Chapter 26 Breaking News
Chapter Twenty-Six
Breaking News
GABE
Something in Eli snapped.
I could almost sense it. Like whatever it was that broke sent out invisible shock waves, rattling my ribs.
That, in turn, broke me.
“I can’t be kept a secret, Gabe. I just can’t.” His leg bounced up and down. He rubbed the back of his neck, already pink with the chill in the air. “I went through a four-year relationship, and I was let down at the end. I can’t be let down at the start this time.”
His words hit me hard. And only because they were so damn true. Elijah had been through it with his last relationship. He’d opened up to me about what happened between him and his ex, but I knew that was likely only skimming the surface of the fucked-up shit he’d been through.
I didn’t interrupt him, though. He wasn’t looking at me any longer.
He had his gaze straight ahead, pinned on the shimmering lake.
We were off to the side of the main event, the bench sitting on a path that led down toward the shore.
We could hear the laughter of the kids and smell the sugary hot chocolate but were otherwise alone here.
“I’d be a dumbass. I would. And as much as I consider myself one sometimes, I don’t want to be one.
I want to change. I want to be happy. Safe.
Not uncertain about a touch or a look or a comment.
I don’t want to live like that, Gabe. And I understand your reasoning, I do, but it almost makes it seem even more impossible. ”
He was on the brink of tears. I could hear the pain in his voice. It tore me apart. This hurt more than having Viktor’s canines tearing into my shoulder. Losing my parents was a very singular, all-encompassing pain that could never be surpassed, but seeing Eli hurting because of me was up there.
I wanted to reach out and put an arm around his shoulder. Wrap him up against me and tell him it’d be okay.
But… what if someone saw?
My breath came in ragged tugs, like my lungs were cluttered with debris and needed to work harder to suck in oxygen.
He was right.
I was wrong.
I was so fucking wrong.
“I just don’t think I can do this, Gabe.” He shook his head. His hands were clenched tight in his lap, knuckles pressing together hard. “I thought I could. I thought I could handle this. But I can’t. It’s all hitting me at once, and it’s just, it’s so much. Too much.”
Eli looked more shaken than the night he’d discovered shifters were real.
I was losing him, right in front of my very eyes.
It had become a big fear of mine these past few months.
Something that I’d have nightmares about, waking up in a sweat after running through endless woods, shouting his name at first before howling at the moon instead.
I didn’t want that nightmare to become a reality.
I physically wouldn’t be able to handle it.
I’d become accustomed to having Eli sleeping over my place, waking up in my arms, driving with me to the gym, training with me in practice, playing his fucking ass off with me on the ice and on the bed.
He was a well of knowledge when it came to one of my biggest interests, and he fit in perfectly with my pack.
Most importantly of all, he was my mate.
Losing him would destroy me.
It couldn’t happen.
“I’m sorry I’ve hurt you in my cowardice, Eli. I want to say that, first, but I also want to say that I never want you to call yourself a dumbass again. You’re so fucking smart, and I never doubt for a second you don’t have your shit together. You aren’t a dumbass. Far from it.”
He chewed on his bottom lip. He still wouldn’t meet my gaze. I reached over and placed my hand on his knee. He went completely still. Like he was a deer that realized it was grazing right next to a hungry wolf.
I wasn’t sure if my words were getting through to him, but I knew that my touch would.
“Eli, I’m telling you now, I made a mistake.
I realize that. I thought I could have both.
The secrecy and the love. But those two things can’t coexist together, I see that now.
I see how painful this is, and I know it won’t get any easier.
It’ll just get harder. It has been for me.
I’ve been wanting to be affectionate with you in public, and I hate the fact that I can’t be.
That I can’t post a picture of us online or take you out on a date around town.
” I shook my head, moved my hand higher so that I could rest it on his.
There was the crunching of sneakers on rocks and dirt as someone approached.
I could feel Eli get tense underneath my hand.
He tried to move it away, but I closed my grip around him.
He lifted his head and looked into my eyes curiously.
“I’m done. I’ll deal with whatever fallout, whatever amount of attention, I get from this. But I don’t want to hide anymore. Not with you.”
“Really?” he asked, almost in disbelief.
A couple of kids bolted past us as they were trailed behind by their parents, all of them wearing some form of Bobcats merch.
The mom and dad waved at us and smiled. I noticed the mom’s eyes drop down to our hands, and her smile ticked up a little further, her wave a little friendlier.
She was so going to text her group chat the second she was out of view.
If that wasn’t enough proof for Eli, then I didn’t know what…
Actually…
An idea struck me like lightning falling out of the icy-blue sky.
“Yes, really,” I said, standing up with a wicked smile on my face. “And I’m going to prove it to you.”
“Huh?” He looked completely confused as I grabbed his hand and pulled him up to his feet.
This may have been rash. It was possibly stupid, at the very least risky.
But also… fuck it. I’d made my decision to be out and open with Eli, so why not rip the veil of secrecy off like a Band-Aid?
“Where are we going?” Eli asked me. His hand was still in mine.
“You’ll see.”
As we drew closer to my destination, Eli paused. His hand tugged me to a stop. “Hold on,” he said. He looked at the cameras and the couple of reporters who were wrapping up the last couple of interviews for the day. “No, you don’t have to do this.”
“I know I don’t have to do this, but I want to.” I gave him a wink. “Besides, you don’t even know what I’m going to do.”
“Whatever it is, I have a feeling it’s going to be crazy.”
