Chapter Five
[…] Q: What do you see as your role in the Sea Lions organization?
Pulvermacher: The Sea Lions are a young team, new to the NHL and new to the industry.
In relative terms, of course, ten years isn’t nothing.
But some of these teams have been there for decades.
As GM, my role is to help the team grow, both in terms of players and staff, as well as in the market here in San Francisco.
Q: What are your plans to reach the San Francisco audience? So far, your predecessors haven’t had much luck.
Pulvermacher: We’re launching a new streaming service for fans with exclusive content featuring the players and some really cool behind-the-scenes footage. We’re hoping to reach hockey fans all over the state. […]
Top comments:
seelionssaylions: Oh, great. ANOTHER paid streaming platform to shill out cash for if you want to watch hockey. Just what I needed.
sealionsfan82: Looking forward to seeing behind the curtain on the new streaming service. Kinda wish the team would start engaging with local communities though. If you want local fans, that’s how you do it.
(From “The New Sheriff in Town: Martin Pulvermacher takes over as GM of the struggling San Francisco Sea Lions,” interview published in The San Francisco Herald on 07/10/2020)
The last time Phil kissed another man was such a long time ago he thought of it as kissing a boy.
He’d left same-sex kissing and furtive, desperate hand jobs behind when he graduated high school and signed his first NHL contract.
As such, he’d never felt someone else’s stubble scrape against his cheek; no boy he’d kissed during Juniors could grow any.
The firm, confident press of Ben’s hands, anchoring Phil against the counter when his knee wouldn’t hold him, was also a new sensation.
Phil had no idea how long the kiss went on. It must have been a while, long enough for his hand to slip under the hem of Ben’s T-shirt. The fabric felt thin under his fingers, soft and worn from frequent washing. Ben’s skin was hot. He had love handles.
When Ben tried to pull away, Phil grabbed hold of them and pulled him in tighter.
It had been so long since he’d been kissed.
Ten minutes ago, Phil would have said he hadn’t been kissed since Camille signed the divorce papers in July, patted his cheek, and pecked him chastely on the lips before leaving with her designer suitcases and immaculate hair.
Now, Phil knew it had been much longer. With Camille, he was the one who kissed, and she was the one who was kissed.
She’d never crowded him up against the counters and taken what she wanted as if she’d die if she didn’t taste him.
She’d never wrenched herself away, wide-eyed and panting, with her lips bruised red and puffy from the force of her desire.
Ben stared at him for a brutally long span of time in which Phil could do nothing but pant for breath and cling to Ben’s back until he regained balance on his good leg.
“I’m sorry,” Ben said, his voice rough. “I shouldn’t have done that.”
He absolutely should have.
“I’m still your coach even if you’re on IR. I promise I won’t let this affect any decisions related to your contract.”
Oh. Right. That was a good reason Ben shouldn’t be kissing him, along with how it woke up nerve endings and desires Phil didn’t think he had anymore.
Phil cleared his throat and let go of Ben’s waist, slipping his hands out from under Ben’s T-shirt. “Right. Um. Yeah. Thanks.”
Ben stepped away, and the cold air he left in his wake sent goosebumps across Phil’s skin. “Look, I just got news on short notice that my niece is coming to stay with me for a while. I’ve trespassed on your hospitality long enough. I’ll find us a place to stay—”
“Don’t be ridiculous. I have plenty of room, and you stay in enough shitty hotel rooms as it is.”
Ben’s eyebrows drew down. “Fuck—road trips,” he muttered. Phil wasn’t certain whether he’d meant for Phil to hear it. “What do I do with her during road trips?”
“You should stay here,” Phil said with no conscious input from his brain. “I’m here during road trips.”
A man wearing a novelty shirt and flannel pants had no right to look as coolly assessing as Ben did in that moment as he raked his eyes across Phil’s entire frame. In their wake, acute awareness of his untucked shirt, his bare feet, his bum knee, and his pounding heart swept through Phil.
“Thank you,” Ben said, and then he turned and left the kitchen.
It took Phil ten minutes of staring blankly at where Ben had stood to realize he’d never answered the question.
Phil had asked, point-blank, why Ben wasn’t doing the one thing he’d been hired for, which was to coach the team into winning a game or two.
