someone found out the CFO was screwing the wives of two other senior employees. Though I mostly tuned it out, I was aware of it, and I was admittedly both curious about it and annoyed by it. Whoever was at its center probably didn’t want their business whispering through the company grapevine, but… I mean, look. I was as human as anyone else. I had as much morbid curiosity as the next person. When people were spun up over something, it had to be interesting, even if I also acknowledged it was obnoxious and intrusive.
I didn’t have to wait long to find out what it was.
Shortly after I came back from my morning break, someone tapped a knuckle on the side of my cubicle wall. “Hey, McKenzie, you got a minute?” Bill. He was probably annoyed that I’d kicked back a couple of his expense reports and told him that, no, he couldn’t expense room service, entertainment, or his room after he’d chosen to extend a conference trip into a vacation for him and his wife.
I turned around. “What’s up?”
“Just wondered if you’d seen this.” He gestured with an iPad, then put it on my desk and pushed it toward me. “When were you going to tell us you were hanging out with Jase Kelly?”
My heart jumped into my throat. “Uh…” I picked up the tablet.
On the screen were two photos of Jase and me. In one, we were walking out of one of the bars where we’d hung out with the team after some home games. I was tugging my jacket on and Jase was putting his wallet in his pocket, glancing back at me as I looked at him. If I remembered right, I’d just asked him if he’d parked at the stadium, and he was confirming that he had. Ooh, salacious.
The other image had been taken on a different night, since I was wearing a different jersey and Jase had on a different jacket, but it was fairly close to the same venue. In fact I was pretty sure it was just a couple of nights ago. The image showed us standing at a corner, waiting for the crosswalk light to change. Jase was in the middle of gesturing and saying something, and I was watching him, hands in my pockets as I listened. There was nothing incriminating in the photos—just two guys standing or walking close enough to be captured in the same frame. Plenty for a bored tabloid reporter to spin with some wild speculation, but it wouldn’t exactly have stood up in court.
The headline, of course, was full of that spin and speculation:
Snow Bear Jase Kelly appears with mystery man, fuels renewed speculation about sexuality.
More from the headline than the photos, my stomach turned to lead.
Really, guys? You’re really gonna go there just because you saw two guys in public? Leave him alone.
But I kept my reaction to myself and just shook my head as I handed back the tablet. “They’re really creative with those headlines, aren’t they?”
Bill took the tablet, but he watched me skeptically. “But you’ve really been going out with Jase Kelly?”
“Going out?” I laughed. “Yeah, like, going out and hanging with his teammates after games sometimes. What? You think we’re dating just because someone got a few pictures of us?”
“So…” He tilted his head. “You’re not dating him?”
“Nah, it’s nothing like that.” Every tender spot Jase had left on my body wanted to light up like some kind of visual lie detector test, and I was pretty sure my face was lighting up. “Remember a while back, that thing he put together for Dallas’s birthday?”
My coworker nodded.
“We’ve been talking about doing that for other kids.” I paused, then tipped my hand a tiny bit farther. “And we’re friends. But it’s nothing like…” I gestured at the article.
“Aww.” He looked as crestfallen as he sounded. “Here I was thinking we’d have Jase Kelly at this year’s Christmas party.”
I laughed halfheartedly. “Sorry?”
“Damn.”
As soon as he’d left my cubicle and I was alone, I looked up the article myself so I could actually read the text.
Appearing multiple times in public with an unknown man, Snow Bears forward Jase Kelly once again has people wondering about his sexuality and his romantic life.
The hockey player, 29, is notoriously tight-lipped about his private life. Two years ago, he was at the center of several scandalous rumors originating from his split with actress and model Lila Spaulding, who insisted during multiple interviews that her estranged boyfriend was