "So romantic. So expressive. So individualistic."

Nervousness rushes through me, making each part of my body stiff and uncertain. "Is there going to be a problem?"

"People in Japan are not always heterosexual," Tanaka mutters.

"Right. Of course."

"I like my locker rooms to not be converted into party rooms. I like my star players not distracted. I like to not find my team being the punchline in late-night TV shows when our brand-new player plonks onto the ice like my five-year old daughter."

"Right."

"To be clear, she doesn't fall anymore."

"I won't fall anymore too," I promise. "I never fell in the AHL."

"Saved it for us, huh?"

Tanaka opens one of the wooden doors that manages to look way more expensive than anything I saw in New Hampshire, and ushers Finn and me into a conference room.

My stomach does one of those figure skating twist things, and Tanaka gestures to us to take a seat. If I didn't know any better, I might be relaxed.

But everyone knows about Hiroshi Tanaka and how he's grown his business to dizzying heights. He abhors mistakes. He fires people. He's probably not used to being in the news for anything except articles praising him.

I mean, it is super cool that he's become so successful. But that doesn't stop my stomach from knotting, as if it's recreating the fishing knots my Uncle Will does.

Tanaka enters something into his phone, and I'm not surprised when the room starts to fill with other people.

Other people in suits. Other people who look at Finn and me the way my mother might scrutinize a spider that made its way into the house, calculating whether to smash it with her shoe or go through the trouble of putting a glass and cardboard over it and transporting it outside.

They sit in modern, no doubt ridiculously expensive leather chairs.

Maybe we're the kind of problem likely to leave stains and antennae on shoes and destroying us is something to be avoided.

"These are the troublemakers," Tanaka gestures to us. "The ecstatic couple."

He flashes a cold corporate smile that grabs hold of each of my limbs, and I smile back and attempt to not look on the verge of fainting.

A flurry of unconvincing congratulations ring out in soft voices I almost can't hear .

"I have been informed that there are rumors online that this love affair is about keeping Noah with the Blizzards. Is that rumor correct?"

Finn places his hand over mine. "That thought never occurred to us when we got married."

"I don't think many thoughts occurred to you when you got married," Tanaka says, and the words leave Finn's face stained red.

‘There's some truth to that," Finn concedes.

"Ha."

"We were motivated by love." Finn glances at me. "My honey bunny was looking adorable, and I wanted to make him mine for the rest of time."

The cold breeze of the air conditioner creeps up my spine.

"Never go into poetry," Tanaka says.

"I promise, sir."

Tanaka rolls his eyes, but glances at the people who do not go to work wearing sweatpants and sweatshirts. "What are our options?"

"This is an opportunity to show the country that the Blizzards is at the forefront of diversity," a woman in a lime green suit says.

"Would have been more convenient five years ago." Tanaka's eyes land on Finn. "Couldn't you have fallen in love then?"

"Um..."

Tanaka examines his iPad. "And you've dated many women." He frowns. "Many, many women." He continues to scroll. "Wow."

I stiffen. How many women is Tanaka talking about? I might have watched every single one of Finn's videos, but those are what he put out. Maybe I know him less well than I thought.

God, I wonder if he can tell I've had not strictly teammate thoughts about him. I wish I hadn't suggested the kiss. I've kissed him twice now.

He's been kissed by the hottest women in the city. He doesn't want to kiss...me.

Shame gurgles through me, and my shoulders are suddenly far less square. My organs are a slithering mess.

Finn's skin reddens. "You track that?"

"We make it a point to track all the times you've gotten into the news," the woman in the lime green suit says.

"Then I have an incomplete list," Tanaka says.

"I'm not a horrible partier," Finn says, and the table snorts. "And I didn't marry any of those people."

"Thank goodness for that," Tanaka says.

I slide down in the seat, my shoulders dropping like my heart. Images of Finn with female bombshells who drape themselves around him in clubs before tabloid journalists and paparazzi, then drape themselves around him in his bedroom inundate my mind.

Perhaps I'm not acting sufficiently like a starry-eyed newlywed beginning his happy-ever after with the person of his dreams, because Finn's lips turn downward.

Then Finn drapes an arm over my shoulder, and I hate that I take strength from it as if we are a real couple. I know he's worried I look out of my depth. Maybe he's worried I'll blurt out the truth, like Tanaka is a priest and I think I'm in confession.

I lean back, so I can feel his arm more thoroughly, so that its warmth will ground me. God, what the man has sacrificed. Finn likes to party. He enjoys sleeping with super sexy women. I even interrupted his morning masturbation. He couldn't even do that because I was in his apartment and thought it a good idea to burst into his room, then not leave.

He's done so much for me. Maybe I should accept the team management's wrath and go back to the AHL—assuming they'd let me return.

Finn casts another glance at me. His expression is worried, as if he can read my emotions. Perhaps he can hear the rapidity of my breath or the constant, ever-increasing, ever more violent strike of my heart.

"What's the plan?" Finn asks. "Because we need to get back to training."

"Right." Tanaka looks regretful. "We'll send you out for interviews." He glances at the woman in the lime green skirt suit. "Daniela, set up as many as you can. We want TV interviews, newspaper interviews, magazine interviews."

"Sports broadcasts?" Daniela asks, scribbling something down.

"And anything LGBQ..." He frowns.

"LGBTQ," Daniela says.

Tanaka nods.

"We could of course hope this story gets swallowed by the news cycle," Daniela says.

"People have been waiting for this story for years," Tanaka says. "Two teammates falling in love and marrying? No, we need to have them tell the story. We need to control the narrative." He frowns. "Because the alternative, thinking they got drunk and married because they could..."

I struggle not to squirm, and Finn tenses beside me. My heart seems to be doing its best to burrow out from my ribs and fly from the room, over the Charles River, and not stop until it's in Europe.

Tanaka fixes a stern gaze at us. "That would be a scandal. One the creators of it could not recover from."

Daniela slides her gaze toward us. "Should that be for some reason true, shouldn't they tell us that now?"

She knows.

Finn inhales sharply, and I press my hand on his thigh. His breath comes more even.

"No." Tanaka's voice is firm. "The Blizzards is a team filled with professionals who play hockey that makes every other team afraid. The Blizzards is not a team of little boys who laugh at the concept of marriage."

"I'll work on scheduling interviews." Daniela glances at Finn and me. "I trust you'll keep your schedules open?"

"Happy to." Finn's voice is calm and steady and reassuring. He's so much better at this than I am. The air feels less thick, less tense with his words. Calm moves over the room.

"We have a plan," Tanaka says.

"My mother is planning a wedding celebration for our families this weekend," Finn says. "Should we send you some snapshots?"

"I think you'll need a professional photographer to memorialize your love effectively," Tanaka says .

"And some journalists to write everything up." Daniela beams.

The room is happy, but anxiety crawls through my body, and when I look at Finn's withdrawn face, slick with sweat, even though we haven't skated yet, I know he feels the same.

We're fucked.

And it will all come out this weekend.