Chapter 3 #2
“What about you, Cap?” Breezy asked in a tone so jovial it must have been forced. “When are you going to bring someone to one of these things? Isn’t East’s wife getting sick of having to make the WAG jackets?”
“Oh, Camille does those?” Tom frowned. He thought Camille had better taste. Last year, the WAGs had shown up to the playoffs in matching camo-print jackets with their partners’ numbers in rhinestones.
Breezy’s eyebrows shot up to his hairline, a feat only possible due to his curly hair covering half his face. “Bro.”
“What?”
Jax chose the perfect moment to reappear with a hand on Tom’s shoulder and a light beer shoved into one of Tom’s.
Not for the first time, Tom wondered if anyone enjoyed light beer or if they accepted it as a necessary evil in order to somewhat stick to the meal plan while not sacrificing every small joy in life.
“Thanks,” he said to Jax.
“No problem. And who is this lovely lady?” Jax smiled widely at Vanessa. The corners of his eyes crinkled, somehow making them appear more blue. He had dimples. It wasn’t fair.
Vanessa clearly agreed because she giggled, a noise no adult woman had ever made in Tom’s presence.
Unfortunately, nothing could distract Breezy from his new mission. Completely ignoring his girlfriend and how she appeared more than ready to jump ship straight to the next hockey player, he said, “Jax! You’re just the guy. We gotta hook the Crow here up.”
“Please don’t,” Tom said weakly.
“It’s, like, the social contract,” Breezy barreled on. “We follow your lead on the ice, so the WAGs need to follow your girl’s lead off it.”
Tom blinked. He had never thought his chronic lack of a date to team events was an issue, largely because he’d avoided planning and taking part in team events for a very long time. “I don’t think that’s what a social contract is.”
“Also seems kind of sexist,” Jax mused. “What if Cap had a girl but she had a real job or something? Not everyone has time to watch eighty-two hockey games a year.”
Weak with relief, Tom nodded. “Right. I could meet a nurse or something. She could be working shifts. I don’t think she’d want to design WAG jackets in her spare time.”
Vanessa’s eyes narrowed. “Are you saying I don’t have a real job?”
“Uhhh…” Tom looked frantically to Breezy for help, but he appeared similarly panicked.
Jax, unperturbed, asked her, “What is it you do again?”
“I’m an interior designer. You can follow me on Insta and see all the spaces I’ve curated. Oh, and I do parties too. Like, it’s so hard to coordinate florists and caterers and glassware, you would not believe.”
Jax nodded. “Okay, so you have a real job. But I bet you get to set your own hours, and you’re not hurting for money either.”
“I guess.”
He nodded, clearly satisfied he had won.
Vanessa tossed her hair over her shoulder. “I’m getting another drink.” She stalked off and immediately starting whispering with another beige-clad WAG.
“Thanks for that,” Breezy groaned.
“What?” Jax took a long draw of his beer. “You gotta admit she’s not exactly working a nine-to-five.”
“Do you know anything about the WAG ecosystem?”
Tom squinted. First “social contract,” now “ecosystem.” This was not what he had expected from Breezy.
Jax grinned, sleazy and wolfish. “Can’t say I’ve ever had anyone stick around for long enough to become part of the pack.”
“You gotta show some respect. Half of these women quit school to follow an NHL player across the continent, no clue when he’s gonna get traded or where he’s gonna end up. As soon as she commits to him, she commits to staying home and raising the kids because he’s traveling half the year.”
“She also commits to however many millions he’s earning and the army of cleaning staff and nannies he can buy her.”
Breezy smacked Jax upside of the head. “And to taking care of him if he gets his head bashed in one too many times or fucks up a joint so bad he has to stop earning millions. Anyway, when you might get uprooted any day and you have all the domestic responsibility, there’s not much opportunity for finding your own career. ”
Jax looked set to argue. Tom couldn’t see that going well, so he intervened.
“Vanessa is really lucky. You’ve put a lot of thought into understanding her.”
Abruptly, Breezy blushed and stared down at his feet. “It’s a big ask, y’know? My mom’s a homemaker, and it didn’t always make her happy. You gotta be super sure of someone if you wanna try and go the distance.”
