Chapter 5
Elliot POV
The rest of the morning dragged in a way that made every minute feel heavier than the last. Sebastian stayed in the other room making call after call, his voice low and steady through the closed door while I remained in the living room trying not to look at my phone. Every time it buzzed, my shoulders locked up. Most of the messages still came from the same unknown number, short, cold lines designed to keep me off balance, each one landing like a quiet threat I couldn’t answer.
Sebastian finally came back into the main room around midday. He looked tired around the eyes but still focused, the kind of focus that didn’t leave room for hesitation.
“We need to go out,” he said.
I looked up from the couch. “Where?”
“Somewhere public. Quiet. Enough people to see us together, not enough for a scene.”
“I don’t want to be seen with you.”
“I know. Do it anyway.”
I stood. The words settled like something I already knew was coming. “This is the part where we pretend.”
“Yes.”
I grabbed my jacket. My real suppressants still hadn’t arrived, and the ones I had left were running low. My skin felt too sensitive, every brush of fabric sharper than it should have been, and being near him only made the undercurrent of heat worse.
We left the apartment and took the elevator down in silence. Outside, the air was cold and sharp, the kind that cut through the lingering fog in my head. Sebastian’s car was already waiting at the curb. He drove us to a small café about fifteen minutes away, nothing fancy, not empty either. A handful of people sat at tables with laptops or newspapers. Two of them glanced up when we walked in. One of them clearly recognized Sebastian.
We sat near the window. A server came over, and Sebastian ordered coffee for both of us without asking. I didn’t correct him. When the server left, I kept my voice low. “People are looking.”
“That’s the point.”
“I hate this.”
“I know.”
We sat in silence while the coffee arrived. I wrapped both hands around the cup just to have something solid to hold onto. The heat seeped into my fingers but didn’t reach the rest of me.
Sebastian watched me over the rim of his own cup. “Your suppressants are still failing.”
It wasn’t a question.
“I’m managing.”
“You’re not. I can tell.”
I looked away toward the street. “Don’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“Act like you already know everything about my body.”
He was quiet for a second. Then he said, “I can smell it. That’s not the same as knowing everything. But it’s enough.”
My jaw tightened. I hated that he was right. I hated that sitting across from him made the low heat under my skin worse instead of better, like my body still hadn’t gotten the message that this man was the last person I should be close to.
A man at a nearby table pulled out his phone and angled it slightly toward us. Sebastian noticed immediately.
“Don’t react,” he said under his breath.
“He’s taking a photo.”
“Let him. One photo of us sitting here is better than ten rumors about a sudden marriage.”
I forced myself to stay still, eyes on the table, hands steady around the cup. The man eventually put his phone away and went back to his own coffee.
Sebastian leaned forward slightly. “We need to talk about the next few days.”
“What about them?”
“You’ll stay at my place. I’ll handle the league contacts. You don’t speak to anyone from the medical staff without me present. If someone from the league reaches out, you tell them to contact me.”
“And if they don’t listen?”
“Then we use the marriage registration. That’s what it’s for.”
I stared at the wood grain of the table. “This still doesn’t feel real.”
“It is real. The paper is real. The protection is real. The rest we deal with as it comes.”
I looked up at him. “What do you want from me long-term?”
Sebastian didn’t answer right away. He turned his coffee cup slowly between his hands, eyes on the dark surface of the liquid.
“I don’t have a full answer yet,” he said finally. “I know I don’t want them to take your career. I know my body already decided something about you that I can’t ignore. The rest is still unclear.”
“That’s not good enough.”
“It’s the truth.”
The honesty in his voice made it harder to argue. I hated that too.
We finished the coffee in silence. When we stood to leave, the same man with the phone watched us walk out. Sebastian put a hand lightly on my lower back as we went through the door, brief, calculated, just enough for anyone paying attention. The contact lasted only a second, but my body reacted anyway, a sharp flare of awareness that made my teeth clench.
In the car, I said, “Don’t touch me like that again unless you have to.”
“Understood.”
He drove us back to the apartment without another word. The rest of the afternoon stayed quiet. Someone delivered a bag with my clothes and the real suppressants. I checked everything carefully- labels, seals, the familiar packaging- before taking a fresh dose. It helped, but not as much as it used to. The edge of sensitivity under my skin only dulled instead of disappearing.
Evening came. Sebastian cooked something simple, and we ate at the counter without talking much. The tension never fully left the room; it just settled into the spaces between us like another piece of furniture.
Later, while I sat on the couch with my phone, another message came in from the same unknown number.
Playing house won’t stop the file, pretty boy. The commissioner still gets everything.
I showed it to Sebastian. He read it once, then set his own phone down on the coffee table.
“They’re getting desperate. That’s useful.”
“How is that useful?”
“Desperate people make mistakes. I’ve already started tracking the numbers. One of them leads back to a league contractor. Not high-level, but close enough.”
I stared at him. “You’re investigating them.”
“Yes.”
“While we’re pretending to be married.”
“Yes.”
I leaned back against the couch. The weight of the last twenty-four hours sat heavy in my chest: the broken stick, the locker room, the messages, the marriage registration, and now this quiet war being fought through phone numbers and protection clauses.
Sebastian watched me for a long moment.
“You’re allowed to be angry,” he said.
“I am angry.”
“Good. Stay angry. It’s better than freezing.”
I looked at him, the same man who had stood over me on the ice less than a day ago, the same man who had caught the scent I spent years burying, the same man who now sat across from me in his own apartment with a legal marriage tying us together on paper.
“I still don’t trust you,” I said.
“I know.”
“And I still don’t like you.”
“I know that too.”
“But I need this to work.”
He nodded once. “Then it will work.”
Outside, the city kept moving, lights flickering on as evening deepened. Inside, the quiet felt heavier than it should have, thick with everything left unsaid.
I didn’t know how long this arrangement would last. I only knew that for the first time in six years, the secret was no longer only mine, and that changed everything.
