Page 245 of Pucking Around

“Hey, sissy,” he says, giving my cheek a kiss.

“What the heck are you guys doing here?” I cry, finally giving Harrison his hug.

“Price Family always comes first,” Harrison says, kissing my other cheek.

Mom, Tess, and I shift into our row. As soon as I’m standing in front of the plexiglass, I turn, looking up into the stands. All around us people are wearing 31 and 42 jerseys. A woman moves to the side, and I do a double take. The back of her jersey reads PRICE.

My heart starts to race as I read more of the signs. This can’t be happening. This isn’t real—

“Finally!” Tess cries.

I turn around to see Caleb jogging down the stairs of the section, favoring his good leg. Behind him, people scream and cheer. He comes down to the bottom of the row, stopping to shake hands with Harrison and Somchai. Amy throws her arms around him, and they hug. Then he slips past mom, and she hugs him too. Tess just squeezes back in the row saying, “Boy, you better work your magic before she bolts!”

And then Caleb is standing before me, his dark gaze rooting me to the bleachers. “Hey, Hurricane,” he says with a smile. He takes my hand, weaving our fingers together.

“Cay, what is going on?” I murmur.

“You hadn’t noticed? We figured if the press was going to make us into a spectacle, we’d just beat them to it.” He gestures behind us to the sea of people waving posters.

“I don’t understand,” I say with a shake of my head. “What did you do?”

“We came out,” he replies. “Well, Jake and I came out. We’ve been photographed every night this week in public being…out,” he says with a smirk. “He’s been doing interviews, podcasts, a few TV spots.”

“What?” I say on a breath.

“Yep, Jake Compton is officially very out as a bisexual NHL player. Poppy is calling him the new face of queerness in pro sports,” he adds with a roll of his eyes.

“And…you’re okay?” I murmur, squeezing his hand.

“More than okay,” he replies. “It had to happen. To get what we all want, he and I had to come out.”

“But you’re not the only ones, are you?” I say with a raised brow.

He smiles. “Baby, the three of us have been doing press for five days coming out in every way possible. Mars has even been doing it in two languages.”

“What?” I cry. “How did I miss this? My phone has been radio silent,” I say as I tug it from my pocket.

He dares to look a little sheepish. “Yeah…babe, that’s not your phone.” He pulls a matching phone from his pocket. Same case and everything. “Thisis your phone.”

I gasp. “Oh, what the fuck?”

“Turns out Mars could be a spy,” he says. “He mirrored them and swapped them when he took you to the airport. That’s just a burner. No one has been able to contact you because no one has that number. And Poppy and your dad have been running major interference. It’s getting gnarly, to be honest.”

I gasp, snatching the phone from his hand and unlocking the screen. I’ve got hundreds of alerts and notifications. Even as I hold the phone, it’s buzzing with more. “Oh, I am going tomurderyou!” I hiss. “Is that why all these people are here?”

“Yeah, they all know our story now,” he replies. “They know how you and Jake met in Seattle. They know how we met at the airport. They know how you cared for Ilmari.”

Sensing my panic, Caleb cups my cheek and leans in. “Baby, breathe. This is good, okay? It’s all good.”

“What do you mean?” I cry, my brain already going into overdrive thinking of all the ways this will blow up.

“You’ve been taught to think that the press is wholly bad,” he says. “That people knowing your story can only be bad. That they only want to tear you down.”

I can’t help but scoff. “Well, duh—”

“But look around,” he says, gesturing up to the stands. “For every one troll who has something negative to say about us, there will be a thousand more people ready to wish us well. That’s what we wanted to show you tonight, Rach. We just wanted you to step out of your own way and let us show you that peoplecanbe good. They can be kind. They can be understanding. We are not alone. And this is not going to be bad.”

“Caleb,” I breathe, not knowing what else to say.

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