Page 117 of Rule 4: Never Get Stranded with a Sports Reporter

“Good evening. I’m Callum Prescott with Sports Sphere. Tonight, I’m joined by Boston Blizzard winger Jason Larvik who recently survived five days stranded in the Pacific. “He’s agreed to speak with me about his experience.”

My mind shifts to the three men watching from the next room, and my palms sweat.

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

Cal

This is happening. This is actually happening.

I’m giving my first interview, like I always imagined, back when sports was the best thing in my life. When knowing sports stopped me from being bullied, when my fellow classmates realized we had things in common.

Sports was my salvation. There was nothing in it to hurt anyone. Every day, there was a new matchup. Every day, there were new stats to learn and memorize and focus on.

And now I’m here. On Sports Sphere.

The actual interview room is tiny, just Jason, me, Rex and Chloe, and the cameramen, but I’m conscious of the millions of people watching.

I inhale as carefully as I can and smooth my shirt as if the audience will be able to see the wild beating of my heart.

Jason sits across from me.

Calm. Confident. Oozing hotness.

I glance at my first question, even though I know it word for word. “Jason, your return from Fiji made headlines around the world. Can you take us back to that moment, when you realized help was coming?”

“You know, the big helicopter should have clued me in that we were going to be okay, but I’d been hopeful before and gotten my hopes crushed. My immediate thought was that I might be hallucinating. But then you were running to the beach, and suddenly the helicopter was landing.”

I glance at my next question.

“I’d dreamed about being rescued,” Jason says, continuing unprompted. “I didn’t expect I’d feel disappointed.”

I frown. “Disappointed?”

“I wasn’t ready to leave,” Jason admits.

I notice Rex narrowing his gaze.

“Not because I didn’t want to go back to work or anything. Not because I wanted my vacation to stretch on forever. I-I like work. I like it a lot.”

“I didn’t want to leave,” Jason says. “Because that meant we’d go back to the world. The world where I’m supposed to be... straight.” The last word is said so quickly I’m not sure if I misheard it.

But he said “straight.” Not “stoic,” not “strong,” not “serious”—he said straight. And I heard it. Everyone did.

Chloe has dropped her papers and she bends down to pick them up.

Jason’s eyes widen as if he can’t believe he really said it, that the words are actually out, that everyone knows.

This was not in my pre-interview brief.

I inhale. Is Jason coming out? To the larger public?

But I’m not going to make any assumptions.

No way.

“Jason,” I say carefully. “Are you saying your time on the island changed you?”

“I’m saying I wasn’t sure if I would get off the island alive. Not always. And now I don’t want to hide anymore.”