Chapter 14 #2
With nothing else pressing left to talk about, Jax let his dad go on about the Reindeer’s chances at the Super Bowl this year, a covert excuse to bitch about how having a professional athlete in the family still hadn’t netted him free football tickets.
Jax made a mental note to get him some for Christmas.
He had Dad pass the phone on afterward so he could talk to Lila about basketball and Rosa about poetry.
By the time his mom took her turn, Jax was all talked out, so she let him listen quietly while she told him all the neighborhood gossip.
He fell asleep with his phone on his chest, feeling not entirely at peace but closer to it than he’d been before.
In the morning, refreshed or maybe resigned, Jax skipped the optional skate. He and Breezy had decided to head out to the shelter to meet everyone before the roadie and get the lay of the land before there were cameras everywhere.
To Jax’s surprise, Mooney joined them.
“This is a public service,” Mooney told him. “Have either of you ever been to the Tenderloin?”
“No.” Jax hadn’t even known there was a part of the city called that until he’d pulled the shelter up on Google Maps.
“Yeah, if you leave without getting pickpocketed, I will be fucking amazed.” Mooney shook his head at the both of them. “This is a cool idea and all, but I’m not sure if you guys know what you’re getting into.”
“We’ll make it work,” said Breezy from the driver’s seat. He had a light blue pickup utterly unfit for parking in San Francisco. He also had boundless optimism and apparently no need for caffeine in the morning.
Mooney shook his head again.
“And you’re sure you’re okay with doing this?” Jax checked in again. “We kind of jumped on this idea after what Howie said that day. But what Hayes said—”
Mooney pushed his sunglasses down his nose expressly to roll his eyes at Jax again. “They’re not, like, separate issues. And if you think a homeless shelter for gay or trans or whatever kids in California will not be full of Latinxs, I don’t know what world you’re living in.”
He turned out to be right.
They’d scheduled a meeting with Mara, the coordinator for the shelter who’d been emailing Jax.
From her emails (professional, cordial, and frequently organized using bullet points), he’d imagined her to be about forty.
It turned out she was twenty-four and had blue, pink, and purple stripes dyed into her hair.
She was also the only white person on the premises, besides Jax and Breezy.
She caught Jax eyeing her hair. “We had a hair night last night,” she said in lieu of an actual explanation.
“Looks dope,” Mooney said.
“Thanks. So, come on through, and we’ll go over the basics.”
The basics turned out to be a comprehensive list of rules outlining what they could and couldn’t do, mostly centering on the kids’ safety.
“Um,” Jax said. “You know hockey is a contact sport, right? We won’t try to get anyone hurt, but—”
Mara shot him an unimpressed glare. “Yes, I am aware. This is to cover my own ass and to make sure the big-shot hockey players understand what it means to be responsible for teenagers. They will try to use the hockey sticks as weapons to hit each other with. Ice skates are basically knife shoes. Someone might try to use them as such, and many of them will use them as such unintentionally. If this whole partnership deal lasts for more than one session, you will end up calling 911 at least once.”
Jax’s pulse quickened. He’d imagined fun, happy times explaining to kids how to get a sweet pass and what the five-hole was. Why, he had no idea. His dad had made a good point: Peewee hockey was a fucking bloodbath.
“Knife shoes,” Mooney whispered. “That’s metal as fuck.”
Mara glared at him.
He shrank back in his seat.
Mara steepled her fingers, elbows leaned on her desk. “Okay. Last question. Are you sure no one on your team will say something shitty and homophobic to my kids?”
“That’s kind of why we’re here.”
Jax closed his eyes. Why couldn’t Breezy think before he spoke?
Mara’s eyebrows rose, the piercing in the left one shifting with the movement. “Explain.”
“We had an incident in the locker room,” Jax said.
“Some…things were said. Not just homophobic things, racist, too, and, uh… We don’t want to be a team where it’s okay to say hurtful or prejudiced things.
The captain shut it down when it happened, but we, um, Breezy and me, felt like we should be doing more.
We earn a stupid amount of money, so we can do something good with it instead of being bigoted shitheads. ”
For the first time, Mara smiled at them.
“Really?” Mooney asked. “Telling you we’ve already fucked up makes you trust us?”
“Oh, no. I’m pretty sure you’re all idiots, but your hearts are in the right place, and I can work with that. This captain of yours, he coming too?”
Jax had managed to go a full ten minutes without thinking of Tom. Now, he couldn’t help but remember. When the charity stuff was up and running, Tom would miss him. Because they couldn’t see each other anymore. Because Tom was so deep in the closet, he couldn’t be associated with this. Or Jax.