“Divorce is a thing.”
Tom jabbed Jax in the side with his elbow.
“A thing I plan to avoid,” Breezy says. “I need to fix this.”
He wandered over to where Vanessa stood, surrounded by other women, explaining something to Vanderbilt’s wife, Cheryl, with big, expressive hand gestures.
On Cheryl’s other side, Dmitriyev, their goalie, and Howie listened raptly.
They were both ensconced on Phil’s couch, sandwiched by beautiful blondes.
That boded ill.
Tom hoped none of the blondes were someone else’s wife or girlfriend.
He made a mental note to talk to Howie again before he got any ideas.
Talking to Dmitriyev would be a much more daunting prospect. He’d put the conversation off until he absolutely had to address it. The language barrier alone… Tom shuddered and turned back to Jax, raising his eyebrows.
“I think you made an enemy for life, there.”
Jax shrugged. “Guess you found out what I’m bad at, then.”
“Women?”
“Rich women.”
“You’re rich.”
“Yeah, well. I just don’t get the whole WAG thing. It seems…I dunno, fake. How are you supposed to tell if they’re doing it for the clout and the money?”
Tom frowned. He lacked the dating experience to know for sure, but he’d seen so many teammates get married and have kids, and he had to believe they were happier than he was. “I’m sure they all love their partners.”
Jax squinted at him. “Spoken like a man who has never had someone suck his dick and then threaten to post pics on the internet.”
The words “suck his dick” seemed to come out of Jax’s mouth in slow motion, his full, full lips pursing and releasing and his pink tongue peeking out from between his teeth on the “s” sound.
Tom shook his head, trying to clear the image from his mind. “That happened to you?”
“Why do you think I got traded?”
“Oh.” Oh, no. “I thought you, uh. I thought you wanted to come here.”
Jax gave him a look so venomous it made Tom want to shrivel up and die. “I got drafted third overall in Philly. I had a house by the Schuylkill.”
“The what?”
“The river, dumbass. I had at least three guys in town willing to drop everything when I texted them. I had a good thing going until…whatever. It doesn’t matter. I’m here now, and I guess we have a better shot at a Cup than I ever did there.”
Three guys in town. “What did you need three for?” The words left Tom’s mouth before he could reconsider, and then he wanted to kick himself.
Jax raised his eyebrows and made an obscene gesture.
Tom flushed hot and turned away.
“Jeez, you don’t get out much, do you? Why don’t you have a girl anyway? Seems like you’d have some blonde chick you’ve been dating since preschool.”
“Never really worked out for me.”
“What?” Jax dragged out the “a” so long Tom found himself staring at his mouth again. “Handsome guy like you?”
Abruptly, Tom took a step back. “You wanted an in with the older guys. Come on.”
He led Jax out to the patio, where they found Phil flipping steaks and muttering to no one in particular.
“Oh, there he is!” Phil cried when they arrived. “The man who forced me into hosting this shindig with no warning and can’t even be asked to do the cooking.”
Tom scoffed. “If I had tried, you’d have sent me inside. You never let anyone else touch the grill.”
“You do it wrong.”
“It’s a fire pit. You put meat on it. What could I possibly do wrong?”
“Man, it’s all about timing and placement. There’s an art to it.”
“You’re avoiding going inside.”
Phil pointed the tongs in his hand at Tom. “Don’t say it so loud.”
“What’s inside?” Jax asked. “Besides what I think is Chamillionaire’s second album, which, yikes.”
“My house, my music. And inside are fifteen hockey players messing with my shit and getting crumbs in Camille’s rug. She’s gonna skin me alive when she sees.”
Huh. It was a very ugly rug. So, Camille’s taste? Actually awful, except when it came to husbands. Good to know.
Jax groaned.
“Don’t mind him,” Tom said. “He’s learning to fear the WAGs. Speaking of, does Camille really do the WAG jackets?”
Phil nodded. “She’s trying to get Allie to take over for her now Hayesie finally popped the question. Allie won’t do it while she’s wedding planning though.”
“Isn’t the wedding next year?”
