ONE NEW THING #2
With a sigh, he stays put. I’d expect nothing less from a competitive elite athlete, though, than to try to finagle a quicker way through this situation.
It’s like when he stretches his body in all new directions to prevent a goal, doing the splits, it seems, in front of the net.
Hmm. In what other inventive ways can he move his body?
Or, really, mine, for that matter? I’m flexible too, thanks to pole.
What would it be like to be flexible with him?
It’s easy to picture in some ways, but hard too.
It’s been a while since I’ve been with someone.
Or really, it’s been a while since I took all my clothes off with someone.
The last person was Gunnar—a guy I dated about a year and a half after the accident.
An architect, he’d seemed thoughtful and smart on our first date, asking interesting questions and never hogging the conversation.
Several dates and a few clothed make-out sessions later, I finally felt comfortable enough to tell him about my body.
“I’m not afraid of a few scars,” he’d said with a wry smile.
But still, once my shirt came off, he couldn’t stop staring at them.
He never said a word about them, but his eyes said enough.
Pity.
His actions said more. He ghosted me literally an hour later.
Briefly, I think of Lucas, and the second date we’re planning.
I don’t think he’d ghost me for the same reasons, since he knows all about the injuries, the surgeries, the marks on my body.
I haven’t had sexy thoughts about Lucas recently, but then again, I haven’t seen him in a few months. Max is in my face every damn day.
I’m saved from my own wandering thoughts about both men when the server returns with a brand new combination of all things vegetarian. Max points to it with his chopsticks. “Vegetarians first,” he says.
I go for it, grabbing a roll, swiping it through the soy sauce and wasabi dish, then bringing it to my lips. I take a bite, and it’s…not bad. It doesn’t make me want to moan, but it is pretty tasty. When I finish the bite, Max looks at me expectantly.
“It’s unusual. And kind of fun. Is that weird for sushi to be fun?” I ask.
“No idea,” he says, but he sounds amused. He snags a piece, dips, and chews. Judging from the expression on his face, he’s not about to become an aficionado of this invented-on-the-fly roll, but he nods a few times. “It’s kind of like a vegetarian party in my mouth.”
And I crack up, laughing for longer than I’d expected. When I finally catch my breath, he looks pleased.
But he wipes the look off his face quickly.
“All right. You tried a new thing. I guess I gotta try one now too.” He nods to the tablet by my side, and it’s no longer resignation in his eyes, but he’s wearing his game face.
Like he’s ready to hit the ice. “What have you got for me, drill instructor?”
I flip it open and we get to work at last. There’s no need to mince words with Max. “We have one goal—we need to make you sellable again.”
His jaw ticks, but he nods, even though I know it can’t be easy to hear that he’s unlikeable.
“No matter how good you are in the crease, no matter how much you love the sport, you have to be marketable these days,” I say.
“I have some ideas for how to do that. A three-step plan, if you will. We’ll need to do a series of community outreach events, charitable appearances, and other fun things. ”
He snorts. “We might have different definitions of fun.”
We probably do, so I soldier on. “And at the risk of being patently obvious, before we embark on the Max Makeover Tour,” I say, flashing a big, dazzling smile that doesn’t land for my audience of one, but so it goes, “you’ll need to be on social media again.”
I brace myself for a bestial bellow. Instead, he drops his forehead in his big palm, and he’s the one groaning now. No orgasmic moans at all. Just one of pure dread. When he lifts his face, his eyes look tired. “Really?”
He doesn’t sound bitter. He sounds…dead. My heart squeezes for him. “PTSD from Lyra?” I ask gently.
A long sigh falls from his pretty lips. “Yeah, and everything that came after. The fallout.” He’s quiet for a beat, then he adds, with rare vulnerability, “It’s been kind of nice living my life offline the last year and a half. An unexpected side effect.”
I can see that. I have to imagine it was a relief to live a more unscrutinized life. I’ve researched past posts. Seen what she said about him when they were together. She was fawning, and sweet, and he was doting—a perfect athlete-and-pop-star couple.
Until it wasn’t. And a few months after the nasty public split, she released a song about how hurt she was, and the world blamed him rather than her new guy. The upshot? Max is like the grumpy mountain man who retreats to a cabin in the woods to live off the grid and make furniture.
“It does sound nice,” I say. But his media disappearance isn’t realistic for him at this critical moment in his career.
Not with the team’s expectations or with the potential of The Ice Men documentary.
“But even so, before we head down this path of public appearances and photo opps, I think it would be good if we start up your social again. Or really, a new one for you.” He shut down the old one and killed it.
His face turns stony. “There’s no other way?”
I stay strong as I shake my head. “There’s not, Max. This is how the world works now.”
He rolls his eyes. “I’m not fucking five.”
And there’s the grump again. The sweetness didn’t last long at all. Which means I have to be all the sweeter by reaching for common ground. “Look, I wish we didn’t live our lives in a fishbowl. But we do. I promise, though, it doesn’t have to be painful.”
“More like soul-sucking,” he mutters.
“I’ve got some ideas that can make it more enjoyable.”
“Like take-a-puck-to-the-eye enjoyable? That level of pleasure? Because that’s what this whole battle plan sounds like.”
And he hasn’t even heard most of it. But I stay cheery.
“It’ll be more like vegetarian-sushi enjoyable.
We can share more about you on your feed without letting anyone in too deep,” I begin.
I know how to do this. If he could stop acting like he has the man flu, I could explain it.
“I’ve been working in the sports business for eight years. I have a plan. And here it—”
“Why not just post on the team’s social media? Why do I have to have one?”