Chapter 2
Polished and official and not the version he'd already typed, which read:
STOP ASKING MY CHILDREN ABOUT THEIR UNCLE MAXIM OR I SWEAR TO GOD—
Which, okay...
strong opening sentiment, but according to his agent, "not professional" and "potentially threatening." God forbid he approach this like a hockey player would.
No, that was "legally concerning" or some other kind of bullshit "not meant for the public." His family wasn't meant for the damn public, but here they were anyway.
He rubbed his face so hard he was fairly certain he'd wiped his stubble clean off.
No need to shave today.
"Why is this my life?" he asked no one in particular.
Maybe the universe, or whichever god was currently laughing at him.
Tessa snorted and set her cup down, hands warm and steady on his shoulders.
"Because you decided to put Maxim as our emergency contact," she replied, with far too much joy.
Nathan wanted to shrink into a bug just so he could be deliberately stepped on.
"That was a joint decision," he argued, because it was.
He and Tessa were a team.
They made decisions about their children together, including — but not limited to — who went on the emergency contact list.
His beautiful, stunning, aggravating wife just hummed and rubbed his shoulders.
"Yes," she agreed.
"But you suggested it.
And turned in the paperwork."
He groaned again and slammed his face down on the table.
For the next two weeks, Nathan suffered through two steps of PR crisis management.
He absolutely refused to admit any of it.
Step One:
Accept the situation.Over his dead body.
He refused.
Step Two:
Write the statement anyway.This step nearly killed him.
After three weeks of near-constant questions, he cracked his knuckles and started writing.
He would never ever admit how long it took him.
And if he did, it would only be to prove how hard it was to say something nice about Maxim Sorokin.
"In light of recent events–"He deleted that as soon as he typed it.
Too formal.
Too stiff.
Not a single person on the internet would believe he willingly typed and posted that.
"Regarding the photos circulating–"Nope.
That sounded like someone had leaked his nudes, and he was not interested in adding another rumor on top of whatever the hell people were already saying about Sorokin.
"Maxim Sorokin is NOT the biological father of my children."He deleted that one so fast he probably sprained his finger.
Nathan Reeves ended up slamming his head onto the counter again, and this time it landed with a thunk .
"Oh my god." This was the worst day of his life.
He had broken ribs on the ice, the birth of his last child was almost catastrophic, and this was the worst day of his life.
"How do I make people stop being weird?"
"You don't," Tessa said casually, flipping through her magazine like she couldn't care about his meltdown any less.
"You just redirect them."
If he didn't value his life, and if he didn't love her so damn much, Nathan would have started yelling.
Fantastic.
Wonderful."
Tessa had also been dealing with this for three weeks, and he knew that.
People were making plenty of jokes about him and Sorokin being secret lovers, but people meant it when they speculated about Tessa.
They thought she was having an affair.
He knew it was worse for her.
She set her magazine down with a huff, and suddenly Nathan felt really, really bad.
"Call Naomi," she said.
He shook his head hard enough to count as whiplash.
"Absolutely not." If there was one thing he was not going to do, it was call Naomi Bennett and ask how to make the public stop speculating about him fucking her son's boyfriend.
Tessa raised a brow — her mom look.
"Do you want this done correctly?"
Nathan resisted for not even five seconds before he caved.
He VidCall-ed her, because he knew Naomi didn't answer texts from panicking men.
Unless it was her son, but that was predictable and understandable.
She picked up on the first ring.
"Nathan," she greeted with a smile.
Her tone,however, suggested she knew exactly what was going on.
"Do you need help constructing your alibi?"
Nathan scoffed at the insinuation.
He expected this kind of chirping from Evan or Tessa, but Naomi?
"I do not need an alibi!" he snapped.
"It's a statement."
Naomi just hummed, which he hated because it made it feel like she was his mother and not his best friend's.
A line that, after all these years, had blurred in ways he hadn't expected it to.
"And is the goal to convince people that you are not in a throuple with Tessa and Maxim?" she asked.
He swore he died on the spot.
Soul gone and body unfortunately still present.
The last thing on earth he wanted to think about was being in any kind of relationship — poly or otherwise — with Maxim Sorokin.
And Tessa...
Tessa just laughed at him.
She was wheezing.
"Can we focus, please!" Nathan begged.
He didn't think either of these women were taking this as seriously as they needed to.
"My kids are being questioned at school.
Reporters won't stop calling.
Someone made an Picto edit of Maxim Sorokin rocking my child like he was auditioning for fatherhood!"
Naomi blinked at him with a faint smirk on her lips.
"I'll need the link to that."
He was going to lose his mind.
He'd already lost his mind.
This wasn't real.
It had to be a nightmare.
He surely had to wake up soon.
"No."
"Nathan." It sounded like she was chastising him.
Like he was a toddler.
"This is extortion." It wasn't his proudest moment — not as a father and not as a man — but Nathan huffed and sucked his teeth like a petulant child.
"Fine. I'll send it."
Naomi was already pulling out her laptop on the other side of the screen, a grin lighting up her face.
"Good!
Now read it out."
Well, his night was far from over.
He already knew she was going to cut him off after the first sentence.
There was a reason he'd called her instead of his agent.
There was also a reason his agent was so cheap.
Reluctantly, he opened his draft and read it aloud.
He didn't think he'd been so self-conscious in front of his wife since the first time she'd seen him naked.
"Maxim is a friend.
We trust him with our children.
Please do not harass our kids about this.
They are minors."
He read the whole thing in a painfully flat, monotone voice.
It sounded like a fucking hostage script.
There was silence.
Tessa wouldn't look at him.
Even Clara had stopped her babbling as if she were silently judging him and wishing that Maxim Sorokin really was her biological father.
Naomi sighed and rubbed her forehead.
"That's very sweet, dear.
Very heartfelt." She paused as if she was choosing the words that wouldn't set him off before she realized anything was going to set him off.
"It's also completely useless."
"It's honest!" he argued.
"You need proximity without implying intimacy," Naomi told him.
Sometimes, Nathan wondered if the Bennetts used big words just to fuck with him.
Even worse was the fact that Tessa always nodded along like a student taking notes.
"Something vague, but warm enough that no one cares to investigate further."
Nathan could feel his hair turning gray.
He was half convinced he'd be bald after this call.
"What the hell does that even mean?"
"It means you need to say..." Naomi looked upward, exasperated.
For not the first time, Nathan realized she kind of was his mother at this point.
"You need to say, 'we've been good friends for many years.' Placate the romantics."
The water he'd been drinking went straight into his lungs, and suddenly he was coughing like he'd never get another gasp of oxygen.
"Absolutely not!"
Friends for many years. Nathan was barely friends with Maxim Sorokin even in impolite terms, and he wasn't going to put that into the world when people were already claiming he was sharing his wife with the motherfucker.
"You are good friends!" Tessa called over her shoulder as she headed toward the bedroom to put Clara down for the night.
"We're not—" Maybe death by a thousand cuts wouldn't be so bad.
Maybe this was worse.
"Oh my god, we're colleagues!"
"Nathan." Naomi was firm with him now.
There was no more room for arguments, and he probably needed her to be firm — he didn't think he'd get it done if she wasn't.
"You let the man babysit your children.
Because of Evan or not, he's your friend.
Unfortunately, you have to tell the world that now, unless you want people to keep thinking he's sleeping with your wife instead of your best friend."
Pissy was not an adequate enough word to describe what Nathan was right now, but he knew she was probably right.
She was definitely right, actually.
That was proven by the simple, horrifying fact that she was willing to discuss her son's sex life for the sake of optics.
Maxim Sorokin was Nathan's friend, and now it was public knowledge.