Chapter 6
six
Kayleigh [off-screen]: Okay, Hayesie, would you rather play with too-small skates or too-big gloves?
Hayes: Gloves all the way. If my skates don’t fit right, I can’t concentrate on shit. I’m falling on my face. It’s not a good look.
Kayleigh: Jax, if you couldn’t play center, would you rather be a winger or a D-man?
Jax: Winger. At least I kinda know what to do there.
Kayleigh: Hayesie, red or purple Gatorade?
Hayes: Purple.
Kayleigh: Jax, play in Philly or play in San Francisco?
Jax: Hah, good one. San Francisco, obviously.
Top comments:
1682rox: Kinda rude to put Jax on the spot
sealions4lyfe: Grant needs to work on his media face. Hockey needs more guys like Crowler. All about the game, none of this wishy-washy shit
(From “San Francisco Sea Lions Play Would You Rather,” posted to YouTube 11/08/2024)
There was no way Jax had heard right.
“What?”
“I’m gay.”
Jax wanted to say something, anything, but the only thing he could think of was what? And he’d already said that. The answer still didn’t make sense.
“I…you…” he tried, but nope, still no other words coming. “No way.”
Tom didn’t say anything.
“No,” Jax said. “No, see, if you were, why would you let me squirm when you found out about me? Why would you let me think you had a problem with me? Are you fucking with me here?”
“Oh God,” Tom said, pale now, his stormy eyes wide. “Oh my God.”
Jax eyed his skin-tight, light blue team shirt, thankful they’d gotten rid of the cartoon mascot with its huge eyes before he joined. He could see Tom’s chest rising and falling much too fast under it.
“Breathe, man.”
“I’m trying,” Tom said between heaving breaths. “I’m… Oh my God. I have to go.”
As suddenly as he’d come, he vanished, leaving Jax standing alone in his hotel room, nonplussed.
No, not nonplussed.
Baffled.
Bamboozled.
Extremely, extremely plussed. He walked to the door to follow, then reconsidered and stepped over to the window again.
It was raining outside. The drizzle turned the lights of the Philadelphia skyline into smears of yellow and orange against the windowpane.
The team had booked a hotel near the airport, clear across town from where Jax’s house stood empty.
He couldn’t stomach the thought of spending the night there instead, with nothing but dust bunnies for company.
Not after today. Especially not after the last five minutes.
He could only think of one thing to do.
Jax pulled out his phone and called his mom.
“Jaxon!” She was always so thrilled to hear his voice. He really should call more often.
“Hi, Mom. How’s it going?”
“Oh, you know. It’s going. Your dad’s still at work or I’d put you on speaker.”
Jax rolled his eyes. “Is he still taking late shifts?”
“Only for your games, honey. You know he can’t take the tension.”
“I play eighty-two games a year, at least.”
“Well, you know your dad.”
Jax did know his dad. “What about the girls?”
“It’s 10:00 p.m. in Minnesota, baby. They’re asleep.”
“Oh. Right. Did they like the piano?”
Her tone took on a soft, pleased note. “Yeah, sweetie, they loved the piano. No idea what we’re gonna do if you keep sending such big gifts though. You know the living room’s tiny.”
Jax bit his tongue to keep from mentioning (again) that he’d be happy to buy them a bigger house. “So, join up with the neighbors. Make a music studio for the whole park. I’ll pay for it.”
She didn’t say anything, but he could hear the lecture he’d gotten more than once about not throwing money at them. It wasn’t the same as being there.
“How are they?”
“They’re great! Lila wrote a poem about leprechauns, and it got printed in the school paper, and Rosa’s thinking about the basketball team.”
Jax smiled. They were such good kids. At fourteen, Jax had definitely not been writing poetry.
He’d been all hockey, all the time, barely paying attention to his baby sisters and eating his parents out of house and home when he wasn’t fighting with them about the electricity bill they could never seem to pay on time.
He wished they would let him pay it all back.
“So why are you calling tonight?”
“Can’t I check in on my family?”
“You always call on Sundays.”
“Okay, Ma, you got me. I had a weird day.”
“That why you played like shit?”
“Mom!”
“Just saying. Your pretty captain could barely keep you all in the game.”
Jax drummed his fingers on the backrest of the chair, staring out the window. “Remember what I told you before I got drafted?”
He had been eighteen, and he had been terrified.
He’d known the NHL was his best chance at a future where he didn’t spend his whole life working nights at a diner the way his dad did, and after two years of billet families and bus rides in the USHL, he had to make it.
Otherwise, the whole miserable experience wouldn’t have been worth it.
