Page 13 of Two for Holding
“Jeez, you don’t get out much, do you?Why don’t you have a girl anyway?Seems like you’d have some blonde chick you’ve been dating since preschool.”
“Never really worked out for me.”
“What?”Jax dragged out the “a” so long Tom found himself staring at his mouth again.“Handsome guy like you?”
Abruptly, Tom took a step back.“You wanted an in with the older guys.Come on.”
He led Jax out to the patio, where they found Phil flipping steaks and muttering to no one in particular.
“Oh, there he is!”Phil cried when they arrived.“The man who forced me into hosting this shindig with no warning and can’t even be asked to do the cooking.”
Tom scoffed.“If I had tried, you’d have sent me inside.You never let anyone else touch the grill.”
“You do it wrong.”
“It’s a fire pit.You put meat on it.What could I possibly do wrong?”
“Man, it’s all abouttimingandplacement.There’s an art to it.”
“You’re avoiding going inside.”
Phil pointed the tongs in his hand at Tom.“Don’t say it so loud.”
“What’s inside?”Jax asked.“Besides what Ithinkis Chamillionaire’s second album, which, yikes.”
“My house, my music.And inside are fifteen hockey players messing with my shit and getting crumbs in Camille’s rug.She’s gonna skin me alive when she sees.”
Huh.It was a very ugly rug.So, Camille’s taste?Actually awful, except when it came to husbands.Good to know.
Jax groaned.
“Don’t mind him,” Tom said.“He’s learning to fear the WAGs.Speaking of, does Camille really do the WAG jackets?”
Phil nodded.“She’s trying to get Allie to take over for her now Hayesie finally popped the question.Allie won’t do it while she’s wedding planning though.”
“Isn’t the wedding next year?”
“Yeah, the planning takes a good eight or nine months of work.”
Jax looked over to Tom as if to say,see?Rich women.
“I went to your wedding,” Tom said.“It took nine months to plan?”
“Yup.”Phil poked a steak, deemed it finished and set it on a plate next to the grill.“Gotta book the venue and send out the save the date cards far enough in advance.Then, there’s the music, the photographer, the dress shopping… It’s a whole thing.This is Allie’s year, man.”
“Don’t remind me.”
The patio door slid open, and Jimmy Hayes stepped outside.He’d been Phil’s defense partner for three years now, and for a six-foot-four fridge of a man, he appeared remarkably like an animal being hunted for sport.
“Cold feet?”Jax snagged the steak off the plate with a fork and bit straight into it.“Good stuff, East,” he said with his mouth full.
“Nah.Just…you know.It’s a lot.”
As a matter of fact, Tom did not know, but he’d begun to realize he probably shouldn’t advertise that.Instead, he steered the conversation away from weddings and toward the defensive coach, Trout.The mere mention of the man sufficed to get both Hayesie and Phil complaining immediately.
“Mm,” Jax said, swallowing a bite of steak.
Tom watched the bob of his Adam’s apple, the movement of his throat.
