Jason
“Whose phone keeps buzzing?”
“I don’t know.” Kourtney scrunches her nose as she blinks through the sleepy fog and reaches for her phone on the nightstand. “Shit, it’s mine.”
I sit up straight. “Is everything okay?”
“I have all these notifications from the website.” She scrolls through the notifications. “Holy shit.”
Celeste buries her head under the pillow. “I’m trying to sleep over here.”
I lean over her and crane my neck to see her phone. “What’s going on?”
Her hand clamps over my mouth. “Baby, you have to see this.”
I take her phone, and my eyes go wide. “Is that...”
“Click on the other video underneath it.”
My lips part. “No fucking way.”
Kourtney rips the pillow off Celeste’s head. “This is what you were doing last night?”
“Uh-huh. Now reward me by letting me sleep.”
“Trenton and Cassidy are on here too.” I tilt the phone so Kourtney can see it. “The whole fucking team is on here.”
Tears spring into her eyes. “Celeste, how did you convince them to do this?”
She groans as she pushes herself off the mattress and leans back against the headboard. “I didn’t have to convince them of anything. I told them about my idea, and they jumped at the chance.”
“This is fucking genius,” Kourtney murmurs.
Several of the Goldfinches made a video of themselves either jerking off or having sex with their significant others and then posted it on FreeMe. Some of them edited out their faces and labeled the video with their real names, while others looked straight into the camera.
They jeopardized their careers and posted something so vulnerable, they’ll never be able to take it back for the rest of their lives. Their families, their friends...everyone will know about it. It’ll be on the internet forever.
“What’s Fitzgerald going to do now?” Celeste asks. “Trade half the damn team?”
I shake my head. “They shouldn’t have done this. They’re going to be in so much trouble.” My eyes flick to Kourtney. “Can you delete these videos? Do you have the ability to do that since it’s your website?”
“I’m not deleting the videos.” Her eyebrows collapse. “Your friends are making a stand here, babe. This is amazing.”
“This is foolish.” I snatch my own phone off the nightstand. “Maybe nobody has seen it yet. Maybe I can stop this from getting out.”
But my phone buzzes in my hand with the name Coach illuminating the screen.
“Fuck.” I pinch the bridge of my nose before swiping my thumb to answer the call. “Yeah, Coach.”
“Fitzgerald is calling an emergency team meeting. Be at my office at ten o’clock sharp.”
I squeeze my eyes shut. “Yes, sir.”
Coach hangs up before I can say anything else.
I toss my phone onto the comforter and stare down at it. “Team meeting at ten.”
Celeste huffs out a laugh. “Fitzgerald is probably shitting his pants as we speak.”
“It’s going to be okay, babe.” Kourtney smooths her hand down my arm. “Let your team stand with you. They could’ve chosen not to post a video. They could’ve chosen to sit in silence while you got traded. But they didn’t. They did this for you.”
For me.
They did this for me.
“I can’t let them do this. They’re not thinking this through.”
“It’s okay to not be in control of this one, boss man. We’ve got you.” Celeste squeezes my leg. “You’ve always been in my corner. It’s my turn to return the favor.”
I run my knuckles along her cheek. “With you in my corner, I could never lose.”
A smile blooms across her face, and it takes all my strength not to kiss her senseless and ravish both of my wives right here and now.
But I’ve got an important meeting to get to first.
I arch a brow. “Got any more surprises up your sleeve, kókkino?”
She grimaces. “Yes.”
I suck in a long inhale and hold my breath for a few seconds before blowing it out. “All right, let’s hear it.”
“I may have texted a few of my journalist friends.” She takes my phone and types something into the browser. “Fitzgerald was so set on keeping our relationship a secret until you got traded, so I figured why not get the story out there now while you’re still a Goldfinch?”
Kourtney leans in and her eyebrows jump. “Oh, boy.”
“Your parents already know about us.” Celeste clasps Kourtney’s hand. “Now the world is going to know about us too.”
“I don’t want to hide anymore.” Kourtney’s big brown eyes lock with mine. “I’m not ashamed of us.”
My heart swells in my chest. “Neither am I, baby.”
Celeste beams. “So then let’s go tell Fitzgerald to eat a bag of dicks.”
I shake my head. “You are not coming to this meeting.”
The guys are waiting for me outside the stadium before the meeting.
I push my sunglasses onto my forehead. “Well, I’ve seen entirely too much of you all this morning.”
McKinley grins. “Don’t act like you didn’t watch my whole video.”
“I didn’t.” I cringe. “There was only so much of your pasty-white ass I could take.”
He chuckles as he nudges Trenton. “I see your girl has the moves to back up all the raunchy shit she writes in her romance books.”
If looks could kill, pretty sure Trenton would strike McKinley dead where he stands. “I’m going to pretend you didn’t just say that so I don’t have to rip out both of your eyeballs.”
Krum places his hand on McKinley’s shoulder to stop him from whatever he’s about to say. “We need to be prepared for what we’re about to walk into in this meeting.”
My stomach ties itself in knots. “If you delete your videos and apologize, I think you guys should be fine. Chalk it up to sticking up for your friend. Everyone will understand that.”
“Apologize?” McKinley shakes his head. “Fuck that. We’re going in there guns blazing.”
