Page 33 of Two for Holding
“’Cause you seem pretty sad a lot?”Breezy’s fingers snaked out, and he grabbed a third shot while Tom tried to parse the words coming out of his mouth.“And I think the guys would love to help you be less sad, but we don’t know how.”
“Let’s focus on winning the Cup, then.”
With a loud groan, Jax fell into his seat, pressed up right against Tom.He was warm from the dance floor, and he smelled a little of sweat underneath his expensive cologne.“Yes.Cup.Breezy, our mission in life is to get this man a Cup.”
“We can do it,” Breezy said with the solemn conviction of the very drunk.“But also, though, I think I need to start watching smart people movies.”
“You do you.”
In the end, Tom and Jax had to walk to the hotel with Breezy propped up between them, no mean feat given he was taller than Tom and broader than Jax.Luca had gone home with his student friend, and Tom had extracted promises from Mooney and Howie, still dancing—although by then, attached to two scantily clad girls in matching cowboy hats studded with what Howie called “the good kind of rhinestones”—to be back by curfew.He had little hope they would remember if things kept heating up on the dance floor.Who knew Howie could move his hips like that?
“It’s just,” Breezy said, leaning heavily on Tom as he tripped over his own feet, “sometimes I think the girls I meet ’cause my parents talk up their hockey player son are kind of in it for the money?And that feels mean and wrong to say, right?And all relationships are about money at some point anyway, but…”
“Are they?”Jax asked.
Breezy was too drunk and too, well,Breezyto catch his tone of incredulity, but it made Tom smile.
“I mean, once you get married, all your money is shared.And one person always earns more, right?How can you not fight about it then?”
“Sometimes, couples earn the same,” Tom pointed out.“Think of, uh, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie?”
“I guess,” Breezy said doubtfully.“But, like, they didn’t last.And even if I find a girl who earns the same, I’m away all the time, and then she’d have to take care of the kids and the house, and it’s not any fun to be the responsible person all the time, so we would definitely fight about it.”
Tom must have been drunker than he thought because Breezy made a solid argument.Responsibility was no fun.
“Breezy, my man.”Jax wheezed slightly under the added weight as Breezy listed toward him.“You are twenty-two.You don’t have a house.You don’t have kids.You don’t need to have either right now.Or ever.”
Breezy came to a full halt for the seventh time since they’d left the bar.“I never thought of that,” he said and then proceeded to vomit all over their shoes.
It took another twenty minutes to get him tucked into bed with a bottle of water, an aspirin on the nightstand, as well as strict instructions to call one or both of them if he needed anything.Thankfully, he appeared to have relieved himself of the worst of the intoxication, but he still seemed miserable.
Tom and Jax sprayed down their shoes in Tom’s bathroom before collapsing onto the chair and the bed, respectively.
“He’s a sweet kid,” Tom said.
“He’s gonna get hoodwinked by some gold digger.”
Tom frowned.
“What?”Jax asked.
“You shouldn’t talk about women that way.You shouldn’t talk aboutanyonethat way.”
Jax groaned and squirmed into a different position on the bed.He was utterly incapable of sitting still, something Tom would be bothered by if he didn’t enjoy watching all the different ways Jax found to arrange himself so much.“You’re right.I don’t mean… Ugh, I shouldn’t have said it.You know, I got along great with some of the WAGs in Philly.They were nice women.You’ll never meet better fans, probably, and they’re the only ones who never get mad when we lose.”
“So why say it?”
“Breezy’s…he’s a little naive.”
“You don’t say.”
Jax threw a pillow at Tom, who caught it and threw it back.
“When I made the starting roster in Philly, I had this friend from Juniors.Well.Sort of a friend and sort of an ex.And it was no big deal at first—little stuff like covering his rent for a week when he lost his job.He always used to spot me cash in Juniors, you know?Seemed fair.”
Tom nodded.He’d had similar friendships in the OHL, people he had lent to and borrowed from so many tiny sums no one could remember who owed whom what.He hadn’t seen Sean in years, not since he quit the NCAA team in Michigan with a busted shoulder.He ought to call sometime.
“But then I got my big contract, and he needed help paying off his car, and then he really needed a designer couch for his place, and at some point, I had to say no, you know?And he got pissed, threatened to out me and everything.He never did it, but… Well.It sucked.”
