Chapter Thirteen #4
“When I still lived at home, I had this teammate,” he found himself saying.
Eric, Phil remembered now. Ever since the name had come to him some three hours after Ben left him standing in the steamed-up, humid bathroom, he hadn’t been able to forget again.
“He was on my U15 team, and he never showered with the rest of us. One day, someone joked he must be gay and afraid of getting a stiffy, and it stuck.”
Jax snorted. “Ah, yes, what every gay teen wants. Pubescent assholes who smell like wet hockey pads and Axe body spray.”
Phil looked pointedly between him and Tom. “Something about that must work for you.”
“Tom’s an outlier.”
Tom flushed a little, possibly with pride.
“I never said anything, back then. Not to help him, and not to him. I was so…” Phil sighed and sipped at his tea. It burned his tongue. He took another sip anyway. “I was so relieved when everyone looked at him and not at me.”
“Phil…” Tom set a hand on his shoulder.
“Not because…I mean, I didn’t know this about myself then.
I was just sick of being the Black guy on the team and always being a good sport about it.
With him there, they had someone else to talk about.
” Phil took another sip and let the tea burn his tongue.
“I think maybe I didn’t want to be even more different. So I never…”
“Never?”
“Never looked too closely or thought too much. I thought, so what if I wanted to fuck guys sometimes? I stopped acting on it when I got drafted, and I liked dating women, so I figured it was just a phase. I thought I’d be fine if I could ignore it.”
“Seems like you’re not so fine about it now, bud.”
“Yeah, thanks, Jax, I noticed.”
“I think what he means is, what brought this on now? Is there…someone?” Tom asked.
Caught out, Phil stayed silent.
“Because if there were, it would be cool,” Jax added hurriedly.
“I don’t think I can talk about it yet?” Phil didn’t mean for it to be a question, but he didn’t know the etiquette in this situation.
He knew outing other people was bad. Some dumb kid on the Arizona Prairie Dogs had done it on Twitter a few years ago and gotten major backlash.
Phil also literally couldn’t tell Tom and Jax any of the specifics about his situation with Ben.
Unless they got married, in which case he might have to.
He contemplated asking if really, really wanting to marry another man made him count as bisexual.
Then he realized it would be the stupidest thing he’d said all day, and he had already said a lot of very stupid things.
“I thought I was way more chill than this,” Phil admitted.
Ever loyal, Tom told him, “You were very chill when I came out to you.”
Phil snorted. “No, I wasn’t. I had a crisis afterward, wondering whether I’m a terrible friend and a homophobe, and that’s why you didn’t tell me for years.”
“Phil.” Tom looked stricken. “It’s not your fault I’m so messed up.”
“No, but it’s a little my fault I’m so messed up.”
Jax rolled his eyes. “It’s neither of your faults society is messed up. You’re just both the type to blame yourselves.”
Eyeing him warily, Phil asked, “And what type are you?”
“Oh, I get angry at everyone else and then at myself,” Jax said easily. “I’m not a paragon of good gay mental health or anything.”
Tom looked over to Jax slyly and laughed, and then Jax laughed, and Phil couldn’t help but laugh along as well.
It wasn’t funny. But some mixture of the relief at having said out loud what he’d been refusing to admit to himself for the majority of his adult life, and the absurdity of sitting here, on the ludicrous couch in Tom’s awful apartment with Tom and his boyfriend while Phil contemplated getting a husband, bubbled over in his stomach and turned to laughter.
“What do you need, Phil?” Tom asked when they had all calmed down. “You want to talk more? Is there anything we should know? Any, uh, labels you’d prefer?”
Phil shuddered at the thought of finding more words. “I think we can call me bi and leave it there.”
“Nice,” Jax said and offered him a fist bump, which Phil accepted even though he thought it was dumb.
“Can we talk about hockey now?”
“Always,” Tom said. “How are you liking the PK?”
“Eh.” Phil wobbled his hand from side to side. “You’ve got Breezy on the power play and the PK. That’s a lot for him. Have you thought about Mats?”
Jax and Tom traded a wordless look of skepticism.
“I know the third D-pair has a shit plus-minus,” Phil said. “But a plus-minus doesn’t take into account who you’re on the ice with. Third D-pair is always out with the fourth offensive line, and their backcheck is nonexistent. I think if you give Mats a chance, he’ll up his game.”
“Either way, the third and fourth offensive lines need work,” Jax said. “Howie’s taking too many penalties.”
“He’s an agitator. It’s his style.”
Phil shook his head at Tom. “I can’t believe you’re defending him.”
“He’s Tom’s pet rookie.” Jax poked at Tom’s side. “They have sushi dates and everything.”
“Oh? More than one?” Phil raised his eyebrows at Tom. “I hope you ask out all the other rookies, too, or they might feel left out.”
Tom laughed. “I think Luca would bite my head off if I tried to give him helpful tips about life in the NHL.”
“He does give off this intense…” Jax snapped his fingers, looking for a comparison. “Wet cat energy.”
“Yeah, he’s prickly for a guy who’s got it made.”
“How so?” Phil asked Tom.
“One month in the NHL, and he’s playing in the first D-pair and on the power play. He’s good with women, and he looks like that…”
“Aw, do you have a crush, babe?” Jax looked delighted at the thought.
Tom scoffed. “No way. You’re high maintenance enough for me.”
Jax’s mouth dropped open in mock affront. “Excuse me? Did you really just say that?”
“So what if I did?”
“Tom…Constantine…Crowler,” Jax said between pokes at Tom’s stomach.
“Okay, I don’t have a middle name, and if I did it would not be Constantine,” Tom said, squirming to evade Jax and laughing all the while.
Abruptly, Phil realized he had interrupted two guys who had gotten back together very recently, alone at home and on a rare day off.
He finished his tea amidst a few suggestions for how to tighten up the third line, and then he made his excuses.
If watching the easy way Tom let himself be teased made Phil ache for something so uncomplicated with Ben, well, that was his business.