Ivy whines, “Axeeeeel.” But when I turn back, she’s laughing too.
“Sorry, sis, I have to go. Hope you win though!”
“Hope someone spills beer down your shirt again!” she calls out as I shut the door behind me.
I shake my head, unable to drop my smile. She’s the best.
“Don’t you think it’s weird that we both got picked for this? We’ve never won anything before,” I ask Ivy as we walk up to the Caldwell Center where the player meet and greet photoshoot will be today.
“No, I think it was about time we won something. And they let us apply together so I figured if one of us won, we both would. Okay, looks like this is the door they said to use.”
We rush inside to get out of the cold. It might be early spring, but in Chicago, that still means warm coats. I probably should have worn a hat too, but they’re taking pictures of us, and I didn’t want to deal with my hair being all fucked up.
“Hi! You must be Axel and Ivy. I’m Lottie. It’s so great to meet you! We’re so glad you’re here,” a very pretty woman who’s probably around my age greets us far too warmly.
“You are?” I ask skeptically as Ivy says “hi,” seemingly less confused than I am that she’s greeting us by name. I was kind of expecting a big crowd of other people who won this thing, but we’re the only ones here.
“Of course! If you guys can just follow me, there’s some paperwork for us to go over before anything else begins, and then we’ll get to the fun part.” She doesn’t wait for us to respond, heels echoing with each step as she hurries off.
We follow silently, exchanging a wide-eyed look behind Lottie’s back. Mine is morewhat the fuck?while Ivy’s is all smiles, obviously excited. I know she’s happy to be here, so I try to ignore how odd this seems as we’re led into a conference room.
“Okay, right in here, we just need to go through some things. This is my boss, Megan. She’s the head of the Werewolves PR department, and this is Andre from our legal team.”
We exchange hellos as we sit down at the table, and I can’t help but stare at the stack of papers in front of them. This whole thing seems way more intense than I was expecting.
“So, as you know, this fundraising contest was set up to find fans to participate in stranger sessions with players as a fun meet-and-greet alternative. The entry did mention that the photos would be shared by the team, so we need you both to sign a release, giving us permission to post your image online,” Andre says as they pass us each papers to sign.
When that’s done, Megan sits up a little straighter, looking over at Lottie who’s joined us at the table before speaking. “We would like to propose something else, specifically to you, Axel, but Ivy can stay if you’d like.” I have no idea what else they’d need to talk to only me about, but I don’t want Ivy to go anywhere, so I nod. “We need you both to sign nondisclosure agreements before we say anything else.”
“What?” I ask with a laugh.
At the same time, Ivy shrugs, saying, “Sure.” I glare at her out of the corner of my eye. We have no idea what we’re even agreeing to.
“What? I want to meet a player!” she whisper-scolds me.
I let out a big sigh, but we’ve come this far, and I don’t want to fuck this up for Ivy, so I reluctantly agree. They explain that by signing, we’re promising not to share any details about today with anyone until after the team shares the pictures or they’ll sue us. I’m not worth anything, but I can’t imagine why I’d tell anyone other than Ivy about today, even after the team releases their photos, so it’s not exactly hard to agree to.
When everything is signed, Lottie takes over again, looking at me expectantly. “Axel, during your entry video you disclosed that you’re gay.” I nod when she pauses, unsure why that matters when Ivy said some of the players would be the older married guys just meeting fans.
Lottie seems overjoyed by the confirmation though, clapping once before she continues with a big smile. “Perfect. We have a gay player who is looking to come out publically, and we would like to pair you up with him for a true stranger photo session, like a blind date.”
Ivy gasps as I try to process what they’re saying. I’d fully said that part expecting themnotto pick me. “So… you want to share pictures of me, what? Kissing one of the players to announce to the world that he’s gay?”
Ivy grabs my arm. “Oh my god, you have to say yes!”
“To be clear, you don’t have to do anything you don’t want to. We’re definitely not saying you have to kiss him,” Megan adds.
“But if there are any pictures that end up being… romantic in nature…” Lottie cuts in. “Then we want to release them with the images of the other players and their blind date contest winners with an article interviewing our captain about the charity he works with, talking about the contest, and how the money we’ve raised will be used. We know that the player coming out will get a lot of attention even though we all wish it didn’t need to be a big deal, so we’re hoping by doing it this way, we’ll at least be able to bring some of that attention to a good cause at the same time.”
What the fuck did Ivy get me into?
I quickly scan through my extremely limited knowledge of professional athletes as I try to come up with a response. As far as I know, there aren’tanyopenly gay hockey players, and I think even I might have heard about that if it were a thing, so this might be kind of a big deal. It sounds like this guy doesn’t want to be in the closet, and I firmly believe no one should have to hide who they are or who they love if they don’t want to, so I’d feel like an even bigger asshole than I normally am if I just refused this outright.
Maybe it would be cool to be a part of that moment in history, even if I don’t give a shit about the sport, and I’ll just be the no-name guy who’s basically a prop for whatever famous player we’re talking about. The fact that they want me to do this has to be a compliment, though, right? Iampretty hot, it makes sense why they’d want me to do this.
Hmm. Professional athletes are probably hot too. They have to be crazy fit for their career, so I doubt this would be a huge hardship for me. And they said I don’t need to do anything I don’t want to do once it starts, soif the guy ends up being a total jerk, I can walk away at any point. They might not even get a good shot, and then no one would ever know I was here at all.
I might as well see what happens.
