Chapter Twenty
@Olivia_Starling: “Sea Lions defensive coach Lewis Trout has been arrested on charges of racketeering. Further information on the details as they come!”
Top replies:
@seelionssaylions: Yikes. On the bright side, maybe now the sea lions defense will start actually defending.
@SFClions: Oh my God that’s horrifying! I hope the team’s okay! They need to buckle down and focus on each other and hockey right now. I hope this shelter stuff will take a back seat.
(Posted to on 02/25/2025)
Criminal proceedings, at least when it came to the kind of white-collar crime Ben had gotten stuck in the middle of, were astonishingly long-winded and dull.
Shortly after the team’s return to California, Trout was arrested.
He’d elected not to fly home with the team and surrender himself.
Instead, he’d rented a car out of the Minneapolis airport and driven east. Since he’d rented it under his own name and used his own credit card to fill up on gas, the police had found him quickly.
The more Ben learned about the man, the more surprised he was it had taken this long for someone to notice his shady dealings.
Ben had to talk to the prosecutors in the case several times and go over everything that had happened as well as walk through the evidence over and over in advance of the court hearing scheduled in March.
Pulvermacher, who was still in the process of interviewing for the Arizona job, tried his level best to keep all mention of the matter out of the media.
A large part of Ben wanted to take everything he knew and publish it just to get it over with.
But too much publicity would bias a potential jury, so he could do nothing but sit tight and wait it out.
In the meantime, there were more important legal matters to see to.
On the morning of Charlie’s guardianship hearing, Ben put on the suit he hated least and buttoned his shirt to the top before tying his tie tightly and resolving to leave it that way until their case had been heard.
Charlie wore a dress shirt and slacks. He’d parted his hair on the side, the way Ben remembered his dad doing on days he knew there would be pictures taken of him.
“I’ll be waiting right outside,” Phil told them both. He kissed Ben quickly on the lips before giving Charlie a big, fortifying hug. “You’re going to be fine.”
It was a long morning with a lot of cases.
The judge called them up alphabetically, so “Sinclair” was one of the last cases on the docket.
Some of it got ugly, with parents shouting at one another and grandparents covering the children’s ears.
Ben looked to Charlie every now and again in case any of it triggered him, but each time, he found Charlie staring down at his lap, clenching and unclenching his fists.
When their case finally came up, the expediency disappointed Ben. Phil had a good lawyer. She saved Ben from having to do most of the talking. There were no objections, the paperwork was in order, and within less than half an hour, the judge granted Ben full legal guardianship of Charlie.
For some reason, Ben expected more drama.
He loosened his tie as soon as they left the courtroom. “We did it,” he said, and opened his arms to Charlie.
Charlie accepted the hug passively.
“You okay, kid?”
“Yeah.” Charlie attempted a smile, but it was forced at best.
Ben frowned and drew to a halt. Beige marble covered the hallway floors, the kind dress shoes squeaked on. It seemed like a bad choice for a place where everyone always wore dress shoes.
“Charlie.”
Charlie stopped a few feet ahead of him.
“Are you…” Ben had already asked if Charlie was okay. He wished he knew the right question. “Is this still what you want?”
Charlie’s head snapped up. His eyes were red-rimmed, and tear tracks ran down his cheeks. “Of course,” he said hoarsely.
“What’s wrong, then?”
“I just thought they would be here.”
“Oh. Oh, Charlie.” Ben drew him in for another hug, and this time, Charlie melted into him, face buried in Ben’s shoulder, shaking.
He pressed a kiss to the top of Charlie’s head.
“I’m so sorry they don’t know what they have in you.
I’m so sorry you were born into a family that can’t see your worth. ”
Charlie shuddered in his arms and then pulled away. “But I’m glad I’m with you. And Phil. Really. I promise.”
Ben pulled Charlie under his arm and led him out of the courthouse, shoes squeaking with every step.
Phil waited for them at the bottom of the steps. When he spotted Charlie’s face, he tensed up. “Everything okay?”
“Yeah,” Charlie said. “We won. It’s all good.”
Ben shot Phil a thumbs-up behind Charlie’s back so he wouldn’t worry. “I thought you might want to take us out for a stupidly expensive meal and then maybe ice cream.”
“You read my mind,” Phil said, easily picking up his cue. “There’s a great Asian fusion place around the corner. Maybe it’s time to try out sushi, huh, Charlie?”
Charlie squared his shoulders. “Yeah. Yeah, I think I’d like that.”
Over lunch, Phil filled them in on the latest team gossip.
Breezy had announced his intention to take a dating hiatus; Luca had odds on him lasting a week, tops.
Mooney ought to pay a fine for appearing in the locker room with scratches down his back, but Jax proved such an ineffective fine master Mooney got away with nothing more than vigorous mocking.
That story Phil heavily edited for Charlie’s ears.
The team had managed to cling to third place in the Pacific Conference over the last few weeks, so things were looking up.
“You miss it, don’t you?” Ben asked when Charlie went to the restroom.
“Hm?”
“Being part of the team. Playing.”
“Of course,” Phil said immediately, as if it should have been obvious.
Maybe it should have been—he had dedicated his life to the sport.
Since Ben had known him, though, he’d been so generous with his time and attention, helping with Charlie, with Ben’s coaching crises, with Tom and Breezy, and every other team member who’d come to him for help.
