Chapter 15
fifteen
[…] Forty years ago, when you thought hockey, you thought big, beefy guys knocking one another’s teeth out and maybe occasionally scoring goals in there somewhere. To say things have changed would be like pointing out that Istanbul is, in fact, no longer Constantinople.
These days, hockey players pride themselves on speed, agility, and the combination of intuition and practice referred to as “hockey IQ.” Summer isn’t downtime, it’s training season; penalty minutes aren’t something to be proud of, they’re something to avoid.
Looking at the San Francisco Sea Lions, star left wing, Tom Crowler, plays a game based on speed and agility while his center, Jax Grant, brings the muscle and the intuition to back it up.
In the defensive zone, they’ve got new, rising star Luca Mazetti, who is slight enough to be a figure skater but has a deft hand with the puck, relying on his quick feet and soft hands instead of stature.
And while none of these guys are overladen with dignity (Grant in particular is known for wearing hideously colorful suits and whatever designer object is the newest trend), they’re a far cry from the toothless buffoons of yore.
So where does that leave old-school players in a new league?
The guys who’re still out there to rile everyone up and smack their stick in someone’s face?
Well, the Mike Vanderbilts of the hockey world are still trucking, but a new kind of player is on the rise to bridge the gap.
Smart and quick, yes, but also annoying as all get out, Kilian Howard is the Sea Lions’ answer to the changes in the hockey landscape.
He’s our youngest player, a kid no one expected to make the team his first year after being drafted, but already he’s got the speed and the know-how.
In addition, he’s such a pest the other teams can’t help but take penalties trying to shut him up. […]
Morris called in sick for the Chicago game. After his absence from morning skate with no notice, Tom’s black mood only worsened. He’d felt off since Jax left the night before, lonely in a way he hadn’t been in all the years he’d spent alone.
Jax probably knew he was getting too attached after spending the night together, sleeping with Jax curled around him.
That couldn’t become a habit. Jax didn’t even like hockey players.
So, while it was very kind of him to claim he found Tom attractive, to compliment him, and teach him all the things Tom had been missing out on, Tom benefited from their arrangement far more than Jax.
Jax had made the right call leaving yesterday, and it was good he hadn’t been at the optional skate this morning. This meant Tom had almost a full day to get his head on straight, and Jax wouldn’t go apoplectic after suffering through one of Trout’s practices.
Tom had nearly forgotten what a mess they were.
The good news was that Trout had decided to stop systematically overworking the D-core.
The bad news was that he’d moved on to including everyone else.
Tom tried to ask about it, midway through a prolonged, full-ice special teams drill, which had both power play units racing across the ice at full speed over and over till none of them could get enough air.
“Coach?” he tried, still panting. “I thought this was a light practice?”
The SoCal games were back-to-back. The team would need some breathing room.
Trout snorted derisively. “You’re not paid to think. Get going, Crowler, or do you want to be a healthy scratch tonight?”
By the time the team dressed for the game, Tom’s skin prickled, stretched tight across his body, wired from wondering if he’d messed things up with Jax by being too needy.
At the same time, exhaustion from the practice drills weighed him down so heavily it would be a struggle to get through the whole game.
Jax, Breezy, and Mooney returning together, full of excitement and stories about the shelter, did not help his mood one bit.
For the first time, he was thankful for Trout’s perpetual bad mood.
“No one wants to hear about you holding hands with orphans,” he bellowed. “Get fucking dressed.”
“They’re not orphans,” Breezy said. “They’re teenagers who’ve been—”
“Do I look like I care?”
Trout ducked into the office to get something—possibly a whip, given the way things were going—and Phil chose that moment to arrive, which seemed a little too convenient for Tom’s taste.
“What’s wrong with Morris?” Tom asked.
“He’ll be better in time for the roadie. How’re you feeling, boys?”
The boys groaned.
Phil took a seat on the bench. “Okay, well, the good news is Chicago’s starting goalie’s on IR. Keep the D-line tight, let Jax do the heavy lifting offensively, you’ll be fine.”
“Easton!” Trout barked. “What the fuck is this?”
Phil smiled at him innocently. “Just giving the boys a little moral support, Coach.”
“Sounds like backseat coaching to me.”
It not only sounded like backseat coaching, it also looked like it. Whatever issues plagued the coaching staff, Phil knew about them and hadn’t told Tom.
