Chapter 13 Fish
FISH
The private plane is quiet. Pierre and Felix are playing cards with Emmett and Sully, the other guys are chatting away about some shit, while I’ve got my headphones in, watching something Evan recommended that I’m about forty percent sure is going to end with everyone dying.
My phone buzzes. I ignore it. It buzzes again.
And again. I pull out one earbud and look down at the notifications from the younger guy’s chat.
Bouch: What the hell. *Screen shots*
Nelly: Fish!!!!
I tap the picture, and it opens the comment section on our official account. There are hundreds of them, and they’re all saying variations of the same thing.
Omg are they together??
The way he looks at her, I’m not okay.
Tell me they’re not together because if they are, I’m going to cry.
I’ve watched this 47 times.
The way she looked up at him after … she felt it, too, she just doesn’t know it yet.
He is so gone for her and has absolutely no idea.
They’re not together, but they’re not NOT together, if you know what I mean.
The chemistry is actually insane, like this isn’t something you can fake.
Fish nation, we are NOT surviving this content.
Wonder what her brothers think?
What the fuck? Panic floods my body, ice cold and immediate. What the hell are they talking about?
Evan: They’re not wrong.
Fish: Of course, they’re fucking wrong.
Nelly: The internet doesn’t lie.
Bouch: You should see the fan edits, they are fire.
Bouch: *Sends Videos*
Nelly: The people work fast.
There are heaps of them. Slow-motion clips set to viral songs I half recognize.
The videos slowed down look way worse than what happened in real life.
They’re talking about us joking in the tunnel.
The lanyard moment seems to be a hit. Someone has zoomed in on my hand in her hair, added some slow, aching love song over the top, and I look like a man who’s about to drop to one knee in a corridor that smells like industrial cleaner.
Another one has spliced together every time I’ve looked at her on camera and set it to a montage, and it looks bad.
Like really bad. Like I-am-in-love-with-this-woman-and-the-whole-world-can-see-it bad.
You’re not in love with her. Then why does that montage look so convincing?
Because they slowed it down and added music.
They could make anyone look in love with slow motion and a sad piano track.
Pierre and Felix are going to kill me. I click out and watch the actual videos that were posted on the official account, the ones we filmed yesterday, and they seem so harmless. Just me being me. Just Collette being Collette. I don’t understand.
Bouch: Bro.
Fish: I know. This looks bad.
Nelly: You two aren’t?
Fish: NO!
Evan: I can vouch for that.
Thank God my best friend has my back.
Fish: What the hell am I going to do? I’ve done nothing wrong.
Bouch: The internet ships the two of you.
Fish: They’re not supposed to.
Nelly: You do look cute together.
Fish: Not helping. I’m panicking. Pierre and Felix are going to kill me.
Bouch: No, they won’t, not unless you’ve done something.
Fish: I haven’t. Believe me, I would tell you guys. But this time I’m innocent.
Nelly: Just ignore it, the public will move on to something else.
Maybe Nelly is right. Maybe this is one of those twenty-four-hour internet things that burns hot and disappears by tomorrow.
Bouch: “The way he untangles her hair like he’s done it a thousand times before.” I am DECEASED.
Fish: Fuck you.
Evan: You’ve gone viral. Fishette is trending.
Fish: Fishette?
Bouch: You’re screwed now, the fans have named you.
Fish: Named me?
Bouch: Yeah, they merged your names together. Collette and Fish. Fishette. It’s cute.
Fish: No, it’s not. I’m having an existential crisis.
I look up from my phone, heart hammering, and scan the plane.
Three rows back, Collette is huddled with Marlowe, their heads bent together over a phone screen while Billie and Zara peer through the gap in the seats behind them.
All four of them are scrolling with the frantic energy of people watching a building burn down in real time.
Collette looks up, and our eyes lock. Just for a second.
And I see on her face the same cold panic that’s running through my veins right now.
She’s not amused. She’s not flattered. She’s terrified.
Shit.
We arrive in Pittsburgh. I dump my bag in my hotel room, have a quick shower, and change before heading down to meet the team for dinner.
The room is standard road trip, beige walls, stiff duvet, and a view of a parking garage.
I check my phone. #Fishette hashtag has its own fan account now, it’s been three hours. This is fine. Everything is fine.
