14. Jacques
fourteen
Jacques
M y cell phone vibrated again, another call coming in. They hadn’t let up since we’d hopped off the plane. But this was the third back-to-back call whoever was calling had made. Someone obviously wanted to get a hold of me. I pulled back, loosening my arms around Rusty, and reached for it.
“It’s my agent,” I explained.
He gave me a warm smile and gestured for me to answer it, then held me tighter.
“Michael, hello,” I answered.
“Thanks for giving me the heads-up,” he replied bluntly.
My agent was good at what he did. Michael was abrupt and didn’t mince words, but he’d managed to get me a three-year contract right off the bat and a few endorsement deals that were for products I actually wanted to promote. If I hadn’t gotten drunk married and had fires at home to put out, he would have been on the list of people I called. Oh wait….
“Yeah, about that….”
He sighed. “How bad is it?”
“Well,” I started and winced.
Rusty’s arms around me were comforting, and I didn’t want to leave them, but I hated having to rehash this in front of him. I didn’t want to hurt him any more than I already had by making him listen.
“It’s not disastrous?” At least I didn’t think it was. “Carina is my mother’s best friend.”
Michael was deathly silent. I couldn’t even hear his breathing. Either he’d muted me and was swearing his head off, or he was holding his breath waiting for the full story.
“She lives in Australia, but I’ve known her forever. She, ah, just got a divorce a few weeks ago and was visiting with Mom and Dad. They had to make an urgent trip home to see my grandfather. When I heard she was going to miss out on going to Vegas, Travis and I offered to go with her.”
“Right,” he said slowly. “And?”
“And we got drunk and got married.”
“Was the threesome behind closed doors?” he asked without hesitation.
I choked out a shocked laugh. But it shouldn’t have surprised me. He’d been an agent for a hell of a long time, and he’d seen it all.
“Yes,” I assured him. “In the hotel room. We were at a club before the chapel, dancing together. Carina and I made out there, I think. Carina might have kissed Travis there, too, or it might have been in the cab. Last night’s a little hazy.”
He groaned. I could hear shuffling on his end. I wasn’t sure whether he was moving papers around or scrubbing his hands over his face. “You were in Australia a few months ago. Did you see her? Is there any possibility that her marriage breakdown could be linked to you?”
“They’d been separated for a few weeks when I arrived. She came to our Brisbane game, then we went out for a drink. But nothing happened. I swear.”
I looked at Rusty and silently begged him to believe me. I would have told them if we’d hooked up. Both he and Travis knew I’d been out for drinks with Carina, but I’d only kissed her on the cheek when we’d said goodnight. Nothing more.
Rusty tilted his lips up in a small smile and brushed his thumb over my cheek. He believed me. The weight I’d been carrying lifted. I could breathe again.
I could hear the scratch of a pen on paper for a moment, and then Michael answered absently, “Nothing happening is largely irrelevant. If photos exist, it will look like you got together then. But as long as they were already separated, that’s okay. I can work with that.”
“What are you thinking?” I asked, half wanting to know and half wanting to bury my head in the sand.
“We need to do some damage control, Jacques. There are consequences for drunken nights in Vegas,” he schooled.
“Yeah,” I answered tightly, then nodded even though he couldn’t see me. “What do I need to do?”
“The team already has their hands full dealing with Chris Minns’s marriage issues because of the cheating scandal with Alec Huxley—”
Instinctively, I leaped to my teammates’ defense. The whole mess had happened because the fucking media had drawn conclusions that were completely wrong. Minns didn’t want to be outed, so he’d let the rumors swirl. Hux had promised him discretion, and he was too decent a man to go back on his word to defend himself.
“There’s more to that story—”
“I don’t care,” Michael snapped. “My concern is you, not Huxley and Minns.” He exhaled harshly and paused. When he spoke again, he’d softened his voice. “The team won’t want another scandal on their hands. Two of your teammates are already causing enough grief for them. I’m trying to get your contract renewed before the end of this season, not theirs. A drunk marriage that lasts forty-eight hours will look bad on both the team and you. You know how the media will spin this—the Seals is the home of cheating and bad decisions. What kind of team culture is there if three players on the team’s first line are in the media for all the wrong reasons? They’ll be concerned about dropping ticket and merch sales, and you’ll be the scapegoat. You’ll either be traded or your contract won’t be renewed.”
“Shit,” I cursed. “That’s so unfair.”
“Like I said, consequences.”