“Maybe.” I shrugged and continued forward. Eli didn’t stop me this time. He walked at my side. I thought I’d be more nervous about this, but having Eli’s hand in mine was like a magic elixir cooked up by a powerful druid. It washed away any and all anxiety I’d have about this moment.
The same reporter from earlier looked up and noticed us walking toward them.
Her eyes dropped to our connected hands and then jerked back up, an interested glint now shining past the exhaustion of the day.
She said something to her PA and nearly pushed Soren—who’d probably been giving the driest interview known to man—out of frame before spinning on her heel and waving us over.
“Ready for your close-up?” she asked.
“I am,” I said. “Is it okay if I do the interview with my boyfriend?”
If she could do a Flintstones leap in the air and tap her heels together, I was sure she would have.
She had to have recognized the story potential her interview would have.
A benign chat that would have gotten a cumulative total of five hundred views across all platforms now had the possibility of being a viral moment, spread all around the internet.
“Of course it is,” she said. “Come, both of you, step right in front of the camera. There we go. Perfect. Now, just tell us a bit about how the day’s been going.”
Eli still seemed a little shell-shocked by all this, so I took the lead.
“Today’s fundraiser has been one of the best we’ve had.
Last I checked, we’ve raised close to twenty thousand dollars and haven’t even closed the silent auction.
It’s been a great day, a great cause, and great people.
” I looked to my left and, without thinking twice about it, leaned in and kissed Eli.
Yeah… that was definitely going to get some views.
“Is this breaking news?” the reporter asked, her smile beaming as she motioned between us. “Is there love on the ice?”
Eli blinked through his surprise. He was smiling too. Such a handsome smile, his lips glistening from the kiss. “Guess so,” Eli said. His cheeks were firehouse red.
“And this may actually be a first, at least in recent memory. I don’t think two hockey teammates have dated before. How does that make you feel?”
“It makes me feel great,” I answered. “I want people to see us as hockey players, first and foremost, but I also want fans to know that nothing’s changed. That we can be ourselves out on the ice and still kick ass—shit, can I say that on TV?”
“Well, no. You can’t say shit, either,” she said with a laugh. “But this is for a segment during the evening news, so we’ll edit it out.”
“Oh, fuck, okay, good.”
The reporter—Goldie was her name—looked to Eli.
He lifted the mic, one of his light brown curls falling through his backward baseball cap.
“It makes me feel like there’s always going to be a happy ever after.
And I know that sounds a little corny, but it’s true.
Even when it seems like the odds are against you, either in a rough hockey game or in life, I think I’ve been reminded that you can still come out a winner. ”
There was no hiding now. And that would be okay.
If there were more attention on me, then I’d just have to be more careful about concealing my true identity.
I’d have to make sure I locked myself in every full moon, and I had to be wary of whenever I chose to shift into my wolf form.
I didn’t want some curious onlooker spotting and trailing me, thinking they could get another story or something, only to see me transform into a wolf.
But that was all an extremely small price to pay in order to keep Eli at my side.
The interview wrapped up shortly after. Goldie pulled us both into a warm hug.
“Thank you,” she said, and I realized she was teary-eyed.
She dabbed at the corner of her eye. “My son, he’s gay, in high school.
And he wants to play hockey professionally but is always asking me if he’d fit in.
He’s heard of you, Eli, but now that he has two openly out players to look up to—and they’re in a relationship—that’s going to make all the world of difference to him. ”
My heart warmed at the thought. I’d been so stupid and selfish with this. I’d been thinking it was all about us, about me solidifying things with Eli.
But it went even deeper than that. This news would spread outward and give people hope during a time when a cacophony of loud voices was telling them they were wrong. That they were broken.
That they were monsters.
And you know what? Some of us may have been, by the “traditional” sense of the word. But we were also deserving of love and happiness and a future with someone we couldn’t imagine being without.
“If he wants a mentor or anything, he can come and shadow any of us Bobcats,” Eli offered.
“Oh, I think he’d love that. Thank you,” Goldie said, placing her hands against her chest. The gratitude in her expression felt sincere. We exchanged information, signed our release forms, and left the news huddle still holding hands. Feeling like this was the most natural thing in the world.
“You really didn’t have to do that,” Eli said. “But I’m glad you did.”
“I am too. I didn’t know you were such a professional in front of the camera. You sounded like a natural.”
“Really? I was nervous, but I don’t know, I think having you made me think, ‘Eh, fuck it, let me just talk.’”
“You did great.”
“You did too.” He squeezed my hand. I could have floated up into the sky in that moment. I wanted to shift into my wolf form and run laps around the area. That’s how full of joy I felt.
My phone buzzed in my pocket, and apparently, so did Eli’s. We checked our messages, seeing a new one pop up under the Bobcat Baddies group chat.
CHRIS: hey… things are winding down here in… fifteen minutes want to meet… at the Break Room?
EMMY: Why did I just get a Google Alert that two Bobcat teammates are dating?
DYL: Do you really have Google Alerts set up for the team?
EMMY: I’m the captain, yes.
CHRIS: And… the alpha.
CHRIS: … bar?
Eli chuckled as he read the message. His hand fit so perfectly in mine.
His hand. In mine. In public.
And the world wasn’t ending. A massive shifter versus human war wasn’t kicking off. Armies weren’t being built, cities weren’t being razed, and the sky had not started falling.
Huh. Who would have thought?
GABE: Yes, Eli and I are officially together. I gave an interview on the news. And yes, let’s meet at the bar.