The Fear Is Paralyzing

Quinn and Mario sat in their office with Noah going over the contract that sat in front of them. He tried to explain to them the legal jargon without confusing them too much. “Does this all make sense?” he asked them, looking between the two of them.

Quinn nodded, not saying a word to him. She felt like she could throw up. She wasn’t sure she was making the right choice, but after talking it over with Noah, this was what they had come up with, and she had to go through with it.

“So all that’s left is to sign?” Mario asked, looking up at Noah. Noah nodded his head, and Mario signed on the line.

“Quinn?” Noah said, wondering if she was backing out of it as she just stared at the last page the top of her pen in her mouth.

She started to move her pen towards the page when the door to their office opened, and there stood Kris. “You’re seriously going through with this?” he asked, outraged. Quinn spun her head to look at him, unable to believe he had barged in like this. She hadn’t talked to him since he had walked out on her. “You’re just going to give up the team because of us?”

Quinn’s eyes widened as she listen to Kris rant. He didn’t know that Mario knew anything about the two of them. Yet, he was going on and on about their relationship in front of Mario. “Kris, stop!” she told him loudly and forcefully. She looked over at Mario, apologizing. “I’m sorry about this,” she said before looking back up at Kris. “We’ll talk about this later.”

Kris shook his head at her, not caring that he was completely out of line right now. Here he was standing in the team owner’s office, not listening to what they said. All he knew was that he couldn’t let Quinn sign away the team to her step-brother. “No, Quinn, listen to me, you can’t do this. You can’t give the team to Dean!”

Mario looked between Quinn and Kris. “Maybe you two need some time,” he glanced up at Noah, who nodded his head in agreement.

“No,” Quinn said immediately before the two men could leave. “Kris, stop it. I’m not giving the team to Dean, okay?” she spat out before Kris started talking again.

He quickly stopped whatever he had begun to say and looked at Quinn. “You’re not?” he asked, looking between her and the contract in front of her. “But, what’s this then?” he asked, pointing towards the piece of paper.

“I’m giving part of my share of the team to Mario,” she told him. Mario walked back over to where his contract was sitting, nodding his head at Kris, letting him know it was true. “Now if you’d like to leave, I’ll talk to you about this later where it’s more appropriate,” she told him, giving him a look that clearly told him he needed to leave right now.

Kris didn’t say anything, but instead nodded his head as he walked towards the door. He turned around as he put his hand on the door handle. “I’m sorry,” he apologized to everyone in the room before walking out.

“What was that all about?” Noah asked, looking at Quinn. “Did you not tell him what you were doing?”

Quinn shook her head. “No, I didn’t,” she said, but she didn’t elaborate anymore than that, deciding that neither of the men really needed to know what was said between her and Kris. “So where were we?” she asked. “Oh right, signing it,” she said. She didn’t waste any time this time in grabbing the pen and signing her name on the line. “There, done,” she said, looking at Mario and Noah.

“That’s all I need,” Noah told the both of them. “Let me know if you need anything else,” he added.

“You know you’ll be hearing from me soon,” Quinn told him. “As soon as Dean has figured out what I’ve done,” she added with a light laugh. Noah nodded his head, bidding the two of them goodbye before leaving the room. Quinn turned to look at Mario. “So, do you have the PR people ready for this disaster that’s heading our way?” she asked him.

Mario nodded his head and gave her a reassuring smile. “I’ve already filled them in on what’s about to happen. They’ll be talking to you at some point today or tomorrow to make sure they know all the details and try to figure out what could possibly happen with Dean. They’ll be talking to Kris after that and telling him not to say anything to anyone. He will not be speaking to the public until they want him to. The same goes for you,” Mario ordered. “That’s all up to them and what they think is best for everyone involved.”

“Thank you,” Quinn told him. “For supporting me, for supporting this. It’s not fair that you have to deal with this, you didn’t do anything to deserve this.”

“Either did you,” Mario assured her, putting a hand on her shoulder. “And, we’ll make it through this just fine. The entire team will, so don’t worry about it too much. I do think you need to go talk to Kris, though, set him straight before he does something he shouldn’t,” he told her.

Quinn nodded her head. “I’ll go do that,” she told him, grabbing her keys and purse from her desk and going out to her car. She tried calling Kris as she was walking down the stairs, and fortunately, he answered the phone. “Hey Kris, I was just wondering where you were. I was hoping we could talk now,” she told him.

“I’m at home,” he said with not much emotion in his voice. She didn’t know exactly what was going on with him, but she was about to find out.

“I’ll be there in a few minutes, I’m just getting ready to leave the stadium,” she told him, getting in her car. She drove to his place and was getting in the elevator just a short time later. She knocked on his door, and he opened it moments later. “Hey,” she said softly as he moved aside to let her inside.

“Hey,” he said, not saying anything more than that.

