“Sorry, only gay hockey players need apply,” I said, and ate my first mouthful of pasta which, to give Jason his due, was pretty freaking awesome. He regarded me carefully, so much so I put down my fork. “What?”
“I need access to all social media accounts to ascertain levels of regular social contact.”
I blinked at him. “Huh?”
“Standard procedure is to categorize all threats.”
“My friends aren’t threats, Jesus, is nothing sacred?”
“Stalkers can be friends.”
“Not my friends.” I was being stubborn, but I knew the guys around me, and they were good people. “Anyway, why are you asking? Are you telling me you haven’t hacked my accounts yet?”
“No, we haven’t, and talking of this, your Instagram is a concern. You have over half a million followers on there, and you need to stop geotagging your posts, keep them anonymous, no backdrops with addresses, or recognizable places. Also, no videos. And no posts at parties, or premiers, or other high profile social events.”
“I don’t have any of those planned in the next two days,” I deadpanned, and he immediately frowned at me.
“I’m being serious, Garrett. Why is it you refuse to be sober and thoughtful about this situation?”
“It helps me to think that I’m going to be okay.”
“Well, you won’t be okay if you get shot in the head on my watch. You’ll be dead.”
What the fuck? “Thanks for that—”
“Stop!” He pushed aside the last of his pasta in an angry, jerking motion, and I waited because I needed to understand that sudden snap of hostility, and also to make it clear that Instagram was a tool that I used to support the team, and my charity work.
“You need to realize that a person could look at your charmed life, and buy into it to the point of obsession. You post regular photos of your local bakery, with the name of the place visible, time-stamped, you really think that people aren’t out there building a picture of your life? One that they could be envious about what you so easily have with your good looks, personality, and your lucrative career?”
That was the second time he’d called my life charmed in some way, but he didn’t know about my life, and if he said it a third time I might have to punch him.
“Okay, no more geotagging, in pictures or text, I get that,” I said, and pulled out my phone. “How do I stay anonymous on my own Insta account? Do you even understand how Instagram works?”
I could be patient with him, after all he was a good five years older than me, and maybe he wasn’t one of the Insta generation? I’d come late to it anyway. The same day I’d signed my Bauer deal I’d had to agree to Instagram so I could endorse their products. I hadn’t looked back, my stories were funny and on point. I was perfectly woke about all current issues. I re-blogged content that was relevant to hockey and LGBT causes. What could possibly be on there that would cause someone to stalk me?
He picked up my phone, entering the same code as earlier and frowning when he couldn’t get in.
Ha! I’d changed the code to something different, but my mouth fell open when he typed in a second set of numbers and the phone opened. “Your birthdate, in reverse,” he murmured, and then swiped to my Insta.
I was still openmouthed. “How in God’s name did you guess that?”
“Most people use a wedding anniversary, or if without a spouse, a memorable birthday of parents or siblings, or their own birthdate. I figured that you would think I’d try typing your birthday in first, so to catch me out you reversed the date.”
He looked right at me, and I genuinely had no comeback on that particular magic he’d done. “Well, fuck.” I mean what were the odds of him knowing that? It had to be a guess.
“Also, I was standing behind you when you typed in the new code.”
“The hell?”
He wriggled the fingers of his free hand. “Ninja. So, you’re not on Twitter, or Facebook.”
“No. Just WhatsApp to chat, and Insta for the promo stuff.”
“And your super…”
“Secret gay hockey group.”
“That. You have friends in there that I need to be concerned about?”
I thought about the people in the group, my closest friends, the guys I cared about, the ones who had my back if I needed them. “No.”
“Nevertheless I’ll run background checks on the names in here.”
“Yeah, I can totally see hockey players from thousands of miles away sending me a dead bird, flowers, and then deliberately flying all the way up to Vermont to scratch words into my car before heading back to their teams and hoping no one notices they weren’t at home playing hockey where they were supposed to be.”
“I’ve seen it happen before.”
“Hockey players, dead birds, and car vandalism?”
He raised his eyebrow at me, and I had to hold in my snort of laughter. For all his intensity, he had this way about him that made me think under his armor he might be a funny guy. “One of my recent Canadian clients had a stalker in the UK, who flew out especially to harass her.”
Oh. That was not a funny story. “Shit. Did you get him?”
“It was actually a her. It was cousin a few times removed who did one of those online DNA tests and discovered she was related to our client. She decided that given the client was rich, then she deserved a payout. It got ugly, but in this day and age, with the Internet and international travel, stalking and harassment isn’t just done by the guy around the corner.”
“So wait, you’re saying I could have a sexy British stalker?”
“That is what you’re taking from my cautionary tale?”
“I was joking, but more importantly you’re suggesting that I could have someone doing this to me who isn’t even on mainland USA?”
He regarded me thoughtfully as if he was considering what to tell me. “Our first instinct is always to look closer to home, and when you’re a celebrity in the spotlight, then it’s with a frustrated fan, or an ex that we start with first. Anyway, we changed the subject somewhere along the line, so tell me more about the auction and the charity.”
Had I changed the subject? He still had my phone and I held out my hand for it, only happy when it was back in my pocket. Then I thought about how important Hockey Allies was and I slipped into my comfortable place talking about what I hoped to achieve from taking part.
“Do you play sports?”
“College baseball, Calgary, just one year though before I joined the military.”
I filed that information away in the mental dossier I was building on Jason, imagining him in those baseball pants, all skin tight and… stop it. I pulled myself back to the important things in my real life.
“Then you know that sport has the power of bringing people together. I bet it didn’t matter if your college team won or lost, because dedicated fans were behind the team. Am I right?”
“Yeah, they were.”
“There have been a ton of studies that show following a team, any team, and taking part in peripheral events can give people a sense of community. It can energize each person and give them a sense of belonging. That’s the overarching explanation of why sport is important.”