Page 101 of Goalie Interference

Immediately, I call Ander. Sofia can wait.

“Hey,” he says, answering halfway through the first ring. I don’t get a chance to even say hello back to him before he begins to ramble. “So that Cassidy girl posted us online. And it turns out that she’s kind of a big deal in the hockey fandom world. I mean, I don’t know. Believe it or not, I don’t really pay attention to that stuff, I think it’s all a little strange when fans obsess over our personal lives instead of our game play, but what do I know? I’ve made the mistake of digging too deep in the past, like when Gavin and Connor came out and, well, I have regrets. But maybe not too many because at least I came into our relationship having a better understanding of how two men have sex⁠—”

“Ander,” I say as I rise from my seat and pull my suitcase down from the overhead bin. “Please take breath.”

I hear his long exhale as it blows over the mic on his phone. Now that he’s at least breathing, I keep my voice calm despite the fact I can feel my heart pounding in my chest. “What did her post say?”

“I’ll send you a link.”

“No need,” I tell him. I’m not a social media guy and this isn’t how I want to start. In fact, if anything this has confirmed how I’ve felt about social media all along, mostly because I can’t figure out why people are so obsessed with snitching on themselves for random strangers to see. No, thank you. I like my privacy.

“She didn’t say much in her post,” Ander says, but he sounds like he’s trying to soften a blow, which leads me to believe she actually said quite a lot.

In front of me, Ryan turns around with a look of horror on his face before he steps off the plane followed closely by Brandon.

I sit back in my seat. I may as well let everyone else deboard the plane while I hear the damage report, plus I don’t need an audience right now.

“So she posted the picture of the three of us, and I have to tell you, it’s a great picture of you and I. We look great! If it wasn’t for the circumstances I’d suggest we get a copy and frame it and crop her out as well, because we don’t need her in it.”

“Ander. Focus.”

“Right.” He takes another breath and I’m starting to think this would have been easier if I’d just had him send me a link to the post. “Mostly she said that she ran into the two of us walking our dog.”

“Our dog?”

“We never did clarify who Shutzie belonged to. And let’s be real, he’s kind of your dog now, too.”

“Okay.” I sigh. “That does not sound bad. From the way you were rambling I was convinced she outed us or something.”

“Well…”

Whatever color I had left in my face, drains through the floor of the plane out onto the tarmac.

“The comments section is where it all really hit the fan.”

“What does that mean?”

“Pretty quickly people were commenting that you and I looked like a couple in the photo, because, like I said, it’s a great photo of us. You really should see it. And then to those commenters she confirmed that we seemed very couple-y to her. She mentioned how we couldn’t keep our hands off each other⁠—”

“You could not keep your hands off me.”

“Hey! You like my hands on you!”

“I do.” And I do. Very much. But dammit if I didn’t see this coming. Although, what do I care if people think Ander and I are together? In our own way, we are together. And no one’s opinion on that matter is going to make me call things off with him. However, I am uncomfortable with being outed to the public like this. Because, frankly, it’s none of their damn business.

“So yeah, the comments section is full of speculation and to make things worse…”

Oh, dear God. “How can anything get worse?”

“Someone who works at the hotel mentioned I booked a room there and that the Mules were staying there too, a vacationer in Cabo mentioned he saw us at the resort he was staying at but didn’t think anything of it until he saw this picture of us, and then our server over Thanksgiving, you know, the nice guy at that restaurant in New York, well, he mentioned he waited on us and that he got the vibe we were a thing. Which is ridiculous. We were so not a thing yet.”

“We were,” I say.

“We were not!” he denies. “I remember very distinctly when we got together and it wasn’t until Christmas at my parents’ house.”

“Okay, that is true.” I laugh, although not very heartily. “But, Ander, looking back, you cannot deny that we were more than friends.”

“Yeah. We were best friends. And now we’re dating. Wait, we are still dating, right?”