Page 136 of Brace and Chase

I wonder where to start, then I decide to just go for it.

“So, remember how you brought me here to enlighten Nikolay to all the pros of retiring?”

“Yes,” she says slowly, eyes turning into slits.

“Well, I ended up enlightening him to the pros of gay sex instead?” I say like a question and wince. “And I might have told him about that favor the day you benched us and he moved in with me.”

She’s completely still for the longest ten seconds of mylife, then a smile that’s dripping with smug satisfaction takes over her face.

She leans over her desk, takes the phone receiver, and pushes a couple of buttons without saying anything.

“Hey, can you come up here? Yes. And bring Santa, will you?”

She hangs up then turns to me.

“That’s not even the important part,” I tell her. “Silas found out a tabloid is going to post a... compromising picture of us tonight, right before the game starts.”

Her face turns to stone, and her words are like bullets.

“How fucking compromising?”

“Oh, we’re not fucking or even naked in the picture.”

She expels a big burst of air.

“Then don’t scare me like that!” she snaps at me.

I raise my palms in surrender.

“Sorry, sorry,” I mumble.

“So Silas knows already?” she muses as she leans back in her chair.

“Yes, he told us a few hours ago that we need to figure out how we want to deal with it, but he did say we had to tell you so...”

“And you drew the short straw,” she says with a snort.

“Something like that,” I hedge. There’s no way I’m telling her about Nik’s ridiculous bet, or that I went with it—like an idiot.

“Well, that was Silas I called, so we should be able to sort everything out soon enough.” Then she loses theamused expression and looks at me seriously. “I’m sorry this is happening.” I can hear true regret in her voice, so I nod back just as seriously.

“It’s not your fault.” I shrug.

“You’ll need to tell the team too,” she says with a wince. “And Laney.”

“Yeah, we’re gonna tell them after we’re done here. We didn’t want to say anything because we didn’t want to fuck up the team’s mood again, but...”

“It’s out of your hands now,” she says decisively when I trail off.

“Exactly.”

The door opens right then and Nik walks in, Silas right behind him.

“Let’s get to work. Silas, tell me what you know.”

“Right,” he says, completely focused as he looks down at his tablet and tells her about the specific tabloid, then shows her the picture and explains everything about his contact and all that.

“So, how are we handling it?” She directs the question to all of us.

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