Chapter Fourteen
Olivia Starling [off-screen]: We’re here live at the Pot of Gold shelter with a few of the San Francisco Sea Lions’ best and brightest, talking about their new partnership. Gentlemen, what inspired you to pick up this project?
Breezy: Why we’re working with the shelter? Well, it’s just a good thing to do.
Jax: The LGBTQIA-plus community is a big part of San Francisco, and we want to give back.
The arena we play our games at—that’s something the city built and paid for, with sponsorship from Cyberian incorporated, of course.
We’re a part of this town, and it’s important to us to share the privileges we get as athletes.
Breezy: Yeah. Like, Pittsburgh does a thing with sick kids in hospitals. Montreal partners with an animal shelter.
Phil: It’s also really important to marginalized communities to see yourself in fields that aren’t always welcoming.
When I was growing up, there weren’t a lot of Black hockey players around.
I nearly quit more than once because I thought it was a pipe dream.
Currently, there are zero out LGBT-plus hockey players in the NHL.
If we can make the sport more accessible and, frankly, less hostile to even one of these kids, we’re growing the future of the sport.
Top comments:
phileastonfanclub: [clapping emoji]
sealionsfan8216: Phil is the best of the Sea Lions. Always measured, always kind, and such a good role model.
seelionssaylions: someday Easton will give a personal interview where he doesn’t talk about fishing or about how hard it is to be a Black hockey player. Dude earns six mil a year—what has he got to complain about?
(Video posted to The San Francisco Herald sports section on 12/20/2024)
Christmas fell on a Tuesday.
The team had a three-day break in the schedule, so there was a brief, blessed respite from hockey and, even better, from hockey media.
In his last media availability before the break, someone asked Ben about Luca Mazetti’s defensive skills and whether he thought them on par with his offensive power.
Ben, who had been under the impression that as a D-man, Luca only played defense, floundered horribly.
Despite having suggested festivities with the shelter to Charlie, Ben hadn’t done much for Christmas in years. It was a lonely holiday when he never stuck around anywhere long.
This year, he wasn’t alone.
On Christmas Eve, Phil’s cleaning service brought a tree. To Ben, this stretched the definition of their job by a large margin. But Phil spent all morning joking with Rosalia as they put the tree up together, and when she left, he handed her an envelope with a Santa Claus sticker on it.
“Of course I give her a Christmas tip,” Phil said when he caught Ben eyeing him. “Who do you think I am—Scrooge McDuck?”
“No, I just…” Ben didn’t think Phil ever interacted with his various services, but it seemed rude to say so.
“If we get married, we’re going to have to talk about your problem with me having money.”
“I don’t have a problem with it.” Ben lied on autopilot, too caught up processing that Phil still hadn’t understood a marriage would be an awful idea.
“So you get all defensive and snarky about it because you love me being rich?”
“Hey, I’m not defensive.” He’d give Phil snarky, but honestly, Ben had every reason to be. It had been about a week since the memorable night in Phil’s tub, and Ben had expected things between them to change. Hoped for it, even. How was he ever supposed to get over Phil if Phil never backed off?
Instead, Phil had taken Ben and Charlie Christmas shopping.
He’d watched game highlights side by side in the living room with Ben and told him what skills Howie needed to work on to become a more effective center.
Worst of all, he’d appeared on the team’s Instagram during one of their segments on the team’s work with the shelter, talking about how important it was to support queer youth.
Ben was especially proud that he didn’t say anything after the Instagram thing.
He watched the reel lying in bed, with Phil just on the other side of the wall, and it made him want to scream with frustrated desire.
If Ben had to go and fall for a confused, possibly bi-curious guy, at least he’d chosen the nicest one on the planet.
“Great! If you’re not defensive about money, it’ll be really convenient for the gift I want to give you,” Phil wheedled.
“You got me something?” Ben said. “Wow, I didn’t think—”
“Ben.”
Ben grinned. That part, he had predicted correctly. Phil could not resist the opportunity to inundate people with gifts.
Phil flicked him on the nose.
The casual touch sent a spark of heat down Ben’s spine.
It didn’t mean anything; Phil hadn’t pulled away like Ben expected him to, but he also hadn’t come any closer.
Ben understood why. He’d come on pretty strong, the last vestiges of his Mormon upbringing coming through in his insistence that marriage had to mean something.