“Yeah, the planning takes a good eight or nine months of work.”
Jax looked over to Tom as if to say, see? Rich women.
“I went to your wedding,” Tom said. “It took nine months to plan?”
“Yup.” Phil poked a steak, deemed it finished and set it on a plate next to the grill. “Gotta book the venue and send out the save the date cards far enough in advance. Then, there’s the music, the photographer, the dress shopping… It’s a whole thing. This is Allie’s year, man.”
“Don’t remind me.”
The patio door slid open, and Jimmy Hayes stepped outside. He’d been Phil’s defense partner for three years now, and for a six-foot-four fridge of a man, he appeared remarkably like an animal being hunted for sport.
“Cold feet?” Jax snagged the steak off the plate with a fork and bit straight into it. “Good stuff, East,” he said with his mouth full.
“Nah. Just…you know. It’s a lot.”
As a matter of fact, Tom did not know, but he’d begun to realize he probably shouldn’t advertise that. Instead, he steered the conversation away from weddings and toward the defensive coach, Trout. The mere mention of the man sufficed to get both Hayesie and Phil complaining immediately.
“Mm,” Jax said, swallowing a bite of steak.
Tom watched the bob of his Adam’s apple, the movement of his throat.
“Yeah, whenever we work with him,” Jax continued, “I feel like I’ve maxed out my quad workouts for the week.”
“You’re telling me,” Hayesie groaned. “I know we gotta practice this shit, but I swear, we were doing forechecking drills for a solid hour on Thursday, and by the time the game rolled around, I was totally out of gas.”
Tom winced in sympathy. “Morris had you two on the ice for, what, twenty minutes during the game?”
“Twenty-two.”
“Does he even talk to Trout? What the hell?” Jax’s tone rose, sounding incensed.
Phil chuckled. “Calm down, man. You get used to it.”
Jax shot Tom a pointed look.
Tom had noticed their coaching team pushing them hard but in very different directions previously.
Edwards was all about finesse. If he got his way, the full team would perfect a passing drill before he moved on to the next one.
Trout prioritized endurance; he was the kind of old-school guy who wanted to see his players skate until they barfed.
Prior head coaches aligned more with one or the other philosophy.
Morris, on the other hand, focused on the big picture, trying out different lines and special-teams constellations, sometimes seemingly at random.
He usually managed to split the difference, but he’d been out sick on Thursday, and Trout had taken the run of things because Edwards never stood up to him.
Now he thought of it, Tom remembered they’d worked on the forechecking drill for a long time.
The forwards had rotated out regularly, but Trout had kept the same D-men in for much too long.
Food for thought.
Tom had always operated under the assumption that he’d been awarded the captaincy as a largely symbolic role.
He had to be a good example for the younger guys, show up early, give it his all.
Part of how he gave it his all was by respecting the coaches and the referees.
Maybe he’d missed some room for him to improve things.
Maybe Morris did want to hear his thoughts on the penalty kill.
Tom had no idea what sorts of things he might have learned about coaching hockey in Utah, where a majority of the experience he’d told the team about when he introduced himself had taken place.
Not exactly a hotbed of hockey. Perhaps he’d learned coaching other sports as well and really could bring in fresh new ideas.
If Tom never asked, he’d never know. If he never offered his own expertise after years of playing on the same team throughout different coaches and front offices, how could he expect Morris to base his decisions on it?
Out of the corner of his eye, Tom studied Jax, watched as he tilted his head back and laughed at something Phil said.
Before Jax had bullied his way into Tom’s consciousness, he’d never considered how his own input might have an effect.
Tom had been too busy shrinking down so small no one could see his failures.
Maybe he could stop thinking about himself and start thinking more about the team’s success.
Jax glanced over and caught Tom staring. His lips tilted up in a smile. His big, warm hand settled on Tom’s shoulder. He had good hands. Deft and capable. Tom could feel his strength. It was a good quality for a hockey player to have.
“Come on, old man. You’ve still gotta talk to Mooney.”
Tom let himself be led off again, but he shook off Jax’s hand as soon as he could.
Some things weren’t to be savored.