Chapter 2
two
Kayleigh [off-screen]: Can you explain your hockey nicknames?
Breezy: Sure! So, usually it’s, like, your last name and then someone adds a letter or makes it shorter. Like, we call Phil Easton “East.” And my name’s Calabrese, but that’s pretty long, so people call me Breezy.
Jax: Also, he keeps it light and breezy! [laughs]
Kayleigh: And what about you, Jax?
Breezy: He doesn’t have one. He’s just Jax.
Jax: Nothing “just” about it, bro!
Breezy: Damn straight!
[Jax and Breezy fist-bump]
Top comments:
grant16rules: guess I’m a sea lions fan now. No one keeps it real like just Jax!
clions2010: @grant16rules—You’ve gotta be kidding me. Keeping it real? The man is as fake as they get. Not even his hair is real. Can’t believe we traded THREE draft picks for a self-impressed pretty boy
(Video posted in The Rookery, the direct-to-consumer streaming service of the San Francisco Sea Lions and all associated teams, on 10/29/2024)
Something was wrong with the captain.
Not that Jax would claim there had ever been anything especially right about Tom Crowler. Except for his hockey. His hockey was fucking beautiful.
In general, Jax thought hockey nicknames were dumb as shit, as evidenced by his being “Granite” up to his rookie year in the NHL because the last name “Grant” didn’t offer up a lot of nicknames.
Rock-based puns were for defensemen’s nicknames, not two-way forwards.
Thankfully, he’d been able to make “Jax” stick in the big leagues.
But the captain’s nickname was “the Crow.” And damn, if it didn’t make a weird sort of sense when Jax watched him swoop in out of nowhere, all six foot three of him suddenly appearing right on top of the puck in the middle of a tricky play, snatching it out from the opposition.
For such a big guy, he could skate stupidly fast, and the way he worked his angles made his footwork seem light.
If you asked Jax, Crowler had been robbed of the Calder his rookie year. No one ever had asked though; everyone who asked Jax about the Calder only wanted to know if he thought he deserved it, to which the answer was, “Yeah, actually, I did.”
He’d gotten eighty-three points his rookie year. Damn good showing.
Crowler barely lost out to some Russian goalie wunderkind in 2011. Similarly, he spent the last seven or so years in the league making the top five but never quite winning the Art Ross. Two years ago, Jax beat him by three points with a sweet-as-hell hat trick in his last regular season game.
Come to think of it, maybe he did know why Crowler hated him so much.
Hate, Jax could deal with. Hate was an acceptable emotion to have toward Jax Grant, hockey superstar. Sometimes Jax hated himself too.
But whatever was wrong with Crowler became less straightforward than hatred after Edmonton. Jax knew, because he was being nice. Looking Jax in the eye, saying good morning. Offering fucking bananas and disappointing bran muffins.
Alarming behavior to say the least.
That night after Crowler saw his hookup, Jax hadn’t slept, tossing and turning, terrified his new captain had caught him out after only a few weeks on the team.
It was stupid of him to invite a guy to his hotel room; he knew as much before he did it.
He’d known since the day he got traded in the first place, after his agent told him management in Philly wasn’t interested in the sustained PR risk his behavior courted after Jax had gone to them about a potential scandal.
It’s one thing to have the first out player, Matt had said on the phone.
Jax had corrected him, as always, but it didn’t matter.
Sorry, out NHL player. You know no one cares about some kid in the minor leagues though. Anyway, it’s another thing to have a player who’s banging a different guy in every city. Family values, you know?
Family values—the first thing Jax associated with a league full of homophobes and racists who regularly sent one another hurtling into the boards headfirst for the entertainment of the masses.
Somehow, he doubted Philly would have been thrilled to keep him even if he had managed to scrounge up a cute, family-appropriate boyfriend.
The kind of guy they pointed the kiss cam at during Pride Nights.
Some dude who wore a lot of plaid and parted his hair to the side and passed as straight except for when he pressed a single chaste kiss to his boyfriend’s cheek.
Just imagining their fictitious relationship bored Jax to tears.
Maybe if he’d found a girlfriend, Philly would have kept him. Some girl who wouldn’t mind pretending for the money. He knew there were women out there who did that kind of thing, but the thought soured his stomach too much.
So did the heavy-handed hint from his agent about toning it down on the new team.
