It hadn’t helped that a car had arrived, pulling straight into their garage, just as I was leaving. It looked shady as fuck, but it was purely bad luck. If I’d known Kamirah was arriving home, I would have stayed.
The paps assumed it was Minns coming home.
The truth was way more salacious than they’d guessed. The three of us were together. We’d been dating for over a year—if you could call me making clandestine visits to their house in the dark of night dating.
I’d been with Minns that night while Kam was attending a meeting at one of the charities she was involved with. It had run late, and I’d been exhausted. I’d still needed to do laundry and pack, too, so I’d left.
The Seals had already put out a press release basically denying everything that went down. But people were drawing their own conclusions about the images. I’d been caught red-handed, and the timing of Minns’s Mercedes pulling into the garage was too convenient.
So naturally, everyone had assumed I was banging his wife.
They weren’t wrong.
But it wasn’t cheating.
Thank fuck Minns’s secret was still under wraps. I’d headed back into the closet for college and the NHL. A handful of people knew my orientation, and I wouldn’t deny it if asked directly. I was ready to come out, but the fallout worried me. I didn’twant the focus to change. I was fucking good at hockey. I didn’t want to become the bisexual player, or the gay player in denial—biphobia was real, and it sucked—who’d played well. I just wanted to be Alec Huxley, number 10 starting winger for the Seals.
Minns was the opposite. He was determined to stay in the closet. I understood the decision. He had his reasons, and he was happily married to a woman. It was easier for him to pass as straight because people saw what they wanted. He knew that I’d never out him and that he had my full support. If he ever wanted to come out, I’d be right there with him.
I liked Chris and Kam. They were good people. They did charity work with vets and spearheaded a program retraining rescue dogs as therapy dogs for those with PTSD.
Before all this broke, I could see myself being with them long-term. I’d thought about getting a place next door to theirs. I could see us building a gate between the houses and having our locks keyed the same, or even buying a duplex together where we could knock out the dividing wall and make it into one home for all of us.
It wasn’t happening now.
Hell, nothing was happening except glares and tense whispers.
The worst part of the whole thing was that they didn’t stand up for me. They didn’t deny the claims. They didn’t explain anything. They just let TMZ draw their own conclusions, making me out as the bad guy. They’d tossed me aside like last week’s trash.
I’d been spectacularly dumped.
It hurt.
My life had turned to hell in a handbasket in a matter of hours.
My agent had spent most of the day screaming at me. Keeley, the Seals’ PR person, had nearly throttled me. Steam was literally coming out of her ears when she laid down her non-negotiable list. I was to keep my head down and my eyes on the puck at all times. If I stepped out of line, she would nail my ass to the boards and use my body for target practice. She ordered me to stay the fuck off social media and lock myself indoors until I was required to report to the rink. Then, and only then, could I appear in public, and I was not to say a word to anyone or give anyone any photo ops if I valued my balls being attached to my body. Apparently, thinking with my dick got me into this clusterfuck, and I was not to make Keeley regret the team taking me on this trip. The scoreboard—even for a series of demonstration games—trumped bad behaviour when we had a few people on IR.
Minns and Kam wanted to keep our relationship quiet. Now, the team’s trust in me was shattered.
Hell, I was lucky my face hadn’t been shattered alongside it. Mironov had blocked my path onto the bus, ready to throw down right there in the parking lot. But with one steely-eyed look, Keeley had ended the altercation and had me following her in like a fucking puppy while Mironov had yelled curses at me the whole way down the aisle of the bus.
Keeley hadn’t minced her words in her speech.“If any of you fuckers give me any, and I meanany, extra work while we’re on this trip, I will personally nominate you for every shitty PR job that I need bodies for. You will not get a single day or night off all fucking year.”It was a threat that had every one of us sitting still and shutting up. Keeley was usually pretty laid back, but she was whip-smart and even more cutthroat. She’d met every one of our gazes and started listing off the don’ts on her fingers.“No brawling. No dirty looks. No snarky comments. No acknowledgement whatsoever that there is any kind of rift in the team. Got it?”She didn’t need to say my name. Everyone knew she was referring to me when she told my teammates to play nice.
So far, they were just plain ignoring me. I could live with that, but it was going to be a long-ass two weeks.
Ifthey didn’t trade me before we even landed back on home soil.
My stats were one thing, but it was quite another to royally fuck up and expect no consequences.
It was easier to stay invisible, but I wouldn’t be able to pull it off forever. I looked around, trying to be as inconspicuous as possible. The team weren’t saying much of anything to anyone. Minns was sitting next to Mironov, their heads together as they watched something on Mironov’s phone. Everyone else was either playing with their phones or talking quietly, their gazes ping-ponging between me and Minns.
The bar was so fucking tempting. At least if I was wasted, I wouldn’t give a fuck. But Keeley’s laser-like glare would be zeroed in on me from the moment I ordered the first shot until we got into the privacy of our hotel on the other side of the world. At the moment she was largely ignoring me like everyone else.
I looked away and inadvertently met Gauthier’s stare. He gave me a small chin lift, barely an acknowledgement. His lips pressed together in the smallest of pitying smiles. My anger ratcheted up, and I ground my teeth. He pitied me? Fuck that. Fuck him. Fuck all of them.
This was all bullshit. I was the scapegoat. I was the fall guy, the one taking all the hits. Yeah, I was fucking them, but it wasn’t like either of them were objecting. Minns had pursued me. I’d thought fucking my teammate was a stupid idea. I’d thought a rookie doing it was even dumber. He’d never misled me, but I’d thought we could make it work. I believed that because we’d been together for so long, I was special. I thought that Minns and Kam wanted me for more than just a fuck. I was naive and stupid.
I’d heard what I’d wanted and ignored the rest. I was alone in the world. Gran had just died, and my parents had disowned me years earlier. I was angry and alone, my achievements tasting bittersweet. Chris and Kam had given me crumbs, and I’d mistaken it for the full buffet. I’d fallen hard and fast.
