Chapter Twenty-Seven

After their segment on curling, Raquel called them into her office. Natalie and Darcy had a whispered freak-out in the hallway.

“Do people hate us?” Natalie asked.

Darcy shrugged. “I don’t think so. I mean, the ratings have been fine.” Natalie’s eyebrows went up. “I’ve been checking,” Darcy said, blushing slightly.

Natalie looked at Raquel’s office door. “Great. If the ratings are fine, why is she calling us in like a couple of delinquent high schoolers?”

Darcy shook her head. “Let’s go find out.”

Inside the office, Natalie and Darcy sat next to each other waiting for Raquel to finish whatever she was working on. Darcy had a sneaking suspicion Raquel was making them wait simply because she could. Finally, Raquel shut her laptop and stared at them, her eyes unreadable behind her glasses.

She turned toward a TV set up against one wall. “Now that you two have done a few of these, I wanted to take the time to watch through today’s with you.”

Darcy swallowed. This couldn’t be good.

Raquel’s face gave no hint of how angry she was. Darcy frantically thought back to every minute of the morning. She and Natalie hadn’t done anything that outrageous. They’d both fallen a couple times on the ice but neither of them had dropped an f-bomb on live TV or anything. What the hell was Raquel mad about?

She turned on the segment. Darcy’s eyes flicked to Raquel every five seconds in hopes of understanding why they’d been called in like a couple of teenagers being sent to the principal.

They reached the moment when Darcy, attempting to slide gracefully across the ice with the stone, ended up wiping out sideways and sending the stone careening almost into the next sheet. The camera caught Natalie doubled over laughing as Darcy slowly got to her feet, one hand rubbing her very sore ass. She moved in her chair, trying not to sit on the bruise rapidly forming on her butt.

Another minute into the segment, Natalie took a turn using the brooms to sweep for one of the real curlers. Instead of keeping herself moving up the ice, her broom ahead of the rock, she ended up slipping and smacking the rock like it was a puck instead of a forty-pound chunk of granite.

Darcy giggled but covered her face when Natalie shot her a look.

On-screen, the rock hardly deviated from its course but Natalie stumbled and when she tried to recover by using the broom like a cane, it snapped, sending her sprawling across the ice.

Raquel let the scene play out to the end, including a series of outtakes in which both Natalie and Darcy got second chances to land their rock in the house and failed slightly less spectacularly. She paused on a frame of the two of them having a sword fight with their brooms.

Darcy’s heart sank. They had so much fun play-fighting and teasing each other that they forgot to act professional and now Raquel was so mad she was definitely going to fire them. “Raquel, I’m so sorry. We got carried away. The segment was over and we got caught up in having fun. It won’t happen again.”

She turned in her chair, wincing as her bruise smashed against the chair. “Right, Carpenter?”

Natalie kept her eyes on Raquel.

Raquel cut in. “No. You’re not going to change anything.”

“What?” Darcy turned back, surprised.

Raquel rewound to the start of what Darcy thought was going to be their downfall. She paused on a moment when Darcy leaned toward Natalie and said something the camera didn’t catch. She paused on the two of them leaning closer, Natalie’s tongue caught between her teeth, her smile wide.

Raquel walked to the screen. “I don’t know what this is. I don’t know what’s going on between you, or not, but whatever it is you have to keep doing it.”

Natalie and Darcy looked at each other. “You want us to keep falling on the ice and breaking shit?”

“No. I mean, people like you two falling and looking stupid. But this...” She gestured to the screen again. “This has gotten people talking.” She returned to her desk, hit a few keys, and then spun the monitor to face them. “You have a hashtag.”

“#PuckingHotties?” Darcy’s cheeks flushed crimson. “That’s us?”

Natalie flicked through a few more tweets. “A portmanteau?” Natalie asked. Both Darcy and Raquel stared at her. “I know what a portmanteau is. Jesus, how stupid do you two think I am?” Darcy made a face. “We went to the same college!” Natalie rolled her eyes.

Darcy stared at the screen and scrolled through a page of tweets. “These people are shipping us?”

Raquel giggled. “Yup. Obviously we’d prefer they use the show’s actual tags but we’re happy to have so many people tweeting about the two of you.” She sat down. “You have quite a vocal fan club.”

Natalie stared over Darcy’s shoulder, her face uncomfortably close to Darcy. Darcy told herself to ignore the way Natalie’s body curved around hers. “It’s not that many people, though.”

Raquel shrugged. “Maybe. But they’re dedicated. They made GIFs from the show today.” Raquel played several GIFs that made it clear that Darcy’s eyes had wandered to Natalie’s mouth several times during the segment.

Natalie took a step to the side, Darcy’s traitorous body noting the loss of pressure with disappointment. “Oh, come on.” She pointed at the screen. “They’ve gone overboard.”

Raquel pulled up a GIF set where they’d cut together a series of Natalie biting her lip. “Don’t think you got left out of this.”

Darcy sank into her seat, not looking at Natalie biting her lip over and over. “Why are you showing this to us?”

