Chapter 3
They crafted the final draft together.
It was mostly Naomi, but Nathan aided in the emotional distress.
And it was...
Well, it was pretty fucking spot on.
Due to a lack of blood-relatives nearby...
Good.
Objective.
Logical.
Mr.
Sorokin kindly stepped in to pick her up and ensure she received appropriate care. Neutral.
Kind.
Non-litigious.
We ask that the privacy of our children be respected. Threatening.
Strong.
Further intrusion will be handled appropriately. Ah, yes.
The Lawsuit Warning™.
His ancestors wept as he typed the sentence about being close friends for many years. Naomi said he needed to include it to "calm the shippers." Nathan actually found a gray hair later that night when Tessa read that part aloud and cackled — again.
He was never going to hear the end of this.
Not from Maxim.
Not from Evan.
Not from anyone in the locker room in Rivermere or any future team, should he not lie down and die in Rapids blue.
Ever.
He hated every part of it, and it worked. The blogs calmed down.
The press moved on.
The secret love child rumors finally died.
Most importantly, people stopped asking his daughter if she had two dads now.
He posted it, looked at Tessa, and took a deep, deep breath.
"I'm still burning down Rivermere."
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
The Reeves Family Official Statement Regarding Recent Speculation
"With a lack of blood-relatives nearby, our family has always relied on a close circle of trusted friends for support.
Among them is long-time family friend and fellow professional hockey player Maxim Sorokin,who was listed as an emergency contact for our children.
When our daughter fell ill at school and neither parent was immediately reachable, Mr.
Sorokin kindly stepped in to pick her up and ensure she received appropriate care.
We are grateful for his help and for the attention he gave her until a parent could get to her.
We want to make it clear that this was a simple matter of logistics and trust.
Our children's well-being remains our highest priority, and we appreciate the respect of our privacy and our children's privacy during this time.
We are asking the public and the media to refrain from further speculation and, importantly, not to approach or question our young children about this situation.
They love their Uncle Maxim just as they love any other member of their extended family.
Any further intrusion will be handled appropriately."
– Nathan & Tessa Reeves
The internet, predictably, exploded.
Millions of posts.
Billions by sunset.
The top post of the day read:
"long-time family friend" is the FUNNIEST lie i've ever read.
The Rapids:
Nathan walked into hell.
He and Evan walked into a room that smelled of sweat and immaturity, and he knew — *immediately —*that he was not going to survive this.
The second he walked in, every conversation stopped.
Dead silence.
Twenty grown men looked at him like they'd been waiting.
And then the chirping started.
It was Dominic who started it, because of course it was Dominic.
"Salut, best friend!" he shouted, with the glee of a man about to ruin someone's life.
Nathan stopped dead in his tracks.
"No."
It was too late.
The room exploded.
Everyone lost their damn minds.
Absolute mayhem.
"Besties!" Sullivan sang.
"Where was my invite, Reeves?"
"Oh my god,friends for years!" Sinclair hollered.
"You guys go way back."
Nathan shook his head and tried to fight the sudden heat on his cheeks.
Tried to ignore it, mostly.
"Don't."
Nobody listened.
"Do you and Sorokin have a secret handshake?" That was from the rookie.
The rookie, who had been alive for approximately five minutes and owned exactly zero awards.
If Nathan's pride wasn't hurt before, it certainly was now.
Why the hell was the rookie chirping him?
Nathan had two goddamn Cups!
Two. He had more than earned some respect in this locker room.
"Do we wear suits or jerseys to the wedding?"
"Is there merch yet?"
"Does he have a drawer at your place?"
"Do you exchange friendship bracelets or just children?"
Nathan snapped because he really didn't know what else to do.
"Shut.
Up."
"No way you wrote 'family friend' with a straight face," Wheeler laughed.
"Dude, that's what we called my mom's boyfriend before the divorce!"
He dropped his gym bag like he was afraid of throwing it.
It hit the floor hard enough to echo.
This was hell.
This was actually hell.
"Do.
Not."
He could recognize that his voice had gone dangerously low.
He'd been on this team for years — long enough to know these guys, and long enough to know exactly what Wheeler was implying.
It wasn't just about Nathan.
It could just as easily have been about Tessa.
Her name wasn't said because it didn't have to be.
Evan, who was quietly trying to blend into the drywall, was not spared.
Dominic slung an arm around him and gave him a violent shake.
"So, Capitaine, how does it feel to know your boyfriends are best friends?"
Evan choked on air so violently that the team medic started to move towards him.
"I don't—he's not—we're not—" he sputtered.