I open my door and nearly walk straight into her.
Collette. She’s standing in the hallway in sweats, with her hair up, phone in her hand, looking like she was about to knock on someone’s door and got the wrong one.
Or the right one. We stare at each other for half a second, both surprised, and before I can think, I grab her arm and pull her into my room.
“Fish …” She squeals.
“Just …” I check the hallway both ways before closing the door. Empty. “We need to talk.”
“No shit,” she bites back, yanking her arm free. “But the last thing we need is someone seeing me entering your room. I can’t be in here.”
“You’ll be fine,” I reassure her, which apparently was not the right thing to say.
Collette places her hands on her hips, those hazel eyes narrow on me, and I swear I can see steam rising from her ears like a cartoon character about to detonate.
The room suddenly feels very small. She smells like shampoo and something citrusy, and the combination of that with the fact that she’s furious and standing three feet from my bed is doing things to my brain that are not helpful right now.
“It’s not fine.” She gestures at the room, at me, at the general situation. “If anyone sees me coming out of your room right now after everything that got posted today …”
I take a step toward her to calm her down, but she flinches back. “Don’t you dare come near me.” Okay. We’re at that level of anger.
“Collette, please. Let’s talk.” I sit on the edge of the bed, trying to look as non-threatening as a six-foot-two man can look, which is probably not very. “Just breathe.”
“Don’t tell me to breathe. Do you understand what today has been like? Do you have any idea what Pierre and Felix are going to say when they see these comments?” Of course I do. I’ve spent the entire flight catastrophizing about it. “Fish, this is a problem.”
“It’s the internet. It’ll blow over.”
“Will it?” She holds her phone up. “#Fishette is trending. There are fan accounts. People are making edits. People think we’re …” She stops herself and shakes her head, like the idea of the two of us together is physically repulsive. “This is such a mess.”
Okay. Cool. Glad to know being associated with me is a mess. That feels great.
I watch her pace the small space between the bed and the window. Three steps one way, three steps back. Her sneakers squeak on the carpet every time she turns.
“We’re not together,” she says, mostly to herself. “We’re not anything. We’re colleagues. I work for the team. You play for the team. That’s it.”
“I know that. Everyone knows that.”
She looks up at me, and I genuinely can’t tell if she’s about to cry or rip me to shreds.
Both feel equally possible. “Then we need to be more careful. Whatever this looks like on camera, we need to dial it back. The content, the …” she waves a hand “… the whole thing. I can’t have the internet thinking there’s something going on when there isn’t. ”
Something shifts in my chest, not anger, something worse …
disappointment. Not because I want something to be going on, there isn’t, we’re friends, that’s it, end of story, but because for a few hours today, people looked at me and saw something other than the playboy with the revolving door.
They saw a guy who might actually have someone.
And it was nice. For about five minutes, before the whole thing caught fire, it was nice. That’s pathetic.
“I understand,” I tell her.
“No, I don’t think you do.” She stops pacing.
“My professional reputation means everything to me. I have had to work so fucking hard because of who my brothers are. I know people look at me and think I’m just some bimbo working in social media, the perfect nepo job, but I’m good at this.
And because my brothers have afforded me opportunities I wouldn’t normally get, I have to work even harder to prove them all wrong.
The last thing I need is for everyone to think I’m dating one of the team. ”
“I get it.” What else is there to say? She’s right. Being associated with me comes with consequences. It’s the reason I hook up with puck bunnies, because any sane woman wouldn’t want the media scrutiny or the female fandom coming after her.
Her brows pull together. “You get it?” she repeats, like she was expecting a fight, and I’ve robbed her of one.
“Yes.”
She stares at me. “Just like that?”
I nod. She doesn’t believe me, but she doesn’t push it either. The fight drains out of her shoulders, and what’s left is just a tired woman standing in my hotel room wishing she were anywhere else.
“Okay. Well, I’m glad that’s settled. I’ll see you at dinner. Let’s, you know, sit at opposite ends of the table.”
Opposite ends. Not going to lie, that stings. “Good idea.”
She nods, and then she’s gone. The door clicks shut, and I’m alone with the scent of her shampoo still hanging in the air and the muted sound of the Fishette hashtag blowing up on a phone I don’t want to look at. I let my head hang in my hands. How did this get so messed up?