The first photo showed me climbing into his SUV outside my apartment building. The second captured us entering his condo building together. The angle was grainy and obviously taken from a distance, but there was no mistaking either of us.
The third image sat above an article headline that looked as though it had been written by somebody paid according to the number of exclamation marks they could fit into a sentence.
WHO IS THANE HALE'S MYSTERY MAN?!?!
Beneath it sat another headline.
NEWLY OUT NHL STAR SPOTTED WITH MYSTERY COMPANION.
I stared at the screen for several seconds before looking back up. "Mystery companion?"
A corner of Thane's mouth twitched. "I never claimed they were good at their jobs."
That almost made me laugh. Almost. Then my phone started vibrating. The sound seemed unnaturally loud in the otherwise quiet kitchen.
By the time I reached it, notifications were arriving so quickly they seemed to be stacking on top of one another.
Thirty-four unread messages. Six missed calls. More social media notifications than I'd received in the previous six months combined. My pulse kicked up.
Slowly, I opened the first text.
Darius: Dude. Please tell me that's actually you.
Then I opened a couple of others.
Unknown: Wait. Do you know Thane Hale?
Unknown: ARE YOU DATING THANE HALE???
The messages just kept coming from people I didn’t know to a classmate I'd spoken to maybe three times all semester.
The strange thing was that none of them were cruel. Nobody was threatening me. Nobody was attacking me. Most of them seemed excited, curious, or simply shocked. That didn't make it feel any less invasive.
Less than forty-eight hours ago, nobody outside a handful of professors, classmates, and former foster parents knew anything about my life. Now people were sending screenshots. Sharing links. Speculating.
Somebody had apparently already figured out my name. Somebody else had connected me to the university. It wasn't difficult. Everything lived online these days. A few photographs and a little determination were usually enough.
A knot formed in my stomach as the reality of it settled over me.
The photos weren't what bothered me most.
It was the feeling that strangers were suddenly standing in places they didn't belong. They were peering through windows that had always been closed. They were taking pieces of my life and turning them into a conversation. And judging by the nonstop vibration of my phone, that conversation was only getting started.
When I finally looked up, Thane was watching me carefully. There was no defensiveness in his expression. No attempt to minimize what was happening. Only understanding.
This wasn't new for him. He knew exactly what I was feeling because he'd been living with versions of it for years.
FIFTEEN
THANE
I could handle people talking about me. That wasn't bravado. It was experience.
After a decade of professional hockey, I'd learned how to live with headlines, rumors, hot takes, and strangers who thought they knew everything about my life because they'd watched a few interviews and a couple of games. Some days it was annoying. Some days it was exhausting. But it was familiar.
Watching it happen to Kieran was something else entirely.
The crease between his eyebrows had deepened.
