Chapter 35
LIAM
As I got ready for warmups tonight, I was admittedly struggling harder with the idea of Garrett and me staying in the closet.
Not because I was itching to be honest with Chris (though that was always in the back of my mind), but because of the rainbow jerseys and rainbow stick tape all around the locker room.
Pride Night was always special. Growing up, I’d heard that there was no place for people like me in the League. Or anywhere in professional sports.
Now, here I was—out and proud, skating out for warmups under rainbow banners with a Pride-themed jersey over my gear. After the game, our jerseys would be signed and auctioned off to benefit LGBTQ+ charities in Pittsburgh.
This was one of those rare times when I relished the stardom of my name. Sometimes it was weird, especially knowing how people would pay thousands of dollars just for something I’d autographed.
On Pride Night, I was okay with that. My jerseys routinely went for a few grand, and that was money these organizations absolutely needed. I was happy to let my name rack up bids if it benefitted a group like that, just like I was more than happy to cut them a check myself.
Tonight, though? This felt wrong.
How could I be the face of Pittsburgh Phantoms Pride when I couldn’t love my boyfriend out loud?
Except we weren’t hiding because we were queer. That wasn’t the issue. It was because the man who’d be sitting next to me on the bench deserved a shot at fully reconciling with his dad before we dropped this bomb on him.
I just wished that, tonight of all nights, I could have my arm around my boyfriend’s waist when they put me up on the Jumbotron. Or they could put up a photo of us like Boston’s backup goalie, who’d had his recent wedding photos on the screen at their last Pride Night.
Every time I saw another team’s Pride Night on TV, or played in their arena, or had a queer teammate on our Pride Night, I envied the players who smiled for the cameras with their partners. Someday, I’d told myself, that would be me again.
Now I had a boyfriend. I had a man I wanted to show off to the world.
But I couldn’t. Not yet. And tonight, that grated on me. I itched to relive that moment years ago when I’d been photographed in my Pride Night jersey as Tristan and I shared a quick kiss, but with Garrett this time.
Next season.
We’ll be out and proud next season.
I pushed out a breath as I tugged my jersey into place. I’d waited this long to have Garrett in my life. I could wait a little longer to show him off on Pride Night.
Especially since that would mean the public and the media knew about us, and they’d be breathing down our necks. Fuck. That was a bucket of cold water on that little fantasy. Maybe I could live without it for a—
“Hey, Temo.” Craws looked past me at our teammate. “What’s this about?” He held up his phone. “When the fuck did you have surgery on that knee?”
Temo frowned. “I didn’t. What are you talking about?”
Craws jiggled his phone again.
Scowling, Temo tugged at his own Pride jersey, then came over to Craws’s locker. “Let me see that.” He took the phone and peered at the screen. He watched, and then his features scrunched up. “What the fuck?” He shoved the phone back at Craws. “That’s fake!”
“Is it?” Craws asked.
“Yeah, it is. I’ve never been to that place in my life.” Temo looked at me and pointed sharply at the phone in his hand. “Have you seen this shit, Saints?”
I shook my head. “I don’t even know what you’re talking about.”
Craws tapped the screen a couple of times, then handed me the phone with a video queued up beneath a headline that read, The Real Reason Behind Scoring Drought: Are the Pittsburgh Phantoms LYING TO FANS About Tehuitzil’s Health?
“What the fuck?” I muttered. I tapped play, and the video showed Temo coming out of a medical facility on crutches. His knee was wrapped up, and there was a car waiting for him. One I’d never seen before.
“This isn’t real?” I asked Temo.
“Nah, man,” he growled. “Like I said—I’ve never been there, and I haven’t had shit done to my knee! And that’s not even my car, for fuck’s sake?”
“Can I see it?” Chris asked. The phone was passed to him, and he was quiet as he watched the video. Then he paused it and rewound a bit. Pulling the phone closer to his face, he said, “This is AI.”
“Of course it is,” Temo muttered. “How else do they have me—”
“There’s that, but I mean, it’s also pretty obvious.” Chris turned the phone so we could both see it, and he pointed at a sign in the background. “Look at the words.”
We both leaned in. I hadn’t noticed it before, but the words on the sign were garbled. Not like they were out of focus, but like complete gibberish.
Temo muttered something in his native tongue, followed by, “Of course it’s from Jack fucking Arlen.” He damn near threw the phone. “Why am I not fucking surprised?”
Rage boiled up in me. “It was Jack? Are you sure?”
“His name is on the byline,” Chris said.
“For fuck’s sake.” I never liked having him in the locker room, but it always irritated me even more on Pride Night.
He’d run numerous stories about players in the League who disliked Pride events and didn’t want to participate.
Every time, he’d insist he was just giving players a voice, but somehow, it was always the naysayers who got amplified.
Ditto with the events we did for Black History Month, Jewish Heritage Night, and Indigenous People’s Day.
Somehow he always made space for the people who thought events like that “weren’t a necessary part of hockey” or “were a distraction.”
I was genuinely surprised Temo hadn’t dropped gloves with him by now.
