“I know.” Florian beams, thenkisses my cheek for the umpteenth time.
His mother looks at the menus. “Let’s have Thai food.”
After everyone else agrees, Gina calls the restaurant to order the food.
The Thai food is delicious—lemongrass and coconut. My throat burns pleasantly. Clearly pre-amnesia Florian had good taste in takeout places. His parents volunteer to get the food. I pull out my wallet, and his parents look horrified, and Florian tucks it back into my satchel.
My body tenses.
My manifestation book is inside my satchel.
Florian’s hand is inches from discovering that I’m carrying a book titled:How to Manifest Your Ideal Boyfriend in 30 Days or Less (Even If You’ve Tried Everything). Why would a man who has a boyfriend carry a manifestation book on how to get a boyfriend? And, oh God, what if he sees my exercises? Where I listed the qualities of my dream guy that are too close to Florian’s qualities?
But Florian removes his hand from my satchel, and my shoulders ease.
Is this all my fault? Because I wanted a boyfriend who had some similarities to Florian? If I hadn’t written those things in the workbook, would Florian have woken up and just have been grumpy that I was in the room with him? Worried that people might think he was gay by my presence? And I would have had to hurry away, the encounter every bit as awkward as I thought it might be when I came to the hospital?
Perhaps Florian would still be unconscious.
No, there is no world where that would have happened. Florian is an exceptionally healthy man. Of course he was going to wake up. Of course.
“What are you thinking of?” Florian asks.
“About the hospital,” I admit.
His eyes round. “Oh, mi amor. You were worried about me, weren’tyou? I am so sorry I put you through that.”
“It wasn’t your fault.”
“I will try to pay more attention on the ice in the future.”
“It wasn’t your fault. That player came out of nowhere.”
“Then I will make sure to be extra scary on the ice in the future so no player dares hurt me again.”
My eyebrows jump up, and I giggle.
Florian kisses my cheek.
“Oh, my god,” Annika says. “You are disgusting.”
I stiffen, but Florian laughs. “You are jealous, Annika.”
“Perhaps.” Annika scrutinizes me with the vigor she probably uses to detect anomalies in any cells she looks at under microscopes.
I shift my legs, then square my shoulders, because perhaps cowering is a bad look when I’m trying to pretend that I’m not lying to her brother, not lying to her, not lying to her brother’s parents, not lying to the whole world after Florian announced to the paparazzi that we are dating.
Because people have totally noticed.
People are making videos of us.
They only have the video of us at the hospital, since Florian ran whenever he saw me so predictably, but they have found every picture of me on the internet and are creating slideshows and comments.
A player declaring himself to be gay is a big deal. Perhaps multiple players in the Blizzards are gay, but there are no other players on any other team who are gay or bisexual. At least none who are out.
None.
Florian was already in the news because he was lying in the hospital unconscious from a hit that so many viewers watched live. People were already speculating on his health and researching him.
