Page 84 of Rule 4: Never Get Stranded with a Sports Reporter

Never.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

Jason

Cal is standing with Rex and Jeremy near the baggage claim, presumably waiting for Rex and Jeremy’s bags. I force myself to resist the temptation to go to Cal and ask Cal how his flight was. I don’t need to have stilted conversation with him in front of his boss. He doesn’t either.

Instead, I slip by them.

I want to go home and shower. As much as I enjoy swimming, it will be nice to be in water and not have it be shared with fish.

I already hate the fluorescent lights and the swarms of people dragging luggage. I hurry through the baggage area, then step through the sliding doors into the main terminal.

Flashes greet me at once, and my stomach dives.

The paparazzi are here. Fucking fantastic. I give them an awkward nod, even as my whole body stiffens, and even though I want to dart back to the baggage carousels.

I might be in the NHL, and the Blizzards might be amazing, but I’ve never been the target of paparazzi before. Cal was my only experience of journalists chasing me. The paparazzi used to come to the Blizzards Arena when Finn and Noah got together, and they were a pain.

Not that they ever noticed me.

Now things have changed. It’s not a good change.

“Jason! Were you really stuck on an island?”

“Did you think you were going to die?”

“What’s it like being back in the US?”

In movies when this happens, there’s someone to shout no comment and hurry me from the crowd.

Instead, the passengers on the plane turn around to look at me. They stop their normally speedy walk out of the airport to stare.

No one is with me to help.

“You’re that guy who died on the jet ski!” one passenger exclaims.

“I’m alive,” I mumble.

He blinks. “Right. Of course.” He tries to smile. “Congratulations.”

I turn to the slew of paparazzi who’ve come to meet me, realizing they knew I was on this plane.

I scan them automatically, wondering if there’s someone here for me.

But there isn’t.

“I’m happy to be back,” I say, but I’m not sure that’s true.

How can I be happy when I already miss Cal so much? When every cell in my body is confused why he’s no longer pressed against me? When such a huge part of my day is simply... gone?

“Were you alone on the island?” someone shouts.

“Is it true you were with a gay male journalist?” another paparazzo shouts.

I stiffen. I turn back to the sliding doors, half expecting Cal to appear and confidently explain everything away.

But the only people who exit the sliding doors are strangers. Strangers who look at me curiously, some with distaste.