He let that sink in, and I groaned. I cuddled into Rusty, resting my forehead on his shoulder. With my free hand, I petted Zeus’s head, absorbing both his and Rusty’s rock-solid support for this conversation
“But I have a plan,” he continued. “You and Carina have known each other for years. When you were in Australia, you reconnected and fell madly in love. She came to visit you in the States after her divorce was finalized so you could date.”
I swallowed and shifted my grip to Rusty’s hip, both hating and loving the direction Michael was taking this.
“It was a spur of the moment decision to get married, but you’re both incredibly happy. We’ll do up the paperwork to limit her entitlement to your money as well as an NDA so she stays quiet. A prenup would have been better. But so would not getting drunk married in Vegas.”
“Yeah, okay. I get it. Consequences,” I muttered.
“Good, because you’re potentially going to be out of pocket millions here, Jacques,” he chided. “In exchange for whatever dollar sum you get her down to, the two of you stay married and live together until after your contract is renewed at the end of this coming season. Then when you have your contract, you quietly get divorced. If it’s picked up, we say Carina was homesick and wanted to return to Australia.”
The money aspect of his plan hit me like a ton of bricks. My chest tightened and my heart squeezed. I didn’t want that. I didn’t want to talk money settlements with Carina—not because I didn’t want to give her any, but because divorce was the final outcome. But what choice did I have? Michael was right. This whole farce could be the catalyst to end my career.
“I won’t ask you to be celibate, but you’ll need to get nondisclosure agreements signed by whoever you want to sleep with before anything happens. While you’re married, there can’t be any Tinder hookups, and absolutely no going to clubs and meeting someone. You act like a happily married man who’s faithful to his wife. We make the public root for you so the team rewards you.”
Rusty pulled away and walked to the other side of the room. He leaned against the countertop and hung his head low. My stomach turned, and I clenched my jaw, biting back the reason he’d never had to give me this speech before. I was, for all intents and purposes, happily in a relationship. I knew how to fly under the radar when it came to hookups. It was why Travis and I didn’t have threesomes with anyone but Rusty now that we were out of college—Carina had been our first. My plan had always been to stay in the closet while I was playing professionally. Then after, it wouldn’t matter. But I’d fucked up, and now I was going to have to ask the people who mattered most to me to deal with the clusterfuck that was raining down on us because of my chosen career.
“I can’t decide anything until I’ve spoken with Carina,” I said, hating the wobble in my voice. I hated having to leave off Rusty and Travis’s names more.
“Jacques, I understand this is a shock and that you didn’t think things would go so sideways. But you really don’t have much of a choice.” He paused, letting the truth sink in.
My stomach turned, and I gripped the countertop for support.
“It’s unfortunate, but if the truth gets out, I can’t guarantee you’ll even have a team at the end of the season, never mind a renewal.”
“I need to talk to them,” I breathed, then hung up. I rolled my shoulders back, trying to ease the tension there, and exhaled roughly. “Hello,” Travis called from the back door.
“In the kitchen,” Rusty answered, his voice rough with emotion.
They walked in hand in hand. The moment I locked eyes with Carina, she paled. With a furrowed brow and note of urgency in her voice, she asked, “Are you okay?”
I was glad they were here. We needed to talk, but more importantly, I needed all three of them close.
“Not really, no.”
Carina stepped forward, but Zeus was on her. His tail was hitting my leg like a whip. She held up a finger to me, then dropped to her knees. “Hello, baby. What’s your name?”
He launched forward, licking her face and trying to climb onto her lap. He was a one-hundred-pound dog who thought he was pocket-sized. But Carina took it in her stride, stroking his fur and kissing him back. She giggled prettily, and I called, “Zeus, off,” to get him to back away.
When she was able to stand up, she came closer, then ran her hand up and down my back. “He’s beautiful,” she said as I leaned into her touch.
From the corner of my eye, I could see Rusty watching us. He turned away as if he didn’t want to see, and I slumped, all the fight leeching out of me. I was hurting him again.
I huffed out a helpless laugh—it was either that or cry—when my phone rang again, vibrating on the countertop where I’d dropped it. Mom lit up the screen. Ah, hell. I knew what was coming, and I didn’t want to deal with it right now. But if I didn’t, the consequences would only get worse. I fucking hated that word—consequences.
I swiped my thumb across the screen and brought the phone to my ear. “Hi, Mom,” I greeted softly.
“Don’t you ‘Hi, Mom,’ me, Jacques Gauthier,” she screeched. “What in the fresh hell were you thinking? Carina is my best friend. She’s twice your age. She’s just been divorced and wanted a relaxing weekend away. Her whole trip was about finding herself again outside of a relationship. So you go and get married? What were you thinking? What was she thinking?”