He’d been positive it would be a flat “no” from Phil, but that last moment, when he’d asked for a chance…
A foolish part of Ben held on to hope something more would come of it, even if he knew it was better to call it quits now.
They might even salvage a friendship, which would be good for Charlie.
They skipped a traditional Christmas morning.
Ben remembered what those were like with his family, extremely rote and ritualized, and he had no need for more.
They ate the same freshly baked cinnamon buns every year, stuffed chock-full with raisins.
Ben hated raisins. When he was six, he gagged and spit up his entire breakfast, and then he had to stay in his room until noon and missed all the presents.
His older brother got to unwrap his and left them in a pile by the door.
All the girls had to wear dresses, usually in some sort of festive plaid, and all the boys had to wear ties. Before anyone got presents, they had to sit through interminable photo sessions on the freshly steam-cleaned couch, and then the gifts were unwrapped carefully one by one.
At Phil’s house, they exchanged gifts with Charlie over coffee at the breakfast table.
Charlie got Ben a T-shirt that read “Go Unspecified Sports Team” with an older version of the Sea Lions’ logo, prominently featuring the heinous mascot, which he and Phil both thought was hilarious.
He gave Phil a Spotify playlist to force Phil to, in his words, “listen to something from this decade.”
Ben tensed in his seat, ready to tell his nephew he ought to treat Phil with more respect after everything Phil had done for him, but Phil laughed out loud in delight.
“You can’t tell the guys,” he said, making Charlie promise. “Or they’ll all make me listen to whatever terrible country star is big right now.”
The gift became even funnier when Phil gave Charlie a Spotify account without the ads, as well as tickets to see some superhero movie they’d apparently been talking about.
“Way to make me feel bad about my present,” Ben said to Phil before handing it to Charlie.
He’d used the gift-wrap station at CVS. It felt like entering a different world.
All he’d gifted for the last few years were small things to people he’d worked with, mostly consumables.
Once or twice, he’d had a boyfriend, but Ben had never made it to an elaborate gifting stage.
At most, he’d gifted a meal out or a night in.
Wrapping something properly by hand for the first time in years was oddly, cathartically reminiscent of home.
He remembered how to fold the edges so it would come out nicely; he remembered how to make an accent stripe with the reverse side of the paper.
Ben even remembered how to tie a fancy knot in the ribbon.
In his mom’s house, gift wrapping was a competitive sport, and sloppy packages weren’t put under the tree.
Charlie unwrapped it hesitantly, reverently.
Of course it couldn’t compare to Phil’s presents. It was an empty book.
“It’s a photo album,” Ben rushed to explain, feeling clumsy with his words in a way he usually didn’t. “I thought. Um. Well, I know you left a lot behind. I wanted you to know you can make new memories here. Good memories. I hope.”
It wasn’t a huge or expensive gift, but Charlie beamed at him, so Ben felt secure in the knowledge he hadn’t entirely fucked up the guardianship thing on this one occasion.
His present for Phil was in his pocket, but Phil made no move to offer him something, so Ben hung on to it. He would rather exchange gifts with Phil in private anyway.
Phil took them to Dunkin’ Donuts for breakfast at the drive-thru. He handed the cashier a hundred-dollar bill and told him to keep the change, which on Ben’s personal scale of displays of wealth sided firmly on acceptable.
When they finished consuming enough sugar to make Ben’s heart race, they drove over to the shelter.
Since it had been his (or rather, Charlie’s) idea, Breezy and Jax had Phil keep all the presents for the shelter kids in Phil’s car.
They’d taken a few of Charlie’s suggestions, but the majority were surprises.
Both of them, as well as Tom Crowler and Luca Mazetti, waited at the curb as they pulled up.
Breezy bounced on the balls of his feet. “Finally!”
“Someone’s excited,” Ben said.
“He actually enjoys spending time with his family,” Phil explained. “Break’s too short to fly out, so this is the closest he’s come to a family Christmas in three years.”
“Hi, Coach.” Jax, Tom, and Luca all said it at the same time, which made them look at one another in surprise and then laugh.
It made Ben feel like the math teacher in an unruly grade seven.
“Merry Christmas,” he said. “You’ve all met my nephew, Charlie, right?”