Chapter 1

“We want you to create a StarGreet account,” said the new PR manager for the Mariners. “It’s part of our new fan engagement initiative.”

The silence stretched between them as Caleb stared at her, part of him hoping this was a joke. But her expression remained perfectly serious.

Caleb had never gotten into social media even in the early days when a lot of his peers had been sharing every intimate detail of their lives online. Part of it had probably been that the idea just inherently didn’t appeal to him, but part of it had been that by the time social media had become a thing, he’d known he was headed for the PHL. And he’d known that the last thing he needed was some scandal in his personal life to affect his career. Which had become doubly true when he’d realized that he was absolutely, definitely gay.

Triply true when he’d accepted that he was absolutely, definitely gay for Dmitri Volkov.

His Lumin was mostly him sharing official posts from the team or the foundation, but even if he’d wanted to start posting about his personal life, he wasn’t sure where he’d start. His life was mostly hockey and Dmitri. He couldn’t post about the latter, and as to the former, he presumed fans would get bored if he just posted about the results of every game. There were dozens of websites for that kind of thing. He could share photos of his meals, he guessed, but he was fairly certain that trend had died years ago, and besides, Dmitri already gave him enough shit about his diet even when he hadn’t made it his whole personality.

So Caleb didn’t really post on Lumin or Flux or anywhere else for that matter. He sometimes talked to fans in person when he ran into them in the street or after a game, and he was…awkward, he knew that. He appreciated that fans were passionate about hockey and the team, but it was always weird to get ambushed when he was just trying to buy his groceries. He made an effort to be polite, of course, but he’d never been naturally outgoing or comfortable with that kind of attention. Small talk with strangers had never been his strong suit.

Caleb had never asked Dmitri what he did when he ran into a fan in public. He was probably delightfully charming and gregarious and took selfies with them. Caleb was abruptly certain that if he searched, he’d find thousands of selfies fans had taken with Dmitri, the other man grinning widely or winking at the camera.

Thinking about Dmitri smiling made something go gooey in Caleb’s chest, so he determined he had to stop before the PR manager thought that he had positive feelings about joining StarGreet.

“May I ask the reason why?” Caleb asked delicately. A very diplomatic response, he thought, when what he wanted to do was scream and run from the room. He kept his expression neutral, though his fingers twitched against his thigh.

“Ethan Shaw’s videos have generated significant positive engagement,” she explained, her tone all business. “It makes fans feel more invested in the team when they get a personalized message from one of its players.”

When she said **invested**, Caleb suspected she meant in the monetary and not the emotional sense, but his first thought was whether it was actually wise to blur the lines between players and fans like that. Caleb appreciated the fans, but he also appreciated some distance between them and his personal life, and he was sure he’d have felt that way even if Dmitri hadn’t been in the picture.

“Why me?” Caleb asked, though he already knew the answer. She gave him a look that suggested she thought he was being deliberately obtuse.

“You’re the captain,” she said with the patience of a teacher talking to a particularly stupid child. Which Caleb maybe deserved because he certainly wanted to whine like one.

“I could post more on Lumin,” he suggested instead. He didn’t love it, but it was better than having to awkwardly figure out how to tell individual fans happy birthday over and over again. The beauty of social media was supposed to be reaching everyone at once, wasn’t it?

She shook her head. “It’s the personal touch we’re looking for,” she said. “Fans can’t get that from an Lumin post.” She paused and looked him straight in the eye. “It will be good for the team.”

Caleb suppressed a groan. This wasn’t his absolute worst nightmare—that honor was reserved for far more catastrophic scenarios—but it ranked uncomfortably high on the list. At least they weren’t live videos, so Caleb could watch them back and rerecord them if he sounded like an idiot on the first take.

“Okay,” Caleb agreed at last. “If it’s good for the team.”