Nathan dropped his head into his hands and tried to pretend he wasn't embarrassed as all hell.
Worse, he needed to save his best friend before he could save himself.
The chirping had always placed him and Evan as the team boyfriends, but that was just teasing.
They said the same thing about Evan and Sor's rivalry sometimes.
But somehow, this was the closest they had ever gotten to the truth, and Evan was going to crack if Nathan didn't stop it.
"Please stop talking."
"No!" Fontaine shouted.
"We will never stop talking!"
The rookie was still at it, wheezing like he had nothing better to do with his time.
"You wrote a press statement about your enemy boyfriend and you expect us to ignore it?"
Sullivan was sprawled face-down on the bench, laughing so hard he was gasping and kicking his skates in the air.
"Trusted family friend!
Man, you're in a secret polycule with Sorokin!"
"The statement was normal!" Nathan tried to defend himself, even though he knew none of this fell into the realm of normal anymore.
"And I am not secretly dating Maxim Sorokin!"
Evan was still trying to blend into the wall, but managed to mutter, "He's not secretly dating anyone."
Which wasn't even slightly suspicious.
Nathan might actually punch him for his inability to construct a convincing lie.
Not now.
Later.
Privately.
More than once.
And it wasn't even Nathan who was secretly dating someone.
Half the room turned to look at Evan.
"Oooh," Dominic smirked.
"So you're the one who wrote that line."
Evan nearly swallowed his fucking tongue.
No!
I just — No!"
Lindberg clapped Nathan on the back.
"Man, if you wanted to come out as Sorokin's bestie, you could've just said so."
"I am not—!" Nathan hadn't felt this flustered in years.
He was a well-respected man.
He didn't get flustered.
Not like this.
"I'm not Sorokin's anything!" Which, historically, was what people said seconds before they were proven deeply incorrect.
It wasn't helpful, and wasn't true.
At this point, he was practically Sorokin's brother-in-law, though no one other than Evan knew that.
The room exploded into another fit of chirping.
Someone cupped their hands around their mouth and shouted, "Does Sor know you're embarrassed of him?"
Nathan looked about three seconds away from committing manslaughter, and Evan had collapsed back onto the bench in hopes he might actually disappear this time.
"This is why they shouldn't have let him post it himself," Evan muttered.
The Colts:
The Colts' group chat had been on fire for weeks, but that was nothing compared to when the statement dropped.
It had been out for five minutes — five minutes — when Maxim walked into the locker room with the grim determination of a man walking into court.
He was almost immediately tackled into a half-hug, half-intervention, and all of them were chanting "Dad!
Dad!
Dad!"
The Kingsford Colts did not hold back.
At all.
"Maxim!" Carter sang in a voice that was almost grating on Maxim's ears.
He threw an arm around Maxim's shoulders, enjoying this too much.
"Is there something you want to tell us, bud?"
"No," Maxim grumbled, peeling him off.
"There is not."
St. Croix held his phone up like it was the holy text.
"Then why does this statement say that you and Reeves are good friends?"
"We are not," Maxim snapped.
It was bad enough that Evan teased him about warming up to Nathan Reeves — he did not need the entire Colts roster to weigh in.
"Bro!" That was Murphy, who always talked too much about things Maxim didn't want to talk about and always noticed things Maxim very much did not want him to notice.
"You picked up his child from school."
"Listen!" Maxim pointed to each of them in a fury.
"I panicked.
She was sick.
She clinged.
I am victim!"
"That's exactly what a stepfather would say," Carter said under his breath.
Maxim turned to him and threw his hands up in the air.
He wasn't doing this.
Not today.
"I do not have children!" he barked, jabbing his finger back into his own chest.
"I am not step-anything!"
St. Croix pushed his phone into Maxim's face again.
"Yeah, but the statement from Reeves..." he turned the screen back to himself, and Maxim almost wished he hadn't, because he hadn't had the chance to read it himself yet.
St. Croix whistled as he reread the statement.
"Dude, you're like, in the family section over there in Rivermere."
"I did not write that!" Maxim insisted.
Severians didn't blush — but if they did, Maxim was probably doing it right now.
As a test of science and definitely not because he was embarrassed.
"What about the part of the statement that says you've been friends for many years?"
Maxim was going to be physically sick.
He could handle being called a friend of Tessa.
He could handle being Uncle Maxim to the kids.
But admitting he was friends with Nathan Reeves was a privilege reserved for Evan Bennett only.
Not even Reeves knew that Maxim considered him a friend.
At least, he hadn't heard it from Maxim's mouth.