Chapter Nine
Breezy [reading off a card]: What am I most thankful for? Oh, my family, I guess. I mean, I wouldn’t be here without them. My mom drove me to hockey practice until I was about twelve even when it was super early in the morning, and my dad always gave me tips on developing my game.
Kayleigh [off-screen]: Did he also play hockey?
Breezy: No, never. Oh, and my brother Matty! He’s super smart, always keeps me humble.
Kayleigh: Want to send a message to Matty?
Breezy: [laughs] He would never watch this.
Top comments:
amazetti: is anyone else wondering what little twelve-year-old Breezy did when no one drove him to practice?
calabreezy: @amazetti—Breezy was never little
(From “Get to Know the Sea Lions: Breezy.” Video posted in The Rookery, the direct-to-consumer streaming service of the San Francisco Sea Lions and all associated teams, on 10/22/2025)
“So,” Michelle said. Her bare feet rested up on her desk again, which was a nice return to normalcy. “Are we ready to talk about the first thing on your list yet?”
“Nope,” Breezy said.
He’d given her his list of worries at their last appointment two weeks ago.
When she asked if he wanted to talk about any of it, he’d told her, “Not really,” and they spent the whole session talking about how it had felt to write the list instead.
He’d expected her to throw it out. But instead, when he walked in today, he found it lying right there on her desk in a little plastic folder, like a report card or a piece of artwork drawn by a child.
The list read, in total:
Number One: I keep finding out people are gay (which isn’t bad, but I can’t tell anyone, and also, why me?)
Number Two: Bad at dating
Number Two B: Bad at sex
Number Three: Luca will get tired of me and move out
Number Four: I’m worried the team will start fighting again, but Michelle said no hockey stuff on this list, so I can’t put it on here
Number Five: Mom called about some girl she wants me to meet even though I told her not to
“Okay, why not?”
Breezy shifted on the couch, sprawled out on his back with his knees bent over one armrest, staring at the ceiling. “I know you probably won’t tell anyone—”
“Yes, there is such a thing as doctor-patient confidentiality.”
“But it’s not my stuff to tell, and I feel bad talking about it.”
“Okay. What about number two—‘bad at dating’ and ‘bad at sex’?”
“Ugh.” Chris took one of the decorative throw pillows from the armrest under his knees and buried his face in it.
When he talked to Luca about his pathetic love life, he could barely get the words out, and Luca was— Well, Luca was the only person he would trust with it.
Plus, Luca promised to help him once they got home.
Chris had gotten a delay of sentence during the thirty-six hours the team had spent in St. Louis, where Luca took him out for amazing barbecued ribs.
But they were home now. After their flight, which had arrived at two in the morning, they had a rest day, meaning there was no more avoiding Luca’s coaching.
Not that Chris wanted to. He was just nervous. What if Luca laughed at him? Chris would definitely deserve it, but he didn’t get why.
Michelle hummed. “So, no on number two as well?”
Chris nodded into his pillow.
“Okay, how about number three. You want to talk about Luca?”
“Absolutely not.” Talking about Luca would mean talking about the sex thing and how Luca would realize how much cooler and smarter and all-around better he was than Chris the second they took their clothes off.
Maybe before then, when they kissed, and Chris slobbered all over him.
He had to be doing something wrong, and it must start before anyone got naked because Chris felt wrong just thinking about it.
“Well, four is about hockey, and you crossed it off, which leaves us with number five. Why is your mom setting you up a big enough worry to make the list?”
Chris sighed and rolled onto his side to look at Michelle. “I don’t know. I guess it’s not a big deal. I asked her not to, and she gave some girl my number anyway.”
He’d seen the text this morning, an unknown number with a Montreal area code and a message mentioning how his mom had invited the girl over for her famous spaghetti and meatballs and passed along Chris’s number while she was at it.
She never made meatballs for Matty’s ex, Tabitha.
That might have been because Tabitha, being Jewish, didn’t eat pork, but she’d adapted her recipes for lesser reasons.
“Does she often ignore things you’ve asked her not to do?”
“No!” Chris considered. He’d asked her to stop setting him up after Chloe, but then came Brittany. “Well, maybe sometimes. But she means well.”
“What does she mean?”
“She wants me to be happy, I guess.”
“And happy means dating someone?”
Involuntarily, Chris’s mouth twitched downward.
Michelle swung her feet off the desk and leaned forward to look at him. “It means dating someone she picks?”