It had been two long years of missing his family and wearing smelly hand-me-down gear, always hungry because he was growing way too fast and burning too many calories to keep up, pinching pennies so he could afford fries when his team hit up fast-food joints.
Two years of pretending to laugh along when his teammates joked about queers and fags, always with the secret, burning knowledge it was him they were joking about.
If he made it, he’d promised himself, it would all be better. He would have enough money to buy as many burgers as he wanted. He would visit home whenever he could. And he would be so good he could date whoever he damn well wanted to.
The night before the draft, he couldn’t sleep.
He’d been sharing a hotel room with his parents, and he tossed and turned until his mom made him go out onto the balcony, where he’d cried in her arms for all the homesickness he never told her about.
It was the only time he mentioned that when he brought someone home, it would be a man.
She’d said, “Good for you,” and then, a little later, “Be careful.”
Now, six and a half years on, though he hadn’t visited half as often as he thought he would, she said, “I remember every word.”
Jax swallowed. “They found out. In Philly. They… I wasn’t careful.”
“And then they traded you.”
“Yeah.” His throat had gone dry. He cleared it, then cleared it again. “I…I didn’t want to get traded. But…”
“Those assholes.”
“Mom!”
“Well, they are.”
Jax leaned his forehead against the window glass and smiled. “Yeah. Playing them tonight…”
“No wonder you sucked.”
“Thanks, Mom. The team didn’t even know. They thought I wanted to be traded. It was a management decision. But I wish I could tell them the truth about what happened.”
She paused for a suspiciously long time. “Now, when you say you weren’t careful…”
“You don’t want to know.”
She snickered. “Okay, then. I hope you’re using condoms.”
“Mom.”
“What? Your dad and I didn’t, and look where it got us.”
“Yeah, well, I’m not sixteen, and I’m also not getting anyone pregnant.”
“You never know!”
Jax sighed. “Anyway. I might’ve told someone on the Sea Lions. And, uh…I think he just came out to me?”
“Wow.”
“Yeah. And it doesn’t make any sense because he’s known about me for weeks now. Why didn’t he tell me right away?”
For a long moment, his mom said nothing. Then, she asked, “When did you realize you liked men?”
Jax considered. He hadn’t fully accepted it until he’d kissed his first boy at sixteen. But suspecting? “I was probably about thirteen, fourteen?”
“Did you think I’d have a problem with it?”
“No, of course not.”
“So why’d you only tell me when you were eighteen?”
“I guess I wasn’t ready.”
“Mm-hmm.”
Jax gently banged his forehead against the glass. “Right. Okay. Thanks, Mom.”
“Anytime. Hey, do you have time to chat about the cute little defenseman you guys played tonight? Is he new?”
“Actually, I think I’d better go talk to someone.” Talking to Tom would be awkward as hell, but not as awkward as that.
“Fine, spoil my fun. Love you, kid.”
“Love you too, mom.”
Jax slid his phone into the too-tight pocket of his suit pants.
He grabbed his key and headed down the corridor.
He didn’t know which door was Tom’s. Only the captain and the coach got a full list of everyone’s room numbers, but he had a gut feeling a claustrophobic hotel space was exactly what Tom didn’t need right now.
Instead, Jax took the emergency stairs to the roof two at a time.
And there he stood, all alone on the rooftop terrace, rain sluicing off the tip of his nose.
“I’m sorry,” Jax said. He’d always been direct, and apologizing was the most important part.
Tom started, and for a second, Jax could see the headline: NHL Captain Falls to Death From Philadelphia’s Most Middling Hotel After Sudden Shock From Idiot Teammate. A bit unwieldy, but it would certainly catch the reader’s eye.
“Jax.”
“Jesus fuck, man, you’re gonna catch a cold, and then we’ll be out our best winger. Come inside.”
“Jax, I…” Tom glanced away, shivering, still dressed in only his stupid sea lion T-shirt and the thinnest, clingiest joggers Jax had ever seen.
“It’s okay,” Jax promised. “I’m sorry I acted like a dick. I shouldn’t have— I of all people should have known it’s not always easy to tell people this stuff.”
“I’ve never.”
“Never?”
“Never told anyone. That’s the first time I ever said it.”
“Never?”
Tom shook his head, water droplets flying.
“Jeez,” Jax said weakly. “Not even your parents? Or, I mean you must have an ex or two hidden in the closet. They’ll know.”
Tom shook his head again.
“Tom.”
Finally, Tom looked at him. It was too dark for Jax to see his eyes properly, but the vulnerability writ large across every line of Tom’s face bowled him over.
“Christ, Tom, you must have been so lonely.”