“You’re making a mistake. Those videos will follow you for the rest of your life. What were you thinking?”
“Players get traded all the time. It’s the name of the game.” Krum shoves his hands in his pockets. “But to trade you because he doesn’t support your polygamous relationship? That’s what’s fucked up here.”
“You’re their captain,” I say. “You need to think long-term and lead your team—not make rash decisions based on one player.”
“I am leading my team. We’re going to stand with you, and everyone else that this sport has shunned.” He lifts his chin. “And the captain goes down with his ship.”
Trenton nods. “Think about all the guys we’ve met over the years.
How many of them were gay and had to hide it?
Or how many black men skated alongside us but were treated as less than?
Or how willing the administration is to cover up and condone players sexually assaulting women, yet they won’t condone a healthy relationship like yours?
No one talks about the discrimination and inequality in this sport, and I think it’s about time we started. ”
McKinley claps me on the back. “Let’s go make some fucking noise.”
With my team behind me, it feels like I’m floating into Coach’s office. Even Fitzgerald’s unimpressed glare can’t shake me now.
“Well, I’m sure you boys are all pleased with yourselves,” Coach begins.
We all look to one another and shrug.
Fitzgerald presses his lips into a thin line. “This was a foolish, immature way to react to a simple trade. You’re all over the news. You’ve embarrassed yourselves, your team, this game, and your families.”
“You’re the only one who’s embarrassed here.” Krum speaks up first. “So, spare us the lecture on how we should be feeling. We know exactly what we’ve done, and we chose to do it so we can make a statement.”
“And what statement is that?” Fitzgerald tilts his head. “Because all you did was show the world that hockey players behave like perverted frat boys. You made a mockery of this sport.”
“People like you make a mockery of this sport.” McKinley stabs the air with his finger. “What we do in our private lives should have no effect on our careers, as long as it’s legal, and who we choose to fuck shouldn’t matter as long as it’s consensual.”
“You’re hockey players, not porn stars,” Fitzgerald spits. “You have no place on a filthy website like that.”
I lean forward in my chair. “Watch your mouth when you’re talking about my wife’s website. You don’t know the first thing about what that website is doing for the people who need it.”
Trenton slides his phone across the table. “You want to talk about what we did? Take a look. Star quarterback Troy Manahan just released a statement that he’s gay.”
McKinley holds up his phone. “David Kuschev—one of the best hockey players to ever live—said he’s bisexual and was made to hide it for years during his career.”
My phone buzzes with text after text from Celeste as countless pro athletes come out to the world in support of what’s happening with our team.
“It’s ignorant and discriminatory to exile players when they don’t fit into your old-fashioned mold,” I say. “I think you’re about to learn that the world is more tolerant of diversity and less tolerant of people like you.”
Fitzgerald glances at Coach. “This team is clearly lacking leadership. Maybe you’re part of the problem here.”
Coach’s face reddens. “This is exactly the kind of leadership I’ve exemplified. To stick together, to think and move as one. To support each other, on and off the ice.”
Fitzgerald’s eyebrows shoot up. “You’re condoning this insanity?”
“No, I’m not condoning it.” Coach shoots us a glare and arches a brow.
“And I think you’re all nuts for putting your dicks all over the internet.
” He swings his gaze back to Fitzgerald.
“But I also don’t stand by your decision to trade one of our best players because he’s in a relationship you don’t approve of. ”
“Shit,” I mutter. “Coach, you don’t need to stick out your neck for—”
Coach holds up his palm to silence me. “I’ve bitten my tongue so many times in this position, I’m amazed that I have anything left in my mouth.
I’ve watched good men?—good players—get the short end of the stick because of a narrow-minded decision from the higher-ups, and for what?
Money and image.” Coach jerks his thumb at us from across the conference table.
“These boys are the heart and soul of this team. Without them, we have nothing. And if you don’t open your mind and hear what they’re saying, we’re going to lose them. ”
Krum sits up and squares his shoulders. “So, you can keep Jason on our team, or you won’t have a team left to manage.”
A thick vein bulges out of Fitzgerald’s left temple as his eyes flick around the table. “You’re willing to throw away your careers for this? For him?”
“We’re not throwing away our careers.” I lift my chin. “We’re setting the standard for the change we want to see in the sports world.”
Fitzgerald chokes out a laugh. “As if this will change anything.”
“We’re counting on it,” Trenton says.
Coach leans back in his seat and folds his hands on the table. “Now, if you’re ready to move forward, the team has a list of demands, as well as a plan on how we’re going to handle this in the media.”
My head whips to him. “Demands?”
He shoots me a wink. “Your wife is one hell of a PR agent.”
Celeste.
My wife.
Warmth explodes in my chest, spreading over me and soothing every nerve, every bone, every ache in my body.
Some people go their entire lives without finding true love, and here I am having found it twice.
Coach reads the email Celeste must’ve sent him late last night, and my head spins.
How she managed to think of everything in such a short amount of time blows my mind and makes my dick hard at the same time.
She’s a force to be reckoned with. This is her calling.
It’s what she’s good at. And while she enjoys helping Kourtney run her website, I think she’s missing that spark of joy she had when she was working in public relations.
And maybe I can help her with that.