Chapter 14
fourteen
Kayleigh [off-screen]: Okay, so tell us a little about what you have planned.
Jax: So, today we’re shopping for gear for the teens in our new sponsorship program at the Pot of Gold shelter. We’ve got skates in all sizes and, of course, helmets and pads so no one gets hurt, and—
Kayleigh: And what message are the San Francisco Sea Lions aiming to send with this program?
Jax: Um, right. We really just want to help kids who need it. Living in San Francisco, the local queer—
Kayleigh: LGBTQIA+.
Jax: Right. Sorry. Although, you know, it’s not a slur. Some people in the community—
Kayleigh: Jax, we talked about this. And now we have to start over. Again.
(Unpublished outtake from the making of the Instagram reel subtitled, “SF Sea Lions are proud to announce their sponsorship of the Pot of Gold shelter for LGBTQIA+ youth! Follow the link in our description to donate!” posted on 11/30/2024)
It was a hell of a thing to be given a date and time for when someone would break his heart.
After Tom fell asleep in his arms, trusting Jax to hold him in his sleep after the most intimate and intense sex of Jax’s life, Jax stared at the wall for an hour.
It was only around four in the afternoon.
He’d been thinking about ordering in for dinner, then watching something on Tom’s ridiculous couch. He’d planned on staying the night.
When had that happened?
Sometime between Tom kissing him at a bus stop in Montreal and Tom buying a ridiculously large multipack of condoms, Jax had let himself believe this had a future.
It had only been a day, and he’d thought…
what, that he could casually insert himself into Tom’s domestic arrangements?
Jax kept mentally repeating that this was only for now, and Tom didn’t want anything more than a practice partner who would keep his secrets.
He’d skipped the part where he actually believed it.
This whole thing had an end date, and Jax needed to remember that, or he’d screw things up more than he already had. Tom had set the date, like pulling the goaltender off the ice after he lost three easy shots in a row, a mercy and an arrow to the chest all at once.
Had he given Jax a choice with his mumbled words? Keep Tom or work with the shelter? Keep Tom or come out? How was Jax supposed to make the right call? No matter what he chose, he’d be missing out.
No, he had to remember how they’d gone into this. The last thing Tom needed in his life was Jax’s impulsivity, his burning need to remain true to himself at all times. Jax was convenient, and when he stopped being convenient, Tom would stop being his.
Unfortunately, Jax would remain Tom’s.
His silent, senseless devotion would have to stay a secret between Jax and the plain white walls of Tom’s bedroom.
When Tom woke up, sleepy-eyed and warm, Jax pulled away.
He had to call home, he claimed, because they’d be on the road on Sunday when he usually talked to his family.
It wasn’t really true; he could call his parents whenever and wherever.
But the concept of people who actually liked to talk to their parents seemed to baffle Tom so intensely that he didn’t question it.
Back in his impersonal hotel room, Jax immediately missed the impersonality of Tom’s apartment.
Tom kept everything in neutral tones, all grays and browns, but once Jax knew how to look, he’d found Tom’s fingerprints on everything.
The massive, plushy sectional that swallowed them whole when they lost an hour kissing on it.
The absurdly high thread count on the sheets.
The twenty different presets in the shower.
Tom just wanted to be treated nicely, gently, softly.
He might make fun of Jax’s expensive tastes, but he was the real hedonist.
Jax had to stop thinking about Tom.
He called home.
Because the Sea Lions didn’t have a game tonight, his dad wasn’t working the late shift. He answered the phone after two rings.
“Kiddo!” he cried. “How’s California?”
Jax peered out of his hotel window. “Foggy.”
“Aw, I thought it was all sun all the time.”
“Nah, that’s a couple hundred miles south.”
“Hmm. Shame. See if I’ll come visit.”
Jax rolled his eyes. His parents had left Minnesota precisely once in their lives when he got drafted in Boston.
It had been an enormous production, and they hadn’t visited him in Philadelphia.
“Who knows how long they’ll keep me here anyway.
Maybe I’ll get traded to the Minnesota Fury next.
” The team hadn’t made the playoffs in seven years, but the location might be nice. Close to home.
“Hold on. Jax is being emo,” his dad called, and then a door clicked shut on his end of the line. “What’s going on, kid?”
Jax could picture it precisely: Dad on the tiny little deck at the back of the house, standing by the railing, squinting out at the patch of grass they called a garden.