“Yeah,” Breezy said enthusiastically. “He signed up for a few dates. None of the ones with cameras and PR, though, which is Tom all over. He’s a humble guy, you know?”
Humble. Sure. Humble, self-loathing, and terrified.
Jax shoved the feelings down and smiled brightly. “So can we meet the kids?”
Despite it being a school day, a few of the kids hung around Mara’s office, very conspicuously trying to catch a glimpse of what was going on in there.
“Late night last night. I let them have a sick day,” Mara said with a shrug. Jax wondered if there was more to the story, but her closed-off expression forbade him from asking.
Some of them couldn’t have been older than twelve or thirteen, and Jax abruptly remembered none of these kids had a home.
His parents might have been kids themselves when they had him, they might have been disorganized and chaotic and shit at remembering to pay the bills on time, but he’d never for an instant doubted whether they loved him.
He’d never been scared to come out because of them.
He’d only been scared because of hockey.
Mara drummed everyone together while Breezy and Mooney grabbed the sticks and pucks they’d brought with them from the car.
The shelter had a courtyard out back, a shitty asphalt patch with two rickety basketball hoops.
It would do, but Jax made a mental note to ask about getting a landscaper in here.
Kids needed trees, for oxygen or something.
“All right, any questions?” he asked once they had gotten through explaining the rules of street hockey.
“Yeah,” said a short, skinny boy with an Afro probably meant to make him appear taller. “What’s the point?”
Jax blinked.
“I mean,” the kid continued, “you guys are gonna get filmed playing hockey with us, great for you, but what good does it do us?”
“It doesn’t have to do you good.” Breezy’s expression was utterly crestfallen at the thought. “It’s just fun.”
Mooney’s eyes might as well have permanently rolled to the top of his head at this point.
“We’re not only playing hockey; we’re sponsoring you guys.
We’re giving you clothes, sports gear, notebooks, school supplies, whatever, from the team store.
Also, you get seen playing with us on the team Instagram or whatever and next thing you know, you’ve got hockey fans all over the country donating you shit. ”
“Stuff,” Mara corrected out of the corner of her mouth.
“Right. Stuff.”
The kid still looked skeptical. “All of it have that dumb-ass sea lion on it? You know sea lions are the laziest animal. It’s no wonder you guys never win anything.”
Breezy’s face crumpled in devastation. “Sea lions are awesome. They can stay underwater for twenty minutes.”
Jax stared at him.
“What? There’s a fact sheet in the locker room. We have a donation box for a research center underneath it and everything.”
“Okay.” Jax grabbed a stick and a puck. “Everything they said is true. We’re gonna get you guys noticed, and we’re gonna try to help. But also—” He took aim and shot. The puck slammed into one of the basketball hoop stands with a loud clang. “—hockey’s really great if you ever feel angry.”
The kids—teenagers, most of them about the same age as Jax’s sisters—were ruthless once they got the hang of things, enthusiastic and energetic.
On the court, Breezy shone. His easygoing nature and cheer worked there in a way it hadn’t beforehand.
In another life, Jax could see him as the rare PE teacher all the kids at school loved.
They wound down after half an hour, most of the teens already heading inside or helping Mooney liberate the snacks and drinks they’d brought from the car while a few stragglers asked Breezy for tips on checking. He did great, making sure to teach them how not to hurt anyone, first and foremost.
“So how did you know?”
“Huh?” Jax turned to Mara.
She studied him, assessing. “How did you know how angry they all are? Most people who donate expect everyone here to fall all over themselves being grateful for every little bit of help we get.”
Jax swallowed.
He thought again of Tom, half asleep under the sheets, tugging Jax closer and at the same time announcing his intention to push him away if he ever dared be himself out loud.
“I know how I’d feel if the people who should love me no matter what turned me away for…this,” he finished lamely.
Mara gave him a sad little half-smile, and he thought she knew. But if he was doing this, it wouldn’t be with rumors and half-baked non-statements.
“I got lucky.”
“I’m glad you did. Worked out pretty well for my kids.”
Jax grinned, relief loosening the ever-present fear gripping his chest. It made way for the sadness, the impact he’d been bracing for since last night. Maybe if he mourned losing Tom now, before it happened, it wouldn’t hurt so much when it did.
“So, Mara,” he said, trying to sound upbeat, a little smug, and, in general, like Jaxon Grant. “Can I pay to get a landscaper out here?”
“You know what?” Mara linked her hand through his elbow and led him toward her office. “I would be thrilled to take more of your money.”