“Yeah, I guess.” Chris wrapped his arms around the pillow on his chest. “My brother has—had a girlfriend for most of high school. Tabitha. And my parents were… I mean, they weren’t super rude, but they want us to date Italian girls, I guess?”
“Uh-huh. Why is being Italian important to them?”
“My parents are both from Italian families,” he explained. “Their parents set them up to, like, keep it in the community.”
“Okay.” Michelle jotted something down on the sheet of paper in front of her. “What I’m hearing is you feel pressured to follow in your parents’ footsteps, but your brother doesn’t?”
Chris laughed. “Nah. Matty never lets them get to him.”
“And why do you think that is?”
“He’s pretty headstrong. Always does what he wants.”
Michelle didn’t say anything, but Chris couldn’t leave it there. It sounded too mean.
“Not in a bad way. Matty’s super smart. He started university last month. He knows what he wants, so he doesn’t let Dad bully him.”
“Mm. Lots to unpack there.”
Chris jerked his head up to look at her. “Really?”
She smiled at him. “Unpacking is good, Chris. I’m glad you’re telling me about this. Before you gave me this list, I thought you had a great relationship with your family.”
“I mean, it’s not bad or anything. My mom doesn’t want me to marry anyone I don’t care about.”
“Things don’t have to be bad to be complicated or make us feel uncomfortable.”
“I guess so.” Chris rolled onto his back again and examined the ceiling, the pillow still clutched tight to his chest.
“You said your brother always knows what he wants. Does that mean you don’t?” Michelle didn’t sound like she judged him for being clueless. That was nice of her.
“Sometimes? It’s weird.”
“Try me.”
“Okay, so, I always thought I wanted to get married and have kids, right?”
Michelle made a wordless sound of agreement.
“But whenever I date someone, this switch in my brain flips to ‘Oh no, wait. I don’t want this.’ And I’m not great at meeting girls by myself, and my mom really wants me to have someone, so she keeps introducing me to these women.
And then, when it doesn’t work out, she gets all sad, and it makes me feel guilty for not being into them enough.
Because, like, I want to have a relationship at some point, right? ”
“I don’t know. Do you?”
Chris grunted in frustration. “I don’t know. I want someone to come home to and cuddle and talk about stuff with, but I’ve never enjoyed having sex, and every time a girl mentions marriage and kids, I freak out.”
“Okay,” Michelle said. “It’s okay, Chris.”
Chris looked down to find the pillow clenched so tight in his arms the seams strained. He hadn’t realized he was getting so worked up. “Sorry.”
“You don’t have to apologize. I should apologize. You said you didn’t want to talk about dating and sex, and now we are anyway. I’m sorry.”
Smoothing out the creases on the pillowcase, Chris said, “It’s fine.”
“Is that what you told your mom, too, when she crossed a boundary you set up?”
“She didn’t—”
“Chris.”
He sighed. “I haven’t talked to her about it yet.
” She would call later and tell him how she’d met this nice girl, and it had been an accident she’d given out his number.
She’d done it before. And he would accept the excuse and tell her it was fine but to please not do it again, as if giving out someone’s phone number could happen unintentionally.
Michelle didn’t ask another question, but Chris found himself wanting to explain all the same now that he had started. Michelle needed to understand why his mom did these things. It wasn’t her fault.
“I don’t want to upset her, you know? She deals with so much from my dad and Matty. I don’t need to add on. I think that’s why she keeps trying so hard to set me up, you know? I’m the only one who isn’t always criticizing her, so she wants to make me happy.”
“You mentioned your dad bullying your brother.”
“Oh, not in a bad way or anything. He doesn’t get why Matty wants to go to university instead of getting a job, and he didn’t get why Matty wanted to date Tabitha, and he doesn’t get why Matty doesn’t care about sports. So they fight about it.”
“And your mom?”
“She tries to protect Matty from him, I guess, and Matty gets annoyed about that too.”
“Sounds like a lot of fighting going on.”
“Yeah. I know I’m not supposed to talk about hockey, but I guess I get so nervous about the team fighting because I was always stuck in the middle at home, you know?”
He hadn’t allowed himself to dwell on the thought too much, how nice not always being on the wrong side of an argument felt, but it was the first thing he’d noticed after moving to San Francisco.
How quiet and harmonious things could be with people he saw daily.
The loudest hotel room party had nothing on his parents and Matty all yelling at each other.
“Chris?”
He tore his gaze off the pillow in his arms. Michelle had her hands folded on the table, and she looked at him with a trace of a smile.
“Yeah?”