Chapter Eight #2
He checked his phone as he returned to his office. He’d put it on loud after he left the school in case Charlie needed him, but he hadn’t bothered to check his messages. He had several from Edwards, Tom Crowler, even from Trout. Shit.
Interestingly, Trout had written, Want me to cover for you?
The phone pinged again, this time a message from Charlie.
Are you picking me up, or do I take the bus?
Shit. What time did school end? Three? Three thirty?
No matter what, it would be at least forty minutes to drive from Palo Alto to Charlie’s school in Cole Valley.
Ben grabbed all his shit and power walked to the garage.
He shot off a message to Charlie to tell him he was on his way, knowing he would be late.
Day one of guardianship, and Ben had failed the first test.
Traffic was a bitch, of course. No one should drive in San Francisco. The hills were as close as nature got to telling off idiots in motor vehicles. When he pulled up in the lot, he found Charlie sitting on the curb, scrolling around on his phone.
“Sorry,” Ben said as Charlie threw his backpack into the back seat and slumped into the front. “Lost track of time.” Lost track of the day as well, not that he would be admitting to it.
Charlie shrugged.
“How was school?”
Again, Charlie shrugged and turned away to look out of the window.
Bad, then.
“Did you make any friends?” Ben hated himself the second he asked it, but he had no other repertoire of questions in this situation.
Charlie looked away from the window for long enough to shoot him a baleful glare, and then resumed watching the slow crawl of houses and hills.
They didn’t talk for the rest of the drive.
When they got to Phil’s, Charlie went straight to his room and shut the door.
Ben had an hour, maybe two, before he had to start getting ready for the game tonight.
He had a clearly upset teenager locked in his room, a research dead end in the case he was working, and no clear path forward for the rest of his life.
Should he uproot Charlie again and try a school in some other city where Ben could get a job?
Somewhere small enough the rent prices wouldn’t bankrupt him?
But a smaller city would be worse. At least here, the school administrators knew what being transgender meant and treated Charlie with respect even if the kids didn’t.
But if Ben couldn’t crack Trout and the betting scheme, he had no reason to stick around. The job market in the Bay area was competitive enough that Ben had doubts he could find something in time.
He kept the door to his room open so he could hear if Charlie left his and then logged back on to the betting site.
Fishfordinner hadn’t placed any new bets since Ben had last checked.
What else could Ben do at this point? He had a timeline; he had screenshots.
In an empty document, he started typing up what he’d witnessed at practices, how Trout would shout at and belittle the D-men, what drills he would run.
Phil would be better at remembering those. Ben should ask him.
But using Phil as a star witness wouldn’t help at this stage. There wasn’t enough evidence. Some sports coaches just behaved like sociopaths. Heck, Ben’s PE teacher frequently shouted at and belittled his students, and they weren’t even being paid to be good at sports.
At four, Ben heard the thump of Phil’s crutches downstairs.
“Ben?” he called up the stairs. “Ben, you home? I saw your car outside.”
Shit. Phil. He’d be so mad Ben had missed practice this morning.
Trout must have run roughshod all over the team, and Ben had gotten so caught up in his own issues he ignored Phil’s livelihood and priorities.
It was unacceptable behavior for a roommate, let alone a friend, which Ben hoped they were by now.
“Sorry,” Ben said from the top of the stairs, hoping to preempt Phil’s anger. “I lost track of the day. I thought today was Wednesday and the game was tomorrow. I should have checked my calendar—”
He turned the corner on the staircase in time to see Phil frown.
“Today was Charlie’s first day at school, right?” Phil said. “Of course you didn’t make morning skate. How did it go?”
Ben grimaced. “Well, he wouldn’t talk about it, and now he’s hiding in his room, so I’m thinking not great.”
Phil wrinkled his nose. “Shit. Don’t suppose he wants to go to the game, then?”
He might, actually. He’d had a good time the other day, had talked about it the whole way home.
But Ben considered how Charlie had drawn in on himself on the car ride, how he’d sunk into his oversized shirt—shit, he really needed to take Charlie clothes shopping—and doubted Charlie would want to be surrounded by tons of screaming sports fans right now.
“Did you make it to Marisa’s office?” Phil asked.
“Yeah. Everything is signed and filed. Now we wait, I guess.”
“Hmm.”
Ben reached the bottom of the stairs. “You should sit. Your knee—”
“I’m supposed to put as much weight on it as I can,” Phil said calmly. “You should sit. You look terrible.”
