Chapter Four #3
Luca sank low in his seat, the back of his neck uncomfortably hot.
By unspoken agreement, no one on the team mentioned Vanderbilt’s extracurricular activities, even though everyone knew about them.
Luca didn’t approve of the silence; it felt too much like tacit acceptance.
Maybe some of the guys didn’t mind or thought it was none of their business.
Misogyny was as pervasive in hockey circles as homophobia, and Luca had equally little patience for both.
He had grown up in the kind of family where five different relatives called his aunt Stella when they heard her husband had lunch with another woman (who turned out to be a coworker).
Still, he could acknowledge he’d been less than tactful.
With the fun over, everyone returned to their phones. Cursing himself as a coward and a bad friend to boot, Luca texted Breezy.
Sorry. I didn’t mean to put you on the spot.
Breezy answered instantly. It’s okay! I know you hate team bonding stuff.
Luca hadn’t hated it. He’d found it very cathartic for the team right up until his turn. Before he could formulate a reply implying as much without stating it outright, he got another text from Breezy.
Anyway, what else could you have said about me? Haha.
So many things. Luca could have said so many things, and he’d gone with the novelty underwear. The newfound knowledge about Breezy’s massive dick was his karmic punishment for the faux pas.
In repentance for his sins, Luca looked up nice things he could do for Breezy in Seattle while the plane landed and taxied on the runway. He might not be able to say how much he appreciated Breezy, but he could show it.
On the bus to the hotel, Phil took his turn as coach and announced a 10:00 p.m. curfew that would be enforced.
Disappointed mutterings spread out among the team.
Last year, with Ben as head coach, room checks petered out in December and became a distant memory by March. There had been many broken curfews.
Luca would be remiss not to admit he’d been a chief offender.
For one, he had a reputation to uphold as the straightest guy to ever straight, which he achieved by hooking up whenever they were on the road.
The effectiveness of this strategy demonstrated the idiocy of most hockey players.
Sleeping with a lot of women did not make a man straight.
It made him more polite and interesting than other hockey players.
The other issue was Breezy being the most sociable human Luca had ever met.
When Luca stayed in, he would drop by with some almost-diet-approved snack food, a movie or a game, and a hopeful smile.
And because his smile was irresistible, Luca always let him in.
Mooney, Luca’s roadie roommate, complained sometimes until Breezy turned his puppy-dog eyes on him as well.
He would post up on one of their beds and text Howie and Jax and Dmitriyev, and one or two or all of them would show up as well.
Normally, Luca would have told them to fuck off when he got tired of being around other humans.
The problem was he never got tired of being around Breezy, so he spent far too many nights pressed tight against him in a hotel bed, playing video games and breathing in the distinctive scent of Breezy’s pomegranate deodorant.
Hooking up on the road meant both an escape valve from temptation and a release of pent-up desire.
It started feeling empty in January, as though Luca was lying to the women he went home with.
He persisted semi-regularly in the vain hope he’d meet someone who would spark a romantic interest in him other than Breezy.
But by March, he had to capitulate to the inevitable: his crush on Breezy remained unaffected by seeking other partners.
His last hope had been that a summer in Italy, where he could pursue men freely, would fix him.
But soon after returning home, he realized he couldn’t stop comparing his hook-ups’ fluent Italian to Breezy’s horrific Canadian accent.
Therefore, the curfew didn’t bother Luca.
He’d tried; he wouldn’t be finding anyone who interested him more than Breezy.
Instead, he would take Breezy out for an apology excursion before curfew began.
He resolved to knock on Breezy’s door as soon as they’d gotten their room assignments.
They could grab dinner after. That would be nice.
His plans were disrupted when, shortly after arriving at the hotel, Lindy pulled him aside for a quick chat.
“Just to touch base,” she said with a wide open, friendly smile he distrusted.
After passing out room keys, she took him to the hotel bar and ordered a cappuccino.
Luca eyed it as he drank his own espresso. In his opinion, the last thing Lindy needed was more energy.
“So.” Lindy set down her cup and folded her hands together on the table. “Luca. Do you have a nickname you go by?”
For a brief moment last year, Breezy had tried to make “Ziti” stick. Thankfully, after a week or so of Luca glaring at anyone who tried, the nickname vanished.
“No.”
“Plain old Luca, then.”