As one of the few indigenous players in the League, Temo was unsurprisingly featured in a couple of articles and a video for Indigenous People’s Day.
The team had also done something for Hispanic Heritage Month around the same time, and Temo—being both Mexican and Nahuatl—had been featured there as well.
Jack had “jokingly” suggested in a blog post that Temo was “double-dipping” on the “special nights.”
He’d done the same when Tyler Robbins had been mentioned in both Black History and Pride Night events. I still wondered if that blog post had been Ty’s last straw; he’d left Pittsburgh during free agency, taking a huge pay cut to play for Edmonton.
And now Jack was posting AI-generated fakes.
Right now it was something relatively benign—Temo had broken his scoring drought and a surgery that could’ve easily happened during the off season was hardly a scandal.
Still not great, still something that could get the rumor mill churning about Temo and the Phantoms lying about his injury status, but it could’ve been a lot worse.
Which was exactly what concerned me—how much worse it could get if shit like this went unchecked.
And… fuck. Maybe it was just as well Garrett and I weren’t public right now.
Just what we needed—AI fake videos about us.
I wanted to believe people wouldn’t care enough to put in that kind of effort, but someone had cared enough to fake one of Temo hobbling out of an orthopedic surgery clinic just to start shit about his recent slump.
I shuddered.
Of course, right then, my favorite person in the known universe came strolling in.
“Hey. Arlen.” Temo gestured sharply for the dickhead to come over. “You know anything about this?”
Jack actually looked surprised, which made sense; I didn’t imagine even he expected one of us to actually want to talk to him. He strolled over, though, smarmy smile firmly in place. “Know anything about what?”
Craws showed him the video.
Jack shrugged and handed back the phone. “Oh yeah, someone sent that to me. They were confused because the club keeps insisting Temo’s knee is good.”
“Except it’s fake,” Temo snapped. “My knee is good.”
Another shrug from the insufferable douche. “I just report on what’s sent to me.”
“And do you do anything to verify what’s sent to you?” I demanded. “Like, isn’t that your job? Especially when you know people post fakes all over the place now?”
“Sure, I try to, but they’re hard to tell from reality.” His third shrug was even more flippant. “I just put them out there—people can decide what’s real or fake.”
“If you put it out there,” I growled, “they’re going to assume you already did the legwork to figure out if it’s fake. You’re giving it credibility.”
“Hey, I’m just—”
“All right, boys,” Coach called out. “Let’s go!”
Fuck. Warmups.
I stabbed a finger at Jack. “This isn’t over.”
He just smiled like the bastard he was.
I fumed all through warmups. I should’ve been reveling in my team wearing rainbow jerseys while fans held up rainbow flags and signs. I should’ve been basking in this annual reminder that, despite years of homophobic trash, the League was now an ally. That my team and our fans were allies.
But no, I was just pissed off the entire time because Jack goddamned Arlen was now spreading generative AI fakes about players. Tonight it was just speculation about whether Temo’d had knee surgery he’d never disclosed. Tomorrow… hell, the sky was the limit.
By the time I returned to the locker room after warmups, I was seething. Fuck Jack Arlen. Fuck this bullshit.
I didn’t have much time before I had to return to the ice, but I found our PR director and pulled him aside in the hallway. “Did you hear about the latest video? The one of Temo?”
Travis gave a long-suffering sigh. “Yeah. I guess he didn’t realize it was AI.”
“Oh, bullshit.”
“Hey.” He put up his hands. “We’ve all been duped by them. I will demand a retraction and a correction, and it’ll be posted before the game is over. I promise. And anyway, I can’t imagine anyone taking anything Arlen says as gospel.”
I glared at Travis. “So why is he still allowed in our locker room? He’s posting fabricated videos, Travis. He’s posting blatant lies.” I flailed a hand toward the locker room. “Is he really still going to be allowed in the locker room after he posted bullshit like that?”
Travis pinched the bridge of his nose, then dropped his hand and met my gaze. “You know he will be, and you know exactly why.”
“Oh, I know the reason, I just don’t get why no one will say he’s finally pushed the envelope enough to wear out his welcome.”
Travis pressed his lips together and avoided my gaze.
“He’s a problem,” I said. “He makes everyone uncomfortable. He’s pushy.
He’s obnoxious. He’s constantly stirring people up about heritage nights.
And now he’s spreading obviously AI-generated videos as if they’re real.
Even after Jack retracts it, Temo’s going to be getting questions about that”—I made sarcastic air quotes—“surgery until he retires.” I flailed a hand.
“What does Jack have to do to get banned from our locker room? Sucker punch someone?”
Travis sighed heavily. “I get it. Trust me, I do. I can’t stand him, either. But I’m also between a rock and a hard place here.”
“Does his stepdad know about his shit?” I growled. “I know nepotism is a hell of a drug, but he’s gotta have some lines somewhere.”
Travis gave a non-committal shrug. “I’m doing what I can, Saints. I promise.”
He’d told me that many times over the years.
More and more, I struggled to believe him.