Raquel swung the monitor out of the way. Natalie remained standing, her weight shifting between her feet every few seconds.

Raquel gestured to the TV. “I think we can use this. But only if you’re comfortable with it.”

Natalie crossed her arms over her chest.

Darcy noticed the swell of her biceps and then chastised herself. This is exactly the kind of thing that got people making GIF sets. Stop being so damn thirsty.

Raquel placed her hands on the desk as if to show she was unarmed. “You are under no obligation but we thought if you were game, we let people run with this.”

“This?” Darcy asked, afraid she already knew the answer.

Natalie slumped into the seat next to her. “Come on, LaCroix. You know what she’s asking.”

“I want her to spell it out,” Darcy said, her eyes meeting Natalie’s for an instant before she looked back at Raquel. She didn’t trust herself to hold Natalie’s gaze for longer.

Raquel leaned forward, her elbows on the desk, her face betraying her excitement. “We aren’t asking you to do anything other than not shoot down whatever rumors appear online. You don’t have to pretend to be anything other than...”

“Two retired hockey players who used to beat the shit out of each other on the ice?”

Raquel laughed. “Sure. Frankly, they seem to love the idea that you were these brutal rivals and now you’re...”

Darcy cocked her head, waiting for Raquel to finish the sentence.

“Something more.”

Natalie laughed. “We’re barely friends at this point.”

Darcy sighed. “She’s not wrong. Before this...” She looked around the room.

“We hadn’t had a conversation in, what, a decade?”

Darcy nodded, trying not to wince at how many years they’d been out of touch. “And now you want us to pretend we’re dating?”

Raquel shook her head. “No. You don’t have to do anything except continue to be your usual friendly selves. Keep up the banter and whatever you’re already doing.”

“We are not friends,” Darcy said, a little too forcefully.

Raquel shrugged. “That’s not what the viewers saw. Whatever it is, your chemistry is off the charts. I never dreamed you’d have this kind of following so fast. Keep doing what you’re doing and if someone asks about you dating, just play coy. That’s it. You don’t have to hold hands or anything like that. Just let the internet do its thing.”

Natalie gestured at Darcy. “Did you consider the possibility that we aren’t single?”

For the first time in the meeting, Raquel looked taken aback. She looked at Darcy and then back to Natalie. “Oh shit.”

Darcy sighed. “Raquel, she’s messing with you. I’m single.” She looked at Natalie. “And I bet she is, too.”

Natalie shrugged. “The point is, you shouldn’t assume that the two incredible women you hired don’t already have girlfriends.”

Raquel’s face changed from relief to annoyance. “So, you’re just messing with me? This hashtag thing isn’t going to be destroying your marriages or anything?”

Darcy laughed. “The job destroys relationships all on its own.” As soon as she said it, she wished she hadn’t. “I mean. Never mind.”

She felt Natalie’s eyes on her but didn’t want to see whatever pity she might find there. Natalie didn’t need to know that Sabrina had broken up with her because whenever they had a fight Darcy would retreat into her work. Sabrina had been right. But when it came to work, Darcy knew how to measure success. In her relationships, Darcy wasn’t sure what success looked like. Maybe that’s why she kept fucking them up.

Raquel clapped her hands. “Now that we’ve established that the two of you are single.”

“And gay,” Natalie said with a chuckle. “What if you’d hired a couple of straight women? Would you have asked them to play along with this?”

Raquel paused to consider the possibility. “I’m not asking the two of you to do anything that you aren’t already doing. If you were both straight but so flirty that the internet was going wild with speculation? Yeah, I’d ask you to keep it up. It’s not about whether you’re gay or not, it’s about the fact that the internet can’t get enough of the two of you together and my job is to make sure our viewers are getting what they want.”

Darcy looked at Natalie. “Can we get back to you about this? I want us to talk this over before we commit.”

“Still allergic to commitment?” Natalie asked. “Or just to me?”

Darcy struggled to keep her face neutral. She didn’t need a reminder of the way she’d screwed up with Natalie. That mistake lived rent-free in her head. Disappointing people, not living up to the hype of who they thought she was because of her last name or her own hockey stardom, was her biggest fear. Natalie was a walking reminder of her biggest failure.

She took a deep breath. “I’d like a chance to discuss this with you before we say yes to becoming the talk of the lesbian internet.”

Natalie nodded. “We already are the talk of the lesbian internet, LaCroix. In the meantime, Raquel, have you considered what this might do to your straight audience? Are you going to be supportive when the right-wingers flip the fuck out over the idea that your cohosts are dating?”

Raquel nodded. “Yes, they might lose their shit but I don’t really care. Besides, you’re not going to be making out on camera or anything. If this goes the way I think it will, you’ll develop a cult following that will boost our numbers and the right-wing conservatives won’t even notice.”

Darcy laughed. “True. They’ll think we’re just good friends.”

“Gal pals,” Natalie said with a giggle.

Raquel nodded. “Why don’t you two take some time to think about it and let me know your answer by the end of the day. That way we can prepare for how to shoot the segment tomorrow.”