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Matt
What he’d told Chris wasn’t a lie. Matt didn’t technically work for Sports Illustrated – but whenever he walked into one of their office locations, he still usually enjoyed the experience of being folded into the workplace banter and the busy environment. It suited him to feel like he was in a super-productive place. Today, however, the day after they’d slept together? He felt like the office was simply stealing him away from Chris.
He didn’t need to meet with his commissioning editor right now. He was sure he’d write a killer article no matter what, at this point. He’d have all the material he needed – but of course, these things were formalities that you couldn’t just cancel.
With any luck, this would be a cut-and-dry thing. He was an established writer, and Chris was a rising star. The combination was likely to make for a killer, magazine-shifting article no matter what he wrote. Surely they didn’t need the formality of the meeting, laying out angles and word counts and all that extraneous bullshit? They could organize the rest of the magazine around this lead piece anyway.
However, walking through the office soon became something more than an irritation. There were pockets of people talking everywhere, and a couple of them had given him knowing looks. He might have passed it off as excitement about the Knoll article in general, had one of his occasional colleagues not nudged him with her elbow and nodded at him as she passed.
“Big news for you this morning,” she said. “Hope it hasn’t fucked up your angle.”
“Wait, what?”
But she had already gone, and now he was left wondering what the hell was happening. Had the Rangers rearranged the team? He stood to one side, pulling out his phone, and suddenly realized that leaving it on silent since the meeting last night had been a huge mistake. There were a lot of notifications here – and they were all about Chris.
Chris and a mystery man, seen holding hands outside his apartment building last night.
“...Shit.”
He ran a hand through his hair, allotting himself 30 seconds to think it all through. Clearly, this ‘mystery man’ was Matt. But how had the media learned about them? Did Chris think that it was him who’d spread the story?
Fuck.
A few minutes’ more investigation suggested that some fan had seen them in the lobby and photographed it. The wrong people had retweeted the photo on Twitter, and now – well. A slightly obscured photograph of the back of his head was everywhere, and thank God nobody had made the connection yet, but... yes, it was undoubtedly Chris Knoll holding hands with a man. Looking at that man like...
Shit. Like that. Matt couldn’t help but smile as he remembered the way it felt to look directly into those eyes – but the smile died a moment later as he realized how dire this situation could become, and pretty fast.
This was his fault, to a degree. Of course, they’d both held hands outside, and that was foolish, but had it not been for Matt, then this wouldn’t have happened. It was always a good and healthy thing to learn about your sexuality, of course, but could Chris have potentially found a better time to do it, in more privacy? Without media scrutiny on all sides? With someone who could be more patient regarding his hot-and-cold moments?
He sighed. Well, it was a moot point now. This had happened, and they were going to have to deal with it. He just hoped that Chris trusted him enough that they could deal with it together.
For all he knew, this was a tipping point that would force Chris to push Matt out of his doorway for good.
