I had no idea what anyone was talking about, and I could tell from the look on Theo’s face that he didn’t either.
“Um… what are you talking about?” If I didn’t need my phone to communicate with people, I’d throw the damn thing away. While some of the texts I’d gotten were lovely, there were too many awful ones to feel good about it. Both Theo and I pretty much avoided our phones as much as possible.
“You haven’t gone to your joint account since you posted?” Quincy asked.
Theo and I glanced at each other before turning back to the group and shaking our heads, no. I didn’t even know the guys on the team had seen the video.
“Holy shit! Okay, you’ve gotta see this.” Quincy pulled out his phone and pulled up TikTok.
Theo put up his hands and said, “Dude, don’t show us anything hateful. It’s too soon…”
Quincy shook his head while he typed away on his phone. “I won’t go into the comments, though you might want to read some of them. I’m just going to show you the numbers.”
Quincy displayed his phone, and my heart nearly stopped.
“Ten million views?” I shrieked.
“What the hell? Is this real?” Theo asked.
“Hell yeah, it’s real!” Quincy minimized the video and then scrolled to the top of our account.
We had 150,000 followers. “Oh my God,” I whispered. “Can I see?”
Quincy handed me the phone, and Theo leaned in closer. The video had been reposted tens of thousands of times. We had close to two hundred thousand likes. I did the unthinkable and clicked on the comment section.
You boys are the absolute cutest!
I love you!!!
You’re both so brave. Please post more.
You inspired me to come out to my team. Thank you.
I’ve added all of your games to my calendar so I can cheer you boys on!
MORE KISSING! MORE KISSING!
There were hateful messages, too. The f-word was used a bit, but it was followed by a gazillion comments from people telling the person to go eat a dick, or something to that effect.
Each negative comment had way more replies telling the person to leave us alone than celebrating it.
“I can’t believe this,” I said, completely in awe.
“Believe it,” Quincy spoke with a smirk. “And check your freaking DMs because there might be brands who wanna give you free hockey gear!”
I didn’t care about the free stuff. My mind was on the words of encouragement. The love that emanated from the comments was unbelievable. Never in my life did I expect that to happen.
“Should we post something after practice?” Theo asked.
“Uh… I guess? I’m speechless.” What would we even say? Give an awkward thumbs-up and say thank you. It was crazy and wonderful at the same time. It was weird and unsettling, yet deeply healing. I never thought something like that could happen.
I looked at Theo, and I could see he was just as gobsmackedas I was. “Are you okay?” I asked.
He looked at me and said, “Baby. I’m always okay when I’m with you.” Then, his lips met mine.
“Haven’t you faggots learned your lesson yet?”
I ripped away from Theo to see Mason standing across the locker room, glaring at us. “It’s bad enough your ass is plastered all over the internet. Do you need to subject us to PDA, too?”
