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“Eh, Sam, you may want to answer that.”
Yes, I better answer as the knocking was now turning into hammering and more shouting came from Paula. I was pretty sure security would have been called by now judging by how loud she was. Getting up, I nervously went to the door, unlocking it and as I opened it Paula, Katelyn and Matthew came bursting in. My entire PR team was here.
“Well, you really fucked this one up, haven’t you!” Paula shouted as she stepped into the room. I swear the vein on her forehead was bigger than ever before. It was very likely it might just explode this time.
“You made a complete utter mess in one single fucking night! Sam, do you know how hard it is to hide a player like you away from the media?! IT'S EXTREMELY DIFFICULT!!!”
“Sorry, Paula, I, eh…”
She tossed her hand up at me to make me stay quiet. Paula usually did the shouting and screaming. Katelyn was more or less the one who dealt with the press releases. But then Matthew… I wasn’t always sure what he really did, other than listen and take notes.
“Now the media is having a field day! Captain of the Vancouver Devils hiding in a small city with champion figure skater Kimberly Morgan,” she paused to look at Kim who was dumbfounded, still in bed. “Lovely to meet you by the way, I’ve heard a lot about you.”
The Paula switch, it was scary how quickly she changed her moods. With Kim, she was as calm and collected as she could be, but then she turned her face back to me, her anger almost to a boiling point.
“It was just a harmless selfie, we can easily spin it and say I was here visiting friends and they just happened to be guests or something for the wedding and I was the plus one.”
“Katelyn, show him.”
Katelyn handed over the iPad she always carried and swiped across to show not the selfies at the wedding, but photographs of Kimberly and I outside the hotel, in a very compromising situation. Looking at Kim now who seemed to be scrolling through her phone wearing the same expression as me, I knew we had just seen the same thing.
“Oh, no,” was all she said as she continued to look through her phone.
Both of us realized at the same time what a mess this was now going to create. Sitting down on the edge of the bed, I flicked through the photographs. There were multiple ones of us sitting on the bench talking, some of us kissing, my hand on her ass then on her thigh. I had been stupid to think there wasn’t going to be some photographic evidence of me at some point.
“Word is, someone spotted you at some café and followed you to the hotel. They were lying in wait. The photographs are everywhere. Chris isn’t impressed either, Sam.”
Paula finally appeared to calm down. Chris was my manager and the one in charge of the hockey team, he was most likely going to kill me as this had now turned into a big media mess. I had to somehow fix it. For the team and for Kim.
“What do we do now then?”
Kim asked as she got up out of bed and wrapped herself in one of the hotel bathrobes. She didn’t look at me for a minute and in that minute, I felt a little shameful. This was my fault, and I should have known better.
“We have a few ideas, but one of them, we think is the best choice to make,” Katelyn said as she took the iPad back.
“We should spin this angle; you guys have a history together and if we use that to our advantage. Get you back in the rink and have Kim show up to some of your games, watch your comeback and we tell the story that you are both dating.”
“But we’re not. We’re just friends.”
Kimberly stepped in and I felt like I had been stabbed in my heart. We may not have been dating, but I was hoping at some point we could get to that stage in our relationship.
“Yes, we understand that Miss Morgan, but we now need to back track and fix this. If you had both been discreet and not sat outside, then this might have been avoided. But now we are in damage control.”
Paula was always assertive and knew just what to do with these types of situations as it hadn’t been her first, especially not with me. I felt bad when I thought about how many times we had to spin a line because I had been caught red-handed with a woman, worse when it wasn’t the person I was meant to be dating.
“So, how long have we got to put up this charade?”
“Ummm, give or take a few weeks and then we can slowly let the ‘relationship’ fade. Sounds good to you?”
I didn’t make eye contact with Kim as I was starting to feel maybe last night was just because of the drinking and she was already regretting it. Katelyn and Matthew started work almost instantly, calling for room service to come and clean up the dirty plates, bring up breakfast and coffee. They set their laptops up on the table, working on the mess I had made once again.
We sat in silence for the most part. Kimberly changed in the bathroom shortly after I did. It was a little awkward now as she tapped her fingers loudly on her phone and ignored all the phone calls that came through. We figured out the unknown number that had been calling was Paula. How she got Kim’s number I’d never know as that woman was good at finding out things and keeping secrets. She should have worked for the FBI rather than the NHL.
“Right, we’ve booked you an interview with channel six sports news. We will have you talk about your break, how you met each other and what’s next on the cards for your hockey career.”
“I’m sorry, but we? We won’t be doing that. I must head back; I have a skating lesson to teach.”
Kim stood with her arms crossed as she stared Paula down. I didn’t blame her though; she had been tossed into this world because of my stupidity. Paula didn’t stand down and for a minute I thought it was going to become a potential show down until Paula sat down.
