CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
O skar
Paparazzi wait for us at the arena. They wear black, standing out against the snow-covered ground. The January breeze brushes around us. Dmitri squares his shoulders and takes my hand in his gloved one.
“Picture time,” he declares.
“Okay.” I give a strained smile.
My heart beats wildly. Whenever I’ve been at charity events there have been photographers, but I’ve always been confident in the fact that I’ve never been the subject of their attention. Pictures of lower team management don’t make headlines.
But now everything is different. Now I’m the story. God, they were all over Noah and Finn when they first got married.
This is going to be huge, and I don’t think Dmitri has any idea of just how big this is. Just how much news of this will be read and discussed.
Because if this were real... God, it would be wonderful. I imagine the younger version of me reading that a hockey player like Dmitri had run off with a man. It would be incredible.
But this is a lie.
For a moment guilt surges through me, but in the next moment, I feel one of Dmitri’s fingers brush over the palm of my hand. Electricity zings through me, my body confused that his touches don’t mean what I want them to.
I inhale and exhale.
“Is good,” Dmitri assures me, and it takes me a second to realize that he’s talking about the group of men directing their cameras at us. “You look handsome.”
A laugh escapes me, more nerves than humor. “I wasn’t thinking about that.”
“You’re supposed to tell me I look handsome too.”
“I am?”
“Is polite. About repr...” He frowns.
“Reciprocity?”
His face brightens. “Yes. It’s about that. Exactly.”
“You’re always handsome,” I say, the words slipping out before I can catch them.
My stomach drops. I hadn’t meant to voice that truth.
But Dmitri just shrugs with the casual confidence of every brooding hero from every teen movie ever made. “I know. Is why I didn’t give you hard time.”
“You sort of gave me a hard time.”
His eyes dance, then dart to the side.
In the next moment, he wraps me in his arms, and I’m surrounded by the scent of cedar and citrus and Dmitri.
“Forgive me?” he murmurs.
“Always.”
My heartbeat escalates, and he tightens his grip on me, then he kisses the corner of my mouth.
Then he steps away, and only when I hear the sound of shutters do I realize that paparazzi have captured the moment.
Heat floods my cheeks, but he ruffles my hair. His gaze is fond, then he turns to the group of cameramen.
“That’s my adorable husband.”
“You’re gay, Dmitri?” one shouts.
“Bisexual,” he shouts.
“You’ve never dated a man before.”
“Other men aren’t Oskar,” he says lightly.
The paparazzi nod, but I note how some of their eyes narrow. God, they’re not buying this. This isn’t going to work. Maybe Finn and Noah got together, and everyone believed them, well, everyone except Vinnie, but Finn and Noah were both handsome and athletic. If Dmitri wanted to be with a man, he could be with anyone. Why would he pick a skinny non-athlete?
“Wave to the cameras,” Dmitri prompts.
I wave, and he kisses my cheek.
“We want a real kiss!” one of the cameramen demands.
“Yeah, a real kiss.”
I don’t want to look at Dmitri. I don’t want to see him stiffen, and I don’t want to see panic in his eyes.
But instead, I feel him pull me closer to him. He lowers his head, then his words are in my ears. “Do you mind?”
“You want to kiss me?”
His smile curves against my skin. “I have before.”
I nod, remembering Vegas, and the taste of champagne and possibility.
Maybe I smiled or something when I nodded, because in the next moment, his hands are cupping my face, and in the moment after that, his lips are on mine.
And then we’re kissing.
I’m sailing on the same fabulous cloud I was in Vegas, and my heart is pounding in just that same manner.
When he finally steps away, I probably look like a disaster. Hair mussed, cheeks flushed, lips swollen.
He grins, then turns to the cameras. “Did you catch that?”
“Do it again!” one person shouts.
I roll my eyes and pull Dmitri away toward the entrance.
“Sorry guys,” Dmitri says. “Apparently we can’t just make out in front of the hockey arena. My husband is in hockey management.”
“You’re also the son of the coach!” one paparazzo shouts. “What does your dad think about the marriage?”
“Coach was very excited once he found out,” Dmitri says.
“I’d never seen him so excited,” I agree.
People scribble on their phones, and we hurry into the building before someone can think to ask if it was good or bad excitement.