“Nah, I wouldn’t know the first thing about coaching. Oh, hey, Howie?”
“Huh?” Howie glanced up from taping his stick.
“Denisov—on Chicago’s second line? He put something really stupid online the other day. Lemme show you.”
Howie went over to check it out and immediately broke into a braying laugh. “Oh, damn. I bet I can lose him at least a face-off if I time it right.”
“But don’t let him crush you to the boards too much, kid. The man’s six-foot-seven.”
Jax elbowed Tom lightly. “You think we can hire him as a coach?”
Trout’s eagle eyes narrowed in their direction.
“I wish,” Tom muttered. It would certainly solve a lot of problems. Maybe Tom could talk to the GM when he wasn’t seeing Jax anymore. He’d have too much time on his hands then anyway.
The game ended up being an overtime loss, with an incensed Denisov scoring on them two minutes after the end of regulation. Still, a point was a point, and he had lost several face-offs against Howie.
“It’s as if Trout doesn’t want us to win,” Tom complained to Jax as they headed for the showers. They were the last two in because they’d been tapped for media, the endless curse of the captain and alternates.
Jax winced. “I heard he went hard on you guys this morning. Hope Morris gets back in time for the roadie.”
“Yeah.” Although, the longer he led the bench, the more Tom noticed Morris wasn’t particularly helpful on his own either.
It had taken their intervention to get the team up to a solid winning record.
Tom had a tab open on his phone to research drills, and he worried he ought to be watching the video review for the goalies on top of everyone else, but he didn’t have the time or the eye for it.
None of these things were in his job description. “I never want to be a coach.”
“No? I thought for sure when you retired…”
Tom realized, suddenly and sharply, that he had no clue what he would do when he retired.
He didn’t want to coach, didn’t want to spend time on any of the annoying parts of hockey and none of the actual playing.
He definitely didn’t want to be in the public eye anymore.
But as for something he did want to do? Tom had nothing.
It was as if Jax could see the sudden existential crisis on his face. “Guess you’ll be one of those millionaires who spends all year on the beach, huh? Get a little house in Cabo, drink cocktails all day…”
“Burn to a crisp and die of skin cancer.”
Jax stared at him. “Wow. What crawled up your ass and died?”
Tom wanted to tell him nothing had ever crawled up his ass besides Jax’s dick, but that was neither appropriate for the workplace nor sexy. “Nothing. Weird day. Come over?”
He hadn’t meant to invite Jax. He’d meant to play it cool, act as unaffected about it all as Jax. But Jax was right there, naked under the showers, and Tom was only human. He had eight days left. He wanted all of them.
Jax hesitated, chewing on his lip. “Yeah,” he said eventually.
“You don’t have to—”
“No, no, I want to.”
“Okay, um, see you later?”
“Yeah.”
At home, Tom showered thoroughly despite having just cleaned up at the arena.
He didn’t want to repeat yesterday’s awkward interlude; he wanted to be ready for everything.
Thinking about what “everything” entailed left him a little glassy-eyed and wobbly-kneed under the stream, making the whole process take longer than it should have.
After, his skin was so sensitive from the lingering heat of the water and the memories of last night he couldn’t handle the thought of the tough, scratchy fabric of any of his pants, so he pulled on threadbare sweats and his most washed-out T-shirt.
He realized too late he hadn’t given Jax a time, which left him wandering aimlessly around the apartment, dusting off surfaces he hadn’t bothered cleaning in years and wondering what Jax would do to him this time.
By the time Jax got there, Tom had run through most everything his imagination had to offer, leaving him flushed and horny already.
“Okay, whoa, whoa!” Jax laughed when Tom dragged him through the door by his shirt collar and kissed him thoroughly. He snaked his arms around Tom’s waist and slowed the kiss into something more tender. “What’s gotten into you?”
“I was hoping you would,” Tom said, and then he had to stop and laugh at himself. He rarely watched porn because it used exactly that kind of cheesy line he’d thought no one ever said in real life.
Jax smiled, too, indulgently, as if he didn’t get the joke but enjoyed the sound of Tom’s laughter all the same.
Tom’s stomach swooped. He kissed Jax again to keep from saying anything stupid.
It escalated quickly as he slid his hands under the hem of Jax’s henley, the fabric soft—something designer and likely costing more than all of Tom’s shirts combined—though not as soft as Jax’s skin, warm under his touch.