To his left, the rickety, fifteen-year-old IKEA table held the tin cup he’d bought Mom at the state fair when he was fifteen.
The whole family pretended it wasn’t actually a secret ashtray for Dad’s secret smoking habit.
He had a fantastic view of next-door’s fence, which they probably still hadn’t repainted.
“Did you ever fix the gutters? Must be coming down hard in St. Paul already.”
“Don’t change the subject.”
That was a no. Jax would have to call the gutter guy.
“Jax.”
“Sorry. Got a lot on my mind.”
Dad grunted. “You finally get an apartment?”
Jax looked around his hotel room at the clothes strewn over every surface, his bag from the last roadie only half unpacked. “Not so much.”
“But you love buying real estate.”
“Let it go, Dad.”
“Nope, I’ma be salty forever.”
“I could still sell the trailer and buy you a mansion,” Jax threatened.
They both knew he wouldn’t follow through.
He’d tried, as soon as he had his ELC, to buy his family a better life, but they resisted.
All he’d managed was paying off the trailer they’d lived in since Jax turned four and helping his dad start his own diner instead of working shifts at someone else’s restaurant for the rest of his life.
Dad, at forty-two, should not have as much gray hair as he did.
Someday, his dad might notice how every check he’d sent to repay Jax for the start-up costs of the restaurant bounced, or how the charges for internet and electricity in the family trailer never showed up on the family account.
Jax wasn’t holding his breath. If his parents tracked their accounts properly, their power wouldn’t have been cut half as often when he was a kid.
“You wouldn’t dare,” Dad said easily. “So. No fancy digs in SF?”
“Not yet.”
“Why?”
Jax sighed. “I’m scared they won’t keep me. I only have two years left on my contract. If they’re smart, they’ll trade me early to turn a better profit. What’s the point in settling down if I have to leave again in a few months?”
“I remember some upstart eighteen-year-old with dumbass blond highlights telling me real estate is always a good investment when he bought my house.”
“Sounds like a smart kid.”
“Jax.” There it came—Dad’s cut-the-shit voice. He might have been a solid five to ten years younger than all the other dads in the PTA, but he had a voice meant for shouting orders in a busy kitchen, and he wasn’t afraid to turn it on his kids.
“I’m doing a thing,” Jax said. “With a shelter for homeless queer kids. A team charity thing. There’ll be media and everything. People might find out about me.”
“That sounds good.”
“Which part?”
“All of it.”
“Dad.”
“You haven’t been happy, kiddo.”
Jax sat on the bed heavily.
“You think I don’t watch your games because, what, it’s too violent? I showed up when you were in peewee, and those kids were ruthless and clumsy.”
“Mom said—”
“Your mom didn’t want to hurt your feelings. I don’t give a shit about hurting your feelings when your feelings are already shitty.”
He gave Jax a moment to process.
“I don’t think I was unhappy.”
Dad sighed, gusty and loud down the line. “You weren’t you. I don’t know. Maybe it’s something I never got to go through, this part of your life where you try on being different people to see who fits, but the kid I know was the sweetest little boy.”
Jax flushed and laughed. “Dad.”
“No, seriously. You never got mad at us, you know?”
“Why would I?”
“Well, we kept forgetting the power bill. And the phone bill. And the gutters. All your hockey friends had their own gear, you had to borrow used stuff, and I know how gross those gloves get. But you were always smiling, always making your mom smile, always trying to find a way to help us out of whatever money trouble we got in. Half the reason we had the girls was because you were the best thing in our lives.”
Don’t cry, Jax told himself and then immediately failed.
“Of course, that came after the screaming, crying, pooping phase. Kinda thought I’d go insane before you turned one, but once you could walk, you were great.”
Jax laughed wetly. “So what are you saying?”
“I’m saying you found a way to take care of me and your mom and your sisters, and you found a career you love enough to pour your energy and your passion into. And you’re fucking fantastic at it. But the person you have to pretend to be while you do it, Jax Grant, hockey superstar—”
“—I can hear the jazz hands, Dad. Quit it—”
“He’s not you. He’s got parts of you, the sense of humor, the playboy act.”
Jax didn’t confirm or deny the playboy accusation, and his dad was kind enough not to elaborate.
“But he’s not as kind as you or as generous with his time and his money. And if this shelter thing and coming out lets you be you again, I’m all for it.”
“What if everyone hates me?” The words slipped out, tiny and scared.
“No one important will.”
“Thanks, Dad.”