Moskins
I’m hyperaware thatWinter hasn’t made it inside after twenty minutes of me shaking hands, signing pictures, and posing for photos with fans in front of a Fireflies backdrop spanning at least six feet along the back of the tables set up for me, Clarkson, and Head to use during our meet-and-greet session.
After another five minutes, I’m searching the space as a middle-aged woman tells me all about how her husband recently left her for a younger woman. I nod along, pretending like I’m listening when I actually couldn’t give less of a rat’s ass. If she thinks I’m going to offer to warm her bed tonight in sympathy, she’s mistaken.
“Here you go,” I tell her, sliding a recent headshot of me in Fireflies gear toward her. I’d gone in for team photos at the beginning of the summer when the official lineup was made public. Right before the images of me and my bartender friend made their way onto cyberspace, followed by the onslaught of past flings that followed. “If you’ll excuse me, I—”
“We haven’t taken a picture!” she says as I round the table and walk toward the entrance. “I paid for a picture!”
I’m sure one of her hands would wind up in places that would get me sued if the roles were reversed, so I don’t care about fulfilling her little photo shoot fantasy. “All donations to the Historical Association are greatly appreciated,” I call out, eyes scanning the crowd of people mingling and laughing and sharing drinks and stories of God only knows what.
My gut is tight, telling me something isn’t right. Winter should have come inside by now, even if she felt awkward being here. Being aroundme. She would have rolled her shoulders, held her head up, and walked in like she owned the place, just to prove that she could. Something must have happened.
A hand grips my upper arm, and a low voice with a thick accent asks, “Where do you think you’re going?”
I turn to Mikhail, who showed up only minutes after I arrived, to greet the people getting our autographs. He had to play the proud father role, after all. He’s all smiles and friendly conversation as he talks about the upcoming season, but I know he hates this shit as much as I do. Maybe even more. Because his face may be split with a smile, but his eyes are dark, empty pits that offer no friendliness. He doesn’t give a fuck about these people. He couldn’t care less about Fairbanks. He wants money and power, so he simply pretends like he gives a rats ass about those who could help him get there.
I jerk my arm back out of his grasp. “None of your business.”
“It is my business, considering I paid a substantial amount of money for you all to be here,” he counters aggressively. “So you need to go back and do exactly what you’re supposed to be doing with the fans. We have tickets that still need to be sold for the rest of our preseason games. I expect a majority of those seats to be taken. Do you understand me?”
Everything is about money to him. I’m half tempted to write him a check with seven digits just to get him out of my goddamn face. “I need to make sure that—”
“Your little blond-haired friend left,” he informs me with pointed eyes. “She knows this is the last place she should be, which means she’s far smarter than you.”
My shoulders go rigid as I take a step toward him until our shoes touch. “What did you say to her?”
He scoffs at me, as if the notion is preposterous. “I didn’t need to say much of anything. You always do a perfectly good job at fucking yourself and everyone around you over.”
What the fuck is that supposed to mean?
Before I can ask, he pulls his phone out of his pocket and shows me an article already pulled up on his phone.
It’s a picture of Winter. Fromtonight. She looks shell-shocked as someone takes her photo. And the one printed beside it, under the large bold headline plastered on a famous tabloid site, is me standing a little too close to her, staring at her mouth.
“Shit,” I cuss, grinding my teeth as I scan the headline.
Thomas Moskin, 35, who is set to begin his new journey with the Fairbanks Fireflies in a matter of days, seems to be a busy man off the ice with a mysterious new blonde. Sources say the woman has been seen entering his new Connecticut residence and spending time in public together with him and his wife.
What. The. Fuck.
“This isn’t what it—”
“Looks like?” Mikhail finishes for me, no expression on his face. “Isn’t that the story you always weave?”
No, it’s not. Usually, I openly admit that I’m a scumbag. That I did sleep with the women I’ve been photographed with. But not this time. This time, it’s none of his goddamn business what’s going on between Winter and me.
I stare at the image of Winter with Emaly at a café. That must have been when my wife gave her our numbers. “They’re friends,” I inform him, choosing to move the narrative in a different direction and gesture toward the picture. “Why else would they be hanging out? Not everything has to be about me being a douchebag. Winter has nothing to do with any of this. You know, there are people willing to sell any story for a quick buck, whether it’s true or not.”
“And what about this?” he inquires, his accent thicker than usual tonight. He seems confident—like he knows where he’s got me.
My eyes go down to his phone reluctantly.
There are photos.
So. Many. Photos.
The first I see are pictures of me and Winter at my front door. Then of me pulling Winter into my house and closing the door behind us. These were the ones taken from the Uber driver that Ashton told me he took care of. But how the fuck did he manage to do that if Mikhail is showing them to me?
