Chapter 2
1247 Words
I woke up the following morning, and I was stunned to see our pictures everywhere on the internet.
Here I am sitting in my kitchen, my coffee growing cold on the counter, repulsed, as I stared at my face on a headline I didn’t choose.
BENNICK'S MYSTERY WOMAN: IS HOCKEY'S MOST GUARDED STAR FINALLY MOVING ON?
The photo underneath must have been from the shutter click I heard but had chosen to ignore. Where his hand was at my elbow, and both of us gazing into each other’s eyes, within just ninety seconds of meeting.
But the picture seemed like we had known each other for forever. I could have stopped right there. But I did not.
Three images down and buried beneath a gossip website’s recap was another picture I never knew existed. It was the same night, just a different angle, snapped behind Dana’s back near the ice sculpture, just four minutes prior to Cole approaching me.
In it, I wasn't looking at him at all. I was staring at Dana, and she was half-turned away from me, looking at her phone.
I sat with my coffee going fully cold and stared at that second photo for a long time, because the caption under it was small, easy to miss, but written by someone who clearly hadn't been in the room.
It said: Voss arrives at 8:04 PM, four minutes ahead of Bennick.
Four minutes ahead, like I had been early for something. I hadn't even checked what time I had actually gotten there; I never thought I needed to.
But I realize now in hindsight that I should have.
I was still staring at the timestamp when my phone buzzed in my hand.
Callie: Ok WHO is this and why do I have to find out from Page Six?
I didn't answer. I set the phone face-down on the counter, like that would slow the group chats down, and then I picked it back up four seconds later because it hadn't.
Callie: REYNA
Callie: I can see you are online, so don't ignore me
Mom: Is this the hockey player you mentioned covering? He seems very serious.
Callie: Mom, he's not "serious," he's HOT
Mom: I can see that, Caroline. I'm commenting on his personality.
I typed it's a work thing three separate times and deleted it because I still had the second photo open in another tab. The one with Dana, half-turned, looking at her phone like she was waiting on an answer to something, and "it's a work thing" felt like a scam even to me.
Callie: Ok but for real, are you seeing him or is this a work thing?
Callie: Because if it's a ‘work thing’, I need you to lean into it, gal. Journalistically. As research.
Callie: For SCIENCE, Reyna
That one got a laugh out of me, a comedic relief quite common with my sister.
Reyna: It’s work-related. I only met him for four minutes at some gala event. This is insane.
Callie: For four minutes, you have all this chemistry??? Never seen journalism like this before!
Mom: Reyna. How are you? So much media attention is stressful.
Reyna: I'm fine, Mom. It's nothing. It'll blow over by tomorrow.
Mom: You always say that.
Mom: I don’t mean it in a bad way. It’s just that you say you are fine even when you really are not.
I put the phone down again because I wasn’t prepared to talk about that and definitely not in the mood to fake anything either.
I remembered exactly what she meant. I had been seventeen, three weeks post-injury, standing in front of a reporter with a microphone saying I'm fine, I'm just focused on recovery.
Yet, my ankle screamed inside a brace, and my whole future was collapsing behind a smile I had been practicing since I was nine. The words had come out smooth, but nobody in that room had known the difference.
I thought about Cole's face on the ice, the half-second before he remembered the camera was on him.
He's ‘acting’ fine too, I thought. It was an unreasonable conclusion to draw from four minutes' conversation and a handshake.
The phone vibrated in my palm again. I flipped it around, hoping to see Callie's name.
Dana Pierce: My office. Now.
Just three words. No additional punctuation; only that period was Dana's punctuation of choice—exclamation points for good news, periods for everything else.
I typed back, "Give me twenty minutes," and was about to hit send before my phone buzzed again. It was my boss.
Marcus: Heard you're the mystery woman. Don't sign anything with Bennick's people until you talk to me.
I read the message twice.
‘Don't sign anything. Not thank-you for landing the story, not congratulations on getting the scoop on the mayor's mistress, I sent him the other day.
Only an instruction sent to me before I told him anything, meaning either Marcus knew something about the evening that I didn't or that somebody told him about it.
I called Callie instead of answering either of their messages, because I needed one person in my corner to know what was happening.
"You're supposed to be at work," she said instead of hello.
"I am at work. Sort of. Marcus just texted me not to sign anything with Bennick's people."
"Sign what? What is there to sign?"
"That's the question." I scrolled through the photos on my laptop, finding a new picture from the night before that I hadn't seen yet
"There's a picture from last night I hadn't seen before; it was taken right before Cole and I spoke, and Dana is in it, staring at her phone like she just sent something."
"Ok, is that conspiracy theory or a real thing?"
"I don't know yet. That's the problem." I zoomed in on the caption again. Voss arrives at 8:04 PM, four minutes ahead of Bennick.
"Cal, I didn't check what time I got there last night. I don't actually know if that's true."
"Does it matter if it's true? It's just the gossip news."
"It matters to me."
There was a pause on her end, the kind she did on purpose sometimes, letting silence do the asking instead of a direct question. "You sound like you think somebody set this up."
"I don't know what I think yet."
"That's not a no."
"No," I admitted. "It's not."
“The thing is, whether good or bad, Marcus sending you texts even when you haven’t said a single word to him yet is not insignificant. It’s not impulsive; it means they know what’s going to happen.” Callie stated.
I hadn't thought about it like that before, but once she said it, I couldn't think about it any other way. Marcus doesn't hunt rumors secondhand. He assigned them. There's no other reason why he'd tell me not to sign something before I had told him that I was thinking about signing a document.
"I need to get going," I said. "Dana is expecting me in twenty minutes, and I'm not even close to getting ready."
"That’s okay, just text me later. And Reyna—"
She paused, and then started speaking again, her tone serious. "Really. Are you all right?"
I stared at the two text messages on my screen that I had not replied to yet, one from Dana, another from Marcus.
"Just ask me again in an hour," I said.
- Writer
