Devan shook his head. “She’s a professional sports reporter. Surely she isn’t stooping to trying to get shit published in trash newspapers.”

River shrugged. “She kind of hates me now.”

“She has the means and the motive, just as much as anyone else who hates River. More so maybe, because it's really personal.”

River slumped down in the office chair, glaring down at his crotch. “This is your fucking fault.” I resisted the urge to laugh. He looked up at Dev. “What do we do?”

“Did you contact the PR department for the IceCaps?” River nodded. “Your lawyer? Tony?” Tony was River and Rigby’s sports agent.

River blew out a breath. “Yeah. Tony chewed me out but he’s going to keep an eye out, see if he can head any stories off at the pass.”

Devan shrugged, grabbing me and pulling me back into his body, like waiting this long to hold me had been a hardship. I rested back into his chest. This was nice. Sure, there was probably always going to be more drama, but there was more support.

“I’ll get my lawyers to start the paperwork charging Marissa with assault and getting a restraining order. The woman obviously needs help, and I’d like it if she didn’t get within two hundred yards of Nova and Huey ever again. Then all we can do is wait, and see where this whole clusterfuck lands. Maybe that pap didn’t get any good photos?”

I snorted. We weren’t that lucky.

Chapter Thirty-One

RIVER

The following day, and the one after, was surprisingly calm. I got hauled over to the executive arm so they could grill me about what had happened, but there was no way they could come at me for this. I’d just been walking through the park with my girlfriend. She’d been attacked. We’d done nothing wrong.

But the PR people were grumpy at the best of times, so they mean-mugged me the whole time but eventually agreed. It helped that there was nothing in the papers or even really on the web about the incident. No one had recognised me from their phone footage, obviously, because it wasn’t even trending on social media.

It was a fucking relief, but like the chickenshit I was, I avoided taking Nova out in public for a couple more days. Instead, I planned a make-up date. I wanted to show her that my life wasn’t all drama, and I had the perfect idea.

Both public and private.