Chapter Four Taissa #4
The elf cackles (Taissa expected her laugh to sound like the tinkle of bells and blinks in disorientation) in delight, grabbing the tablet back and twirling toward Taissa and Kion.
“And it’s all thanks to you two!” With a flourish, she turns the tablet so they can look at the image splashed all over an article from Inquire UKHC.
No.
No, no, no.
The photograph is of Taissa and Kion, pressed together in the train compartment.
From the angle of the picture the playbook is nowhere in sight, and it looks like Taissa’s head is leaning on Kion’s shoulder as he stares directly into the camera with a furious slant to his mouth.
Taissa, on the other hand, looks somewhere between bemused and exhausted in the picture. Flattering.
The headline above reads, Spotted! Stymphs’ Captain Kion Locke & Former Wyverns’ Star Taissa Cho Get Snuggly…Rivals in a Romance? Read On!
“Fucking hells,” groans Kion.
“Language,” warns Bill.
“Isn’t this great?” squeals Niamh.
“Wipe it,” says Taissa in absolute horror. “Get this taken down. Right now.” Now she’s really going to boke. “I don’t care who you have to bribe or extort or murder to do it. This needs to be squashed.”
There’s a faint chime. Niamh turns the tablet back around, clicks something, and grins. “And here come the emails…”
“Kill it,” Taissa repeats, wringing her hands, “kill it with fire—”
“Slander,” Kion growls. “Defamation. Get a lawyer in here, Bill. Fuck—” He drags a hand down his face. “I knew this would happen. Now everybody will know we’ve recruited her. We won’t have the element of surprise anymore.”
“Unless,” murmurs Niamh, smiling like she’s a five-year-old girl and it’s her birthday, “unless, unless, unless…”
“I don’t like the way you’re saying ‘unless,’ ” says Taissa.
“For once, we’re in agreement,” grumbles Kion.
“No, listen!” There’s an excited gleam in Niamh’s eyes. “Does the headline say anything about Taissa joining the team?”
“It says something even worse,” Taissa mutters.
“The answer is no,” Niamh corrects. “And the rest of the article doesn’t say anything, either. Inquire hasn’t even entertained the possibility. They’re too busy speculating about whether or not you’re dating!”
“Which we are not.” Kion looks like he has a headache.
“Well…” Niamh thoughtfully taps her chin with a manicured nail. “You could be.”
Taissa chokes on her own spit. “Excuse me?”
“Keep going, Niamh,” Bill says slowly. He’s rubbing his chin thoughtfully.
“If you want to keep Taissa’s recruitment a secret—at least until the first match—there’s a way to do it.
From a PR perspective, of course.” The elf beams, and sunshine sparkles, literally, on her skin.
Summertides, then. “The papers already think you two are dating. Let’s give them more of that!
An excuse as to why you were spotted together.
I’ll arrange dates, outings. You two can go out for some ice cream, the movies, maybe even to karaoke… ”
“Dates,” repeats Taissa, her voice sounding like the croak of a frog. “As in—dating. Dates. Those kinds of dates.” Maybe if she says the word date enough, it’ll lose meaning. So far, though, it still feels like sandpaper on her tongue.
“Fake,” Niamh clarifies, but then she beams. “Unless you’d like to make it official? That would make my job so much easier.”
“I would rather jump into a vat of hot oil.”
“Oh, my. That doesn’t sound very comfortable.”
“You can’t be serious,” Kion has stalked over to Bill’s desk and is now snarling, fists planted on that perfectly polished mahogany. “This is the maddest, most pointless, deranged idea in the entire fucking world.”
The club owner looks absolutely unfazed. He’s smirking. “And yet, you know it will work.”
Kion slaps his desk, pushing off with a groan of frustration. Niamh is beginning to frown.
“I don’t understand the problem. You get to keep your secret, and we all get an influx of good press! And you know what comes with press?”
Taissa hesitates. “Money,” she whispers, just as Kion says, “Headaches.” Their eyes meet. She feels her cheeks heat. She knows he saw her stack of bills in the kitchen. Bills she can’t pay off.
At least, not yet.
Niamh is right. Good PR brings public interest.
Sponsorships.
After the fallout, she lost her brand deal with Neit—the biggest sportswear and shoe company in the Hidden Cities.
For the brief time she had it, she raked in quid just by wearing a pair of their trainers out.
And she’d snagged that deal right around the time she was involved with Everest Huang.
That short-lived relationship gave her enough popularity and relevance to interest the Neit execs.
(Why her massive athletic accomplishments on their own hadn’t been enough to land her a Neit deal was due to a fun little thing called sexism. Something especially present in the good old sport of carriwitchet.)
If she were to get involved with Locke after years of their rivalry…people would be very interested. Even as despised as she is right now, the money would come. Quickly. She could have enough money to pay her bills twice over and to help her mum out.
And maybe the idea of the world hating her a little less is enticing, too. Fewer photos of her crying behind skip bins sounds like a good thing. Hm, yes. A very good thing.
“Okay,” she says, her mouth suddenly dry. “I’ll—we’ll do it.” As Kion swears under his breath, she glares at him. “It’s our only choice, you numpty. And you right well know it.”
“Sod off,” he says, which she and Niamh take to mean, Yes, you’re right.
The elf claps, still sparking with sunlight. It’s as if she’s standing underneath a giant spotlight. “Perfect!”
Bill rubs at his closely shaved white beard and shrewdly eyes Taissa. “To be clear, my dear: I still don’t want you on this team. We have perfectly fine reserve players, any one of which could have taken Samara’s place without bringing a boatload of scandal—”