Ben chewed at the inside of his cheek, trying to decide if it counted as self-sabotage or as being a good partner to ask. “Are you sure you want to retire?”
“Hm?”
“Because you don’t have to. Your knee rehab is going well, I bet you could get a contract extension, and if not, there are other teams that would want you. Charlie and I haven’t been here long. If it’s really important to you—”
“Ben,” Phil said and took his hand across the table. “Thank you.”
Ben’s heart sank. Phil must have been waiting for this moment. He wanted to sign somewhere else and uproot them all. Ben would support him, of course he would, but it would be a wrench to do that to Charlie.
“I’m definitely retiring after the playoffs,” Phil said. “But thank you for offering. Means a lot to me.”
Swallowing heavily, Ben asked, “You’re sure?”
“Yeah. I, uh. I went and talked to Michelle. The sports therapist who works for the team. Breezy recommended her to me, and it was a good idea. Intense, but it put some things in perspective for me.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“Yeah. You know, I really hate contract negotiations.”
“Why? I mean, you came out of them a millionaire both times.”
Ben would never be a hockey nerd, but he’d looked up the members of the team back in August. Phil’s stats had interested him particularly because, even then, Phil had been the only player with whom Ben wanted to have a conversation.
Phil had been drafted to the Carolina Twisters at eighteen and then sent back to his Juniors team in Canada for development.
When San Francisco’s expansion draft came around the following year, he was traded to them and immediately became part of the starting lineup.
After his ELC ended, his contract was renewed first for eight years at just over four million a year and then for five at six million.
He had the kind of money that made money so long as it gathered interest.
Phil turned their hands over so Ben’s rested on top and he could trace the lines of Ben’s palm with his fingertips.
“The weirdest thing about being an athlete for me is how entitled people feel to your body. Your height and weight are on all the stats sheets and people online talk about whether or not they believe what it says there. You make a bad play, and people keep saying you could have done better, you should have done better. I’m the one living in my body, and I know what I could have done in the moment.
And I can deal with it from fans. I don’t love it, but it’s part of the deal. But contract negotiations…”
He sighed and looked out the window. “It’s putting a price tag on my body and what it can do for the person who owns it.
Literally. Pulvermacher, Van Giesing—you know what they’re like now.
And they’re the ones who bought me on the market and could choose to sell me to another team any time.
We call them trades to make it sound civilized, but they’re trades the same way you trade stocks on Wall Street.
My body is an investment portfolio to those guys, and it’s always made me uncomfortable. ”
“I never thought about it like that,” Ben said. “That’s…yeah, that’s pretty fucking uncomfortable.”
Phil shot him a crooked smile. “I guess I always felt it more keenly because hockey’s such a white sport, you know?
It’s better these days. Teams are getting more diverse, and we’re also doing more to make it accessible to kids from all walks of life.
But when I started out in the NHL, there were way fewer Black guys around.
Maybe it feels different in a more diverse sport.
Maybe it doesn’t. I don’t know. But I was talking to Michelle about the last time I had to negotiate and how it made my skin crawl, and I don’t want to do it again if I don’t have to. ”
Phil toyed with the ring resting on Ben’s finger.
“Especially now. I’d be going in at a disadvantage with my knee, so it would mean letting the trainers shoot me up with every anti-inflammatory they legally can every time I feel a twinge instead of just taking a break.
And if they catch wind that I’m married to you, that’ll be a liability on paper too.
I don’t want to justify my life choices to a room full of guys in suits who think they own me.
It’s not something I need to be satisfied with my career.
I…I think I want to be one of the guys in the suits, making it more humane for the players.
I know myself so much better now, and that’s thanks to you. ”
Ben lifted the back of his hand to kiss it, which was, of course, when Charlie returned to the table.
“Gross,” he said. “What’s got you all sappy?”
“Phil’s being sweet.”
“I’m always sweet,” Phil said.
“True.”
“Really though, what’s going on?”
Phil looked to Ben, clearly unwilling to make Charlie’s day about himself. Ben loved him so much.
“I’m thinking about changing my name,” Ben said.
Phil snorted. “What, you got called Morris so much you want to make it official?”
“No, you idiot, I want to change it to Easton.”
Phil dropped his hand in shock. “Seriously?”
“Seriously. Being a Sinclair has given me nothing but misery. And we’re a family now, right?”
A slow smile spread across Phil’s face. “Yeah, we are. I told you I’d make you learn what that means.”
“You did. So I think we should make it official.”
Charlie looked between them. “I still think you’re gross, but in, like, a sweet way.”
Phil stuck his tongue out, and Charlie pulled a face in return, and then they had to pay before the restaurant kicked them out. They walked back to the car the long way, the one that led them past the ice cream place Ben found on his phone.
“You know,” Phil said to Charlie in a tone so conversational it had to be fake.
“Just…throwing this out there. I’m really not trying to be your dad or anything, but if Ben does take my name, well.
We’re married. We could legally adopt you some day.
And then you wouldn’t have to keep your name either if it turns out to be a burden. ”
Charlie stayed quiet for a very long time, studying the ice cream flavors. He picked pistachio, an awful choice.
“I’m going to have to think about it,” he said once he had his cone in hand. “But just so you know, you’re a fucking awesome dad.”
If, on the way to the car, Ben slipped his hand into Phil’s and squeezed very tightly, well, no one saw.