Jax had never toned down a single thing, not his style, not his sense of humor, not any aspect of being Jaxon Grant, and the league lapped it up.
Sure, he wasn’t out. No one was. But to be told unmistakably, albeit obliquely, to hide his sexuality made him want to throw things.
It also made him realize he’d never expected to stay not out forever. Jax wasn’t meant for subterfuge. He was meant to be himself, loudly and unapologetically.
For the same reason, Captain Tom Crowler treating him with kid gloves instead of telling Jax what his problem was made Jax want to scream.
When the third game day of their homestead after Edmonton dawned, and Crowler smiled and nodded at him when he arrived for morning skate, Jax decided he’d had enough.
“You don’t have to be nice to me,” he said.
They weren’t alone. Easton and Breezy ran drills with the defensive coach on the far side of the ice, but Jax had checked whether he’d be heard by anyone but Crowler before he spoke.
Not trusting Jax’s judgment as per usual, Crowler yanked his head around to check for listeners so fast he almost tripped over his own skates. “I’m not—it’s not—”
“Seriously. You don’t like me; you don’t like what I do in my spare time; it’s fine. As long as you’re not ratting me out, I can deal with it. Whatever you’re trying to do now is freaking me out though.”
“I’m not trying to do anything, and I’m not a homophobe. And keep your voice down.”
Jax stared at him. Did he realize how ridiculous those two sentences sounded one after the other?
“If you don’t want me to rat you out,” Tom said, “don’t rat yourself out by mentioning it in team spaces all the time.”
“All right, fine.” Jax could concede the point at least. “But stop with the good mornings and the—the banana shit. It’s freaking me out.”
“It’s been brought to my attention that it’s not very captainly of me to ignore you.”
“You ignore everyone who hasn’t been on this team a million years.”
“I do not!”
Jax raised his eyebrows. “Really. When’s the last time you talked to Howie? Or Mooney?”
“Mooney?”
Jax couldn’t have stopped the smug smile if he tried. He loved being right. “Diego. You know, Lunes? Moon? Mooney.”
“I didn’t know he had a nickname yet.”
“If you talked to him, you would.”
Crowler gave him a long, assessing look. “Okay,” he said. “So what have I missed?”
“Huh?”
“You’re right. I don’t talk to the rookies enough. They gave me the C because I get a lot of points, not because I’m great with people. You have an A. You’re supposed to help me not fuck up.”
“You saying I don’t get a lot of points?”
“You don’t need me to stroke your ego. You know how good you are.”
A man could always stand to hear more about how good he was, but this conversation was weird enough already. “Fine. Well, Howie—that’s Kilian Howard, in case you missed another nickname—he’s struggling ’cause he hasn’t scored a goal yet.”
Ignoring Jax’s potshot, Crowler frowned. “It’s not even November. He has all the time in the world, and four assists.”
“That’s what I said, but what do I know. I’m just an A.”
Crowler sighed, exasperated. “I get it, okay? I’m a shit captain. Let it go.”
Jax hadn’t meant to imply anything of the sort. He’d meant to make Crowler feel shitty about his treatment toward him, not about Crowler’s own performance. “I don’t think you’re a shit captain.”
“You think I hate you, I’m a homophobe, and I don’t talk to rookies. Clearly, I am a shit captain.”
“I don’t think you’re a ship captain—shit captain— Can we stop saying that?”
Crowler gave him another one of those coolly assessing once-overs. “All right. What do you think?”
“I think,” Jax began, and then paused to actually think about it. “I think you’re good at talking to the refs.”
“What?”
“Yeah, when there’s a bullshit penalty call, you’re really good at keeping your temper and calling it into question. You always stand up for our guys.”
“My job is to—”
“Yeah, yeah, but some captains get all angry about it. And you’re great at the whole leading-by-example deal.
You know, first on the ice, last off it, sticking to the meal plan, all the stuff everyone knows they should do but no one manages.
Half the reason Howie’s so worried is because he doesn’t want to disappoint you. ”
Crowler’s demeanor softened. The change to his face alarmed Jax in its intensity.
His dark, wavy hair and blue-gray eyes, along with his long, straight nose and heavy eyebrows, could make him appear so severe and untouchable.
But when he let himself smile, he became unfairly handsome.
Hockey players weren’t supposed to be handsome, Jax excepted.
“I’ll talk to him,” Crowler said. “So what about, uh, Mooney?”