She turned around to look at him. “I think I owe you an explanation,” she said, and he nodded his head, waiting on her to continue. “I didn’t sign the team over to Dean. I actually signed part of my share of the team over to Mario,” she began, telling him what he had already gotten when he had been in the office with them. “I wanted to give Mario six percent, make him majority owner. That way if anything ever happened and for one reason or another I started making poor decision based on us dating or whatever, he had the power to stop me, to overrule me. Or if Dean tried to take over my ownership that he couldn’t be majority owner. He didn’t want to do that, though. So we agreed on me giving him five percent. That way we’re equal partners,” she explained. She waited to hear Kris’s reaction to the news, but he stayed there quietly, just looking past her at the wall. She wasn’t sure if he was thinking of something or what exactly was going on. “Kris?” she finally broke the silence. “What are you thinking?”

“Why didn’t you just tell me?”

Quinn sighed as she shrugged her shoulders. She knew he wasn’t going to be happy that she hadn’t even mentioned it to him before she went ahead with it. Not that Kris really had a say in the matter at all. “Well, you were pissed at me from before,” she began.

“That’s not an excuse,” Kris countered. “You knew I cared about this, about you, about the team, about whatever decision you were going to make. You knew I would want to know.”

“I know, Kris,” she said, sighing once again. “And, yeah, I fucked up on that one. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. But, I thought you’d be happy that I didn’t sign it over to Dean. I’m keeping the team. Doesn’t that mean anything?” she asked him hopefully.

Now it was Kris’s turn to sigh. “Oui, je suis heureux,” he said. When Quinn looked at him with a puzzled expression, he translated for her. “Yes, I am happy,” he repeated in English.

“Please don’t be too mad at me, Kris. I was just trying to do what was best for everyone, including you. I love you so much,” she told him without thinking. In fact, she didn’t even pay attention much to what she had just said until she saw the look on his face. It was at that moment that she started to repeat what she had said in her head, and her stomach dropped. That was the first time either of them had said ‘I love you’.

“Je t’aime,” Kris replied, but Quinn didn’t know what he had just said. She had thought multiple times before that she needed to have Kris teach her some French, and it was more important right now than ever before. She was absolutely dumbfounded, wondering what he had just said to her when she had said such important words to her. A smile formed on Kris’s face as he watched her try to figure out what he had said. “I love you, Quinn,” he told her, and Quinn couldn’t hold back the smile on her face this time.

He leaned down, kissing her on the lips as she reveled in the feeling. The two continued to make out, letting go of the fight they had been having as he walked her back to his bedroom, shutting the door behind them as he began slowly taking off her clothes.

***

As they laid next to each other, still naked, Quinn turned over to face him. “There’s something else I need to talk to you about,” she told him.

Kris chuckled. “You had to ruin the moment, didn’t you?” he asked her.

She lightly hit his chest. “Shut up,” she said. “This is pretty important.”

“I’m all ears,” he told her.

“It’s about the press,” she began.

Kris shut his eyes, not wanting to talk about this right now. But, he knew it was a big deal to Quinn, so he was going to listen to her. “What about the press?”

“The press is going to be all over us when Dean reveals what’s going on. I talked to Mario, and he’s getting the PR people on it ahead of time. So, they already know what’s going on between us. They’re going to be the ones to deal with the press. They don’t want you talking to anyone,” she told him.

“That’s fine,” Kris shrugged his shoulders. He had never been a fan of talking to the media, so if he was being told to stay away from them, he would happily oblige.

“The PR people will be getting in touch with you soon to talk about what you should and shouldn’t do,” she continued.

Kris could tell she was getting flustered, and he knew she was worried about what was going to come about from Dean telling the whole world that she was dating someone on the team. He kissed her temple lightly. “It’s going to be okay, Quinn. I promise you that. Do you think we should tell the team?”

Quinn hadn’t thought about that before. She slowly nodded her head. “Yeah, that’s probably for the best. To hear it from us before they hear it from the media. Do you think it’d be better to just have you tell them? Instead of both of us?”

“That’d be the best option,” Kris said, knowing that while some of his teammates could care less that he was dating Quinn, there were also some that were not going to be happy with that. And, Kris would prefer if Quinn wasn’t there for those conversations. “And, we might want to tell our parents.”

“Shit,” Quinn cursed. “I didn’t even think about that. My mom and Garrett don’t even know about us. How are your parents going to take the news? That you’re dating the team owner?” she asked him, lifting her head to look up at him.

“They’ll be fine with it as soon as I tell them how happy you make me,” he told her, and she couldn’t help but smile at that statement. “What about yours?”

“Honestly, I don’t even know, but I want to tell them before Dean ousts it to everyone and they find out that way,” she told him. She laid her head back down on his chest. She wished she could stay there forever, but she knew that wasn’t possible. Instead, she had to go back to reality and face the world.