Every sentence she yelled at me through the phone was like another blow. I’d underestimated just how upset Mom would be. I wasn’t an idiot. I knew she’d hate the idea of Carina and me dating, but I didn’t think she’d take it this badly. I mistakenly thought that if we were happy, Mom would support us.
“Mom—”
“I can’t believe she’d do this, that she’d betray my trust like that. Did you think I’d be okay with this? Did you think we wouldn’t find out if you didn’t tell us? It’s all over the news, Jacques. People started calling us to pass on their congratulations, and we had no idea what they were talking about.”
I could hear the hurt in her voice even with the rapid-fire questions and accusations. She was angry, too, and perhaps justifiably, but had she not considered for a moment what we were going through?
“Mom—”
“Don’t interrupt me,” she snapped back. “Your father and I taught you better than this, Jacques. Marriage is not a fad. It’s not something you do for kicks. It means something. You’re single, you’ve never had a serious relationship. You have no idea what love is—”
She had no idea how wrong she was, but that was my fault again. The weight of all my decisions, good and bad, pressed on my shoulders, weighing me down until I could barely come up for breath. Shame for every one of those bad decisions coursed through my veins. Instead of being the clean-cut NHL player who always set a good example and people were proud of, I’d become a joke.
My entire identity was a facade. I was a fraud. My own parents didn’t even know me. They had no idea that I’d been living with the loves of my life for years now and that we’d made a happy home together. They’d visited, and we’d lied to their faces. We’d gone home for the holidays, and we’d lied. I’d never confided in them about Rusty and Travis. Sure, Travis was scared of losing them, but I’d never trusted them with who I was either. I knew they’d be okay with me coming out to them. They’d actually be happy to find out about Travis and Rusty.
Now I was lying to them about Carina too. They had no idea that my feelings for her were true despite being drunk and stupid. They were completely in the dark about how polyamorous relationships could work because I’d never let them in.
“That’s enough!” I roared. “Mom, you have no idea what you’re talking about.” It was on the tip of my tongue to come clean, to tell her everything. But I couldn’t. It wasn’t just my decision to make. I looked up at Travis, and he’d paled, his eyes wide and his swallow labored.
“I won’t let you insult Carina or me. Yes, we got married—”
Another call came through on my phone, Keeley Fisher’s name lighting up my screen. Fuck. She was the team’s PR person. No doubt Michael had been speaking with her.
“Mom, I need to go. The team’s PR person is calling me. I’ll speak with you later about this.” I hesitated. “Just don’t say anything about us, okay? No reporters, no friends. Nothing.” I didn’t give her a chance to respond before I hung up. Mom would have questions that I couldn’t answer—not until I’d spoken with the three other people in this room. But first, I had another call to deal with.
“Keeley, hello,” I said with as much forced cheer as possible.
“Congratulations, Jacques. On behalf of the team, we’re very happy for you to have married your long-time girlfriend who’s managed to stay out of the spotlight for the entirety of your relationship.” Her words were more an order to toe the line than a genuine congratulations.
“Ah, yeah. Thanks,” I replied.
“Yes, the news came as a surprise. A happy one. Shall I organize a press conference, or are you honeymooning?”
She was lying through her teeth, but I could play that game too. I appreciated where she and the rest of the team were coming from. We were new entrants into the NHL. We hadn’t had a chance to develop a long-standing, die-hard following. The Kings still dominated the supporter numbers in San Diego, and we were fighting to keep growing our fanbase. The scandal with Minns and Hux came on the back of our last game of the regular season. We’d had the win in Australia to redirect the focus, and Keeley had done a lot to foster a friendly rivalry that the fans ate up.
But a second PR transgression so close to the first without any more hockey to talk about had the potential for disaster written all over it. I wouldn’t lie to her face, but I could delay things to take the heat off us for just a moment.
“It was only a weekend away. We’re at home now. But I’ll speak with my agent about whether to do something as formal as a press conference. I’ll have him call to liaise with you so there aren’t any more surprises.”
“Good. I do like happy surprises. But scandals not so much.”
“I understand, Keeley. Thanks for your call.” I hung up and powered off my cell before another call could come through. Whoever else wanted to get a hold of me was going to have to wait.
When I turned around to talk to the others in the room, my heart sank. Carina had tears in her eyes. Her arm was wrapped around her waist, and her other was covering her mouth as if she was trying to hide her crying. Travis was paralyzed next to her, still and pale. He looked like he’d seen a ghost, fear written clear across his face, in his blown pupils, and the way his chest rose and fell rapidly. Rusty was curled into himself, his head down and a white-knuckled grip on the countertop.
Fuck. I had to fix this. I had to fix us .