“Yes.”
“You had quite a season last year. Fifty-three points in the regular season, plus/minus at plus ten, point per game in the postseason. Only ten penalty minutes, a good quality in a D-man.”
Luca nodded, unsure why she was telling him his own stats. He knew them already.
“You’re a great player, and you’re going to improve with more experience this year.”
“I hope so.”
“But hockey is a team sport.”
Luca swallowed heavily. “I know.”
Lindy took another sip of her cappuccino and licked the milk foam off her upper lip.
“You’ve played on quite a few different teams. You left your Juniors team a year before the draft to go home to Italy, yet you stayed there for two years after you could have tried for the NHL.
You had a brief stint in the AHL… You were a stand-out player on every team, but you weren’t drafted high. Why do you think that is?”
Shrugging, Luca said, “I assume it is because I am short and…ah, thin? I think is the word? For a defenseman.”
She studied him. “Not sure we’d call you thin, bud. Maybe slender? Lithe?”
“I do not know the difference.”
“No, sorry. It isn’t relevant. Anyway, I’m sure you’re right in part. The NHL is a boys’ club, and they tend not to like anyone who doesn’t match their idea of what a hockey player should be. But if it came down to stereotypes, Phil wouldn’t have been a first-round pick either.”
Luca drained his espresso. She wanted him to ask. He would not give her the satisfaction.
“You ever read your scouting reports?”
“Years ago. Before the draft.”
“Right, well, they all have this line in them. ‘Mazetti is a quiet presence’ or ‘Despite his quiet demeanor, Mazetti’s on-ice creativity and speed get his team chances no other player could create.’ You see what I’m getting at?”
Luca shrugged again. He’d read the same reports. They were accurate.
“It’s a code, Luca. It means ‘This guy is talented, but he’s locker room poison.’”
Wishing he hadn’t finished his drink so he could still do something with his hands, Luca looked away.
“Now, as far as I can tell, plenty of the guys seem to get along with you fine, which is weird because you say just the meanest things.”
“Like today on the plane.”
Lindy smiled encouragingly. “So you noticed.”
“Of course I noticed. I’m not an idiot,” Luca burst out.
Then he remembered this was his coach, his real coach who cared about the team’s success.
Real coaches didn’t take kindly to criticism.
He took a breath. “I do not do it on purpose. And some locker rooms are so toxic one must become ‘poison’ to survive.”
“I don’t doubt it.” Lindy reached out and patted him on the arm, and Luca wanted to be annoyed by it, but instead found himself comforted. “This isn’t me threatening you, by the way. This is me trying to figure out how I can get you comfortable on the team and in the room.”
“Oh.” Luca had no idea how to respond. He hadn’t thought of himself as uncomfortable, but once she mentioned it, it seemed obvious.
“We’ll work on it. For now, I’m glad to hear you see it yourself. I think this team can do great things, Luca, don’t you?”
Realizing she expected a response, Luca smiled weakly. “I suppose.”
“Good talk.” She pushed her chair away from the table. “Now, I have some assistant coaches to hound into getting dinner with me. Anything else we need to talk about before I do?”
Now he had said the words and made the connection, a part of Luca wanted to justify his attitude, to tell her what it had been like on his Juniors team, why he had returned to Italy before the draft, how lonely he’d been.
But he’d tried that, once, in Winnipeg, and the coach had told him to have a stiff upper lip.
He didn’t need to hear that again. Instead, he said, “My Italian grandmother would have you murdered for drinking coffee with milk after lunchtime.”
She shook her head fondly. “There’s the Luca Mazetti I know.”
It did not sound complimentary.
Perhaps understandably, Luca was out of sorts when he knocked on Breezy’s door.
“Hey,” Breezy said brightly. “What did Lindy want to talk to you about? You doing okay? Want to get dinner?”
“Nothing important,” Luca muttered. “Get your shoes on.”
He ought to apologize about the plane again.
He didn’t.
He also didn’t tell Breezy where they were going until they got there.
On the plane, he’d debated doing the Space Needle or the glass gardens, but they would have had to stand in line, and something about Breezy’s big stature and spun glass artworks felt too comical.
Instead, he took Breezy to the covered market at Pike Place and watched him wander from stall to stall, inspecting fresh produce and walls of leather handbags and shop upon shop filled with children’s toys.