Chapter 27 #2
“Yes. Sent emails this week. Direct, not defensive—acknowledged the situation, refocused on results, listed specific metrics.” I paused. “One already responded. Wants to set up a call.”
“Good. That’s the move. You’re not apologizing for your relationship. You’re reminding them you’re excellent at your job.” He nodded. “What did the others say?”
“Nothing yet.”
“Give it time. Some of them are waiting to see how you handle this before they decide. The fact that you reached out professionally, without drama, is itself the answer to their question.”
“Media requests,” I said, moving on. “I’ve gotten a dozen.”
“Ignore all of them. You’re not a public figure.
You don’t owe reporters comment on your personal life.
” He was unequivocal about this. “If they’re persistent, one line: ‘I’m a private citizen and my personal life is not available for discussion.
’ That’s it. Don’t elaborate, don’t explain, don’t apologize. One sentence and you’re done.”
“And if they publish something anyway?”
“They probably will. You don’t respond to that either. Every response is fuel. Your silence is not an invitation, it’s a boundary. Let it stand.”
I nodded slowly.
“Have you thought about which clients to go after next? Once the noise starts dying down?”
“Some. LGBTQ-owned businesses. Clients who’ve dealt with public fallout.” I hesitated. “But I feel like I’d be exploiting the situation.”
“You understand what happens when media turns on someone’s personal life. You’ve lived through brand damage you didn’t cause. That’s not exploitation. That’s expertise you didn’t have six months ago. Use it.”
I hadn’t thought about it that way.
“One more thing,” he said. “Have you talked to Rachel Nguyen? Nico’s PR manager?”
“Nico suggested that,” I said. “I… wasn’t ready to hear it.”
“Are you ready now?”
I paused. “Yeah. I think I am.”
“Because right now, hockey media is writing about you, and it’s bleeding into your professional life.
She has relationships with those reporters.
She can’t stop them from covering the relationship, but she can help establish that you’re not part of the hockey story—that questions about you get redirected, that your professional identity stays separate from his public one.
It won’t fix everything, but it creates a boundary. ”
“I hadn’t thought about that.”
“It’s worth a conversation. Even just to understand what she can and can’t do.”
He looked at me for a moment.
“Can I ask you something before we finish?”
“Go ahead.”
“Do you want this? Not can you survive it, not will you get used to it. Do you actually want the life that comes with being with someone like Nico?”
The question landed harder than I expected. I’d spent three weeks asking myself whether I could handle it. I hadn’t once asked whether I wanted it.
“I don’t know,” I said quietly.
“That’s okay. But that’s the question.” His expression was direct but not unkind.
“Because if you’re just trying to endure it—if love is the only thing keeping you in something that makes you miserable—that’s not sustainable for either of you.
The PR stuff I can help with, but that part you have to figure out yourself. ”
“How did you figure it out? With Griffin?”
He was quiet for a moment. “Griffin came out without mentioning me. He protected my privacy and left me out of it entirely. And I sat with that for about two seconds before I realized I didn’t want to be protected.
” He paused. “I posted that I was in a relationship with him. My choice, my timing, nobody asked me to. Because I decided that claiming him publicly mattered more to me than staying invisible.” He looked at me steadily.
“That’s not the right answer for everyone.
But it was mine. And I had to actually make the decision, not just wait to see if I’d get comfortable eventually. ”
After we hung up, I sat at my desk for a long time.
Do you want this?
Not can I survive it? Not will I get used to it?
Do I want it?
I’d been asking myself the wrong question since the photos, since the parking lot, since the morning I woke up in Nico’s bed and watched his face go pale over his phone screen.
I picked up my phone and texted Danny.
Evan
Wesley asked me something I need to think about out loud. Are you free for lunch?
Danny
Give me an hour.
I put my phone down and went back to my notes.
At noon, Danny knocked. He came in, took one look at me—not the wreck he’d probably been expecting—and raised his eyebrows. “You look better than I thought you would.”
“The Wesley call was good.” I closed the door and led him into the kitchen. “We talked about you.”
“Me?” He placed a takeout bag onto the kitchen bar.
“He said to designate one person to monitor for anything I actually need to know about. Flag the real threats, filter out the noise.” I looked at him. “I told him it was you.”
Danny unloaded sandwiches and chips. “So, I’ve been promoted.”
“You’ve been doing it anyway.”
“True.” He sat down on a stool and unwrapped his sandwich. “Okay. I can do that.” A pause. “What counts as something you actually need to know?”
I retrieved drinks from the fridge. “Specific threats. Misinformation that needs correcting. Anything that affects my business directly.” I paused. “Everything else… I don’t want to see it.”
“That’s going to be hard for you.”
“I know.” I met his eyes. “That’s why it has to be you.”
I sat down next to him. “He also asked me something I haven’t been able to stop thinking about.”
“Tell me.”
I told him what mattered: Wesley had asked me if I wanted this life. Not if I could handle it. If I wanted it.
Danny set down his sandwich. “Do you?”
“I don’t know.”
“Evan.”
“I love Nico. I know I love him. But do I want people following me at the grocery store? Do I want my name attached to articles calling me a gold digger? Do I want to lose clients because of who I’m dating?” I shook my head. “I don’t know.”
“Okay. Stop thinking about what you don’t want. What do you want?”
I looked at him. “What?”
“You’ve spent weeks cataloging everything you’re afraid of. Everything you’re losing. Everything that’s hard.” He leaned forward. “What do you actually want?”
I opened my mouth. Closed it.
“Do you want to be with Nico?”
“Yes.”
“Do you want a future with him?”
“Yes.”
“Do you want to build a life together?”
“Yes.”
“Then that’s your answer. The rest is logistics.”
“It’s not that simple—”
“It kind of is.” He gave me the look. “You’re making it complicated because you’re scared. But at the end of the day, you either want him or you don’t. You either want the life that comes with him or you don’t. And if you do, you figure out how to make it work. If you don’t, you walk away.”
“I want him,” I said.
“Okay. So, what does that mean?”
“It means I stop organizing my entire life around avoiding attention.” I paused. “It means I actually show up.”
Danny smiled. “There you go.”
“What if I try and I still can’t handle it?”
“Then you’ll know. But you won’t know until you stop white-knuckling it and actually let yourself be there.”
“There’s a game tomorrow night,” I said. “Home game. Seven o’clock.”
He pinned me with a look. “You going?”
“Yeah… I’m going.”
After he left, I walked to the coffee shop two blocks from my building. Not the one on Calaveras that the gossip site had documented, but a different one, smaller, with no corner table to be spotted at. I ordered a latte, sat by the window, and drank it without taking out my phone.
A man came in who glanced at me twice. I held his gaze briefly and looked back at my cup. He ordered a pour-over coffee and left.
That was it.