And in response, Ben had kissed Phil so intensely that Phil had forgotten his question.
What did that even mean?
Was Ben secretly gay, and fear of being found out distracted him from hockey?
No, that was stupid. There were hundreds of players in the NHL, and statistically speaking, a few of them had to be gay or some other version of not straight.
For years now, ever since the US had legalized gay marriage, Phil had been waiting for the Pride game where a player decided to come out.
Every year, when June passed and the playoffs ended and it still hadn’t happened, a sort of idle disappointment would hit him.
But sexuality angst was no reason to be bad at your job, or Phil himself would—
It just didn’t make sense.
Anyway, if Ben were gay and secretly lusting after Phil, he would have been less distracted once Phil got injured and stopped playing with the team.
That didn’t track. Ben had been equally shitty all season, regardless of Phil’s presence.
What a shame. Phil wouldn’t mind kissing him again if it got him to focus on the team more.
Maybe Ben’s family was distracting him? This news about his niece seemed serious. But if Ben had known in advance, he wouldn’t be so stressed about her coming to stay.
The last option—the one Phil had avoided looking at directly for as long as possible—was that he’d been right all along: Ben and Pulvermacher had some incredibly shady plan involving the coaching situation, which they chose to keep from the team.
Had Ben kissed him in order to distract him from his suspicions? Was Ben really so cold?
Phil ran his fingertips across his lips, still tingling from the scratch of Ben’s stubble.
Ben didn’t kiss like someone who used it as a means to an end.
Camille had kissed Phil hundreds of times on camera to show her long list of friends and acquaintances how good they were together.
That had never left him half as confused.
Ben kissed like a drowning man clinging to a life raft, and Phil might be an idiot for allowing himself to be lied to, but he’d always liked being useful.
If Ben had bad intentions, Phil told himself, he wouldn’t have pulled back.
He wouldn’t have apologized. He wouldn’t have considered the consequences to Phil’s career.
With Phil confused and, to be honest, aroused, Ben could easily have pressed his advantage.
Phil would have gone along with it; he knew as much instinctively.
And then, when they were naked and sweaty and vulnerable, Ben could have pressured him into silence.
He’d done none of that.
Which was good. It was a good choice. It was the right choice.
Phil wasn’t disappointed at all.
When enough time had passed and he could be certain he wouldn’t run into Ben in the shared en suite upstairs, Phil made the arduous journey up to his bedroom.
He skipped showering, too afraid that setting foot in the tiled stall would remind him of Ben’s strong shoulders and steady guidance when he’d helped Phil. Instead, he went straight to bed.
When he woke up the next morning, Ben had already left, so Phil Ubered to the practice rink in Palo Alto.
He found the team in mid-practice, performing one of the drills Phil had written up in the notebook he’d started collecting ideas in when he couldn’t stand to watch them lose on TV anymore.
He’d been amazed Ben hadn’t thrown it out when Phil had shown it to him.
He was more amazed Ben actually chose to use it.
He observed the team for a while. Thanksgiving had helped restore some sort of team unity, but Lunes—going by “Mooney” now—stuck firmly to his own line, jaw set. He didn’t make eye contact with anyone, but he did shoulder Hayes hard more than once.
They couldn’t have the team injuring one another during practice.
Ben said nothing about it. Why had Phil hoped he would run useful drills as well as keep the team peace? He never had before.
A locker room functioned on a delicate balance of selective blindness and honest camaraderie.
Among the Sea Lions, guys learned fast to accept Tom’s preference of leading by example rather than through speeches.
They also learned not to linger in the showers or leave their used, stinky gear lying around, or risk earning Tom’s impatient foot-tapping or Breezy’s disappointed look.
No one wanted to deal with Breezy’s disappointed look.
Keeping spirits up was Phil’s job, which he accomplished with a mix of listening to everyone complain and playing pump-up tunes before games.
Sure, the guys gave him flack for not including whatever country singers were most popular at the moment, but Phil knew what everyone really wanted from pump-up tracks: music they knew all the words to and a beat they could tap along with.
Besides, if he let one of the Canadians take over, everyone would have to listen to Nickelback, a much worse fate than hip-hop from the early 2000s.