Page 130 of Puck You Both

Devon looks at me, then at the donut situation, then back at me, and elects, visibly, to bank it rather than spend it. I make a note to fear that account.

They start peeling off around eleven, phase five arriving of its own accord, everyone carrying containers of leftovers they've been instructed to return. Washington and Leila go first. At the door, Leila kisses my cheek and says, "I’m impressed."

Becker leaves last, backwards, still talking, whiteboard under one arm, and we can hear him in the hallway all the way to the elevator. The second the doors slide closed behind him, three phones ping at once.

I check mine.

Becker changed the group name to: WOLVES PACK (+2 STRAYS).

Becker added: P.G.

Becker added: Theodore.

Three seconds later, Leila produces the first record of a new era.

Leila Washington: I have known since the diner photo. I want that on the record.

Theo, reading over my shoulder from inside the blanket he's annexed, lets out a low whistle. "Since the diner. That's like day one. That woman should run a government."

"She does," I say. "You just joined it."

My apartment falls into post-crowd quiet, warm and wrecked, marker fumes and candle smoke lingering in the air, and the three of us end up at the window, drinks in hand, and my chest is doing a thing I've stopped bothering to deny, because from right about this moment, I don’t have to anymore.

The team knows. The team knows, and the standings say I won, and nobody left, and nothing broke except a serving bowl I didn't like anyway.

Which is when Theo, scrolling one-handed, goes still. He turns the phone around without a word.

A social media account. Few followers, fake name. A photo from the gala, the three of us in the frame, standing in the orbit I spent all night avoiding, and a caption doing a lot of work with very few characters.

three's company? :eyes_emoji: :ice_hockey_emoji:

The numbers under it are small.

"Okay," Theo says, quiet now. "So we, what? Lawyer up? Log off? Start a rumor that it's a fantasy football league?"

Patrick's watching the city, not the phone. The lights go all the way to the lake, and somewhere out there, tonight, a few hundred strangers are apparently deciding what we are ahead of us.

"Or we decide what the truth looks like," he says, "before someone decides for us."

Theo's shoulder settles in against mine on one side. Patrick's stays where it is on the other, one inch away, close enough I can feel his heat.

There's no phase six in my plan.

Good thing I'm not the one running this one.

Chapter 25

PATRICK

I'VE PLAYED ENTIRE seasons with less preparation than this.

Berg's office, eight in the morning, and I have talking points. Sequence, fallback positions, an answer drafted for every question the man could reasonably ask and four he couldn't. I requested five minutes and brought Lindqvist along, because I need them both to hear it from me, and that’s the only way to do that in Gossipville.

Berg looks up from his line sheet. "Well?"

I take one steadying breath and rip the band-aid. The quicker, the better. "I'm in a relationship. With two people. One of them is Moreau. The other is Wallace. It'll most likely be public soon, and I wanted you to have it first." I deliver all of that on a single exhale.

Berg's eyes go to the ceiling for a moment, like he’s doing math, maybe. Or locating an emotion. "Does it affect your glove side?"