Ben snorted. Always great to hear that, let alone from someone who looked like Phil. Ben was still working through the embarrassment of being literally unable to converse with the man while he operated a leg press.
It wasn’t his fault Phil’s thighs were magnificent.
Ben had been under too much stress to think about sex for months, but for some reason as the stressors ratcheted up and up and up, the notion of planting his face between Phil’s legs and staying there formed a relief from everything else Ben couldn’t handle.
“Is it only everything with Charlie?” Phil asked, hobbling toward the couch in a clear bid to get Ben to sit down with him.
Ben fell back into the section of cushion he’d claimed in the few weeks he’d been staying here, the one next to Phil’s corner.
“No,” he admitted. He wanted more than anything to tell Phil all about it—Trout and Pulvermacher and the betting site and how Phil’s knee and professional future were a casualty to other men’s greed, and Ben was trying desperately to prove it.
But if he did, Phil would be so angry. He would be well within his rights to kick Ben out of the house, and then what would happen to Charlie?
Phil’s mouth opened. He was about to ask again, and Ben wasn’t strong enough to keep lying.
“But it’s mostly everything with Charlie,” he said hurriedly. “I need to figure out where Charlie and I are going to live and what I’m going to do. I don’t know if I’ll even get legal guardianship, and then what? Then he’ll be alone again.”
“You’re living here.”
Ben rolled his eyes. “Yeah, right now. But we’ll have to leave soon.”
“Says who?”
Basic human decency? “Me. I say so.”
Phil sighed deeply as though Ben was being too ridiculous for words. “All right, so you’re staying home with him tonight.”
“I can’t. It’s—”
“We’re playing Chicago. They’ve been rebuilding for a decade, and it hasn’t stuck. The team can pull it off in their sleep. I’ll go in, do some armchair coaching, and keep an eye on Trout. You fix the kid.”
Ben closed his eyes against the sting of relieved tears. “Seriously? You’d do that?”
“Of course. I told you. As long as you’re here, I’ll take care of you. Both of you.”
For a long moment, Ben looked up at Phil, willing him to become less sincere.
He didn’t.
Ben rocked to his feet, grabbed Phil’s face between both hands, and kissed him hard.
Ben had been under the impression Phil knew Ben wanted to kiss him pretty much always, but especially when he insisted on being a disgustingly good person.
Nonetheless, the shock made one of Phil’s crutches fall to the ground, and he clutched at Ben’s shoulder for stability.
He didn’t pull away to pick it up. Instead, he let Ben take his weight as he leaned into the kiss.
Ben wrapped his arms around Phil’s middle, held him close and steady, and tilted his head enough to open his mouth, get their tongues entangled.
That was when the kiss turned savage.
Before Ben knew it, he was gripping Phil’s waist hard enough to feel the clench of muscles under his hands. He licked his tongue over Phil’s over and over again, and Phil sighed into his mouth as if he’d never felt anything so good.
Ben wrenched himself away.
Without his support, Phil wobbled on his feet. Ben ducked to pick up his crutch and handed it to him.
“Thanks,” Phil said, his voice quieter than usual. Weak.
“Anytime.”
Shit, why had he said that? He couldn’t start drive-by kissing Phil anytime he felt like it. He didn’t want Phil to think he would. “Fuck, I don’t mean— I mean, I won’t. I know you’re not…ugh.”
“I’m not what?”
“Gay.”
Phil blinked. His eyes seemed somehow darker and shinier than usual, as though Ben kissing him had relaxed him. “Oh. Well, no. But I like when you kiss me. I really like that you didn’t apologize this time.”
What was Ben supposed to do with that?
Phil smiled sweetly. “You should do it again sometime.”
“I…” Ben could muster precisely zero sensible words in response.
Resettling his crutches, Phil headed for the stairs. He wanted Ben to kiss him again.
Ben remained standing exactly where Phil had left him in the living room, percolating on the thought of kissing Phil again.
Phil came back downstairs, now wearing a deep burgundy suit with a crisp, eggshell-colored shirt with black checks and a skinny black tie. The look would have been incredibly fashionable in Ben’s twenties.
He still hadn’t moved, even though Phil had taken at least ten minutes to dress.
Now, with Phil standing before him, the lean, toned lines of his body encased in bespoke menswear, Ben remained rooted to the spot.
Phil looked like some sort of mirage a teenage Ben had dreamed up when he’d imagined a future where he could be with another man, and he wanted Ben to kiss him again.