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He shifted over to her. He needed them, their support and their love more than anything right now. If everything went to shit, at least he’d still have them. He hoped.
Bryce put the phone on speaker and dialled. Trav picked up after a couple of rings. “G’day, Bryce. What’s up, my man?” There was noise in the background, talking and music like he was in a restaurant or bar.
“Ah, hey… I think we’ve got a problem, Trav. Can you get somewhere private?”
“Yeah, give me five and I’ll call you back.” He hung up and a few minutes later was returning his call. “Okay, hit me,” he said.
Bryce explained how the email had come in a few hours earlier, but he’d ignored it, thinking it was fishing for information on something, then the cryptic call, and his realization that they had enough on him to expose a secret he’d been keeping.
“And you never thought to mention that you’re gay?” Trav asked. “Dude, I could have at least had something ready to go so we weren’t writing it on the fly.”
“With all due respect, Travis,” Cole interrupted from his spot on the coffee table, his legs bracketing Bryce’s, “focus on Bryce. He didn’t want to inconvenience you and add to your workload, but that’s what you get paid for.”
Bryce squeezed his hand, not knowing whether it was in thanks or begging him to stop talking.
Travis sputtered with indignation and Bryce took the opportunity to explain, “I’m not gay, Trav. I’m pansexual. Ava, Cole, and I are together, not just Cole and I.”
“No one knows what pansexual is, Bryce. They don’t understand ménage relationships either. They’ll see pictures of you and Ava and say you cheated on her, or you used her. To them, you’ll be the gay player hiding behind a woman you hurt. No matter how you spin it, you’ll be the bad guy.”
Ava wrapped her arm around his waist and leaned into him. Cole threaded their fingers together and he held on tight. His heart was shattering in his chest. He wasn’t that guy. He wouldn’t hurt them. He wouldn’t cheat.
“Look, Bryce, I’m going to give it to you straight. Unless you craft your own story and head this off at the pass, it’s going to ruin your reputation. Come out as gay on Insta—we can draft up a post for you—say that Ava is your closest friend. We can get you doing some charity work for LGBT community organizations, that sort of thing. If they see you as a guy who’s coming out because it’s time, who has the support of his best friend and boyfriend, then it’ll at least work in your favour. You’ve finished your rookie year, so it makes sense that you’d choose now—before the new season starts—to come out. That way, by the time you start playing the bruhaha is going to have died down and you can get back to being you.”
“That’d be fine, except I’m not gay. I don’t want to catfish anyone.”
“How is it different to what you’ve been doing?”
“That’s not fair,” Ava interrupted, leaping to his defence. “You know exactly why he hid his sexuality.”
“I do. But trust me on this, Bryce. Do it my way and it’ll be okay. Let me get on the phone with the club and I’ll call you back.”
“I’ll speak to them,” Bryce said, wanting to make sure they got the true story, not what the tabloid press wanted them to know or his agent’s hairbrained scheme. “I can deal with it.” He could and he would, but he was shit scared too.
“Let’s conference call it then. I don’t want you on the phone without representation.”
Within an hour, Travis called him back. The team’s PR rep and Mr Denyer were already on the line when he picked up. Apparently, they’d received a similar email and had been working behind the scenes on a strategy. Concern that they hadn’t bothered to call him about it pricked his skin, wariness winding its way around him.
“Mr Flaharty,” Ellie, the team’s PR rep said without an ounce of emotion in her voice. “You’ve put the team in a very difficult position. Your relationship is about to become international news. The photos are explicit. This is not ideal.”
“Someone took photos of me on private property with my boyfriend. It’s an invasion of my privacy. Why are we not talking about that? Why are we focussing on the fact that I have a boyfriend? This isn’t fair,” Bryce retorted, frustration bleeding into his tone.
“Bryce,” Travis cautioned. “We’ve gone over this.”
“And I never agreed to do it your way,” he snapped.
“Gentlemen, our concern as a team is the fallout from this news. It’s not a good look for our star rookie to be stirring up controversy before his second season even starts,” Ellie stated matter-of-factly.
“Once again, I did nothing wrong.”
“I agree,” Mr Denyer explained, his voice full of sympathy. Despite the awkwardness between them a few weeks earlier at the fundraiser, he seemed to be on their side. That had to be good news. “However, in this case, perception is everything. There will be calls made that you’ve engaged in behaviour unbecoming of the team and the league—”
“How is being with my boyfriend in private unbecoming of the team?” Bryce exploded, throwing his hands up in the air. His frustration billowed into anger. It took everything in him not to pick up the phone and throw it across the room. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing.
Bryce tugged on the ends of his hair, trying to distract himself from the violation of being photographed without his consent in a private moment. It was Cole and Ava’s touch that calmed him. The hand on his knee and another at the small of his back. He leaned into them, the fight leeching out of him.
“Bryce, perhaps these negotiations would be better off delayed,” Travis suggested. “If we all calm down and come back to it in the next day or two, we can look at it with clearer heads.”
“I don’t have time for that, Travis,” Bryce snapped. “Some fucking idiot trespassed onto my property, they took photos of my boyfriend and I in a private moment, and now they’re threatening to expose us to the world.”
