“Does anyone else know, besides me?” Jo asks.
“Evan does,” I tell her.
“Makes sense, they are best friends. He’s an interesting one that boy,” Jo muses.
“He is. I was always so scared of him, but he’s lovely once you get past the scary exterior.” We giggle.
“It sucks we can’t tell our family that we’re happy,” Jo says sadly.
“I know. Look, it’s our lives, not our brothers … but I’m more concerned about the team than our brothers.”
“Me, too,” Jo says in agreement. “Well, guess we’d better get ready for game day. How do you think you will go seeing Fish at work?”
“I don’t know, hope we can hide it.”
Jo gives me an unconvinced look.
The arena is electric,home game, packed house, and energy buzzes through the building before the puck even drops. I’m rink side with the girls, camera ready, mini mic clipped on. Same routine I’ve done a hundred times. Except nothing is the same because somewhere in that locker room, the man I’m in love with is getting ready to skate out onto the ice, and I have to pretend he’s just another player.You can do this. You’re a professional.
The boys take the ice for warmups, and I film them the way I always do. Pierre first, then Felix, then the rest of the line. When Fish skates out, I keep the camera steady and my face neutral, even though my stomach does a backflip. He looks good, he always looks good on the ice, but tonight there’s something different, it’s as if he’s lighter. The edge that’s been there for weeks, the angry hitting, the reckless play, it’s gone. He’s skating with the kind of easy confidence that made him a fan favorite in the first place. He skates past me during warmups and doesn’t look at me. Then he circles back, and this time he glances in my direction, then he shoots me a wink and that naughty smirk, and my panties need changing. I bury my face in the camera viewfinder and pray nobody notices.
The game starts, and the boys come out flying. Pierre scores within the first five minutes. Felix picks up an assist. Emmett is a wall on defense. And Fish is everywhere. Forechecking, setting up plays, winning puck battles he has no business winning. He picks up an assist in the second period, and when the bench celebrates, he catches my eye across the glass for just a secondand winks again. The Mavericks win and the arena erupts. I’m filming the celebrations when my phone buzzes, then buzzes again. Then it doesn’t stop.
“What’s going on?” I ask Billie, who’s staring at her phone.
“Fishette is trending,” Marlowe says.
“What?” I panic.
She turns her screen to show me that social media is on fire. Fishette is everywhere, clips from tonight’s game, Fish looking at the camera during warmups, the wink, side-by-side comparisons of his body language from last month versus tonight.
The comments roll in.
“Something changed.”
“He’s happy again.”
“THE WINK. I’m dead.”
“Fishette is back, and I’m not okay.”
“The fans are losing their minds,” Billie says. “They’re saying Fish looked like a different person tonight. They think something happened between you two because you both haven’t been as active with each other, and now, you’re back to how you used to be.”
“Nothing happened between us,” I say, too quickly, too defensive, and Billie raises an eyebrow.
“I didn’t say it did. I said the fans think it did.”
“Well, the fans are wrong. We’re colleagues. That’s it.” I look at the screen, and my heart is hammering. The internet shipped us when we were just friends. Now that we’re actually together, they can apparently sense it.This is going to be a problem.
My phone buzzes.
Fish: Did you see? We’re trending.
Collette: I saw. You winked at me on camera. This is all your fault.
Fish: It was a good wink.
Collette: It was reckless.