Page 39 of Two for Holding
“Mean.”
“Boys,” Tom said with the air of an exhausted father.
Both of them looked over to him, appearing for all the world like kids with their hands in the proverbial cookie jar.
“Are you all right?”Jax asked them.
Breezy shrugged.“I’ll be fine.”
Luca nodded.“What he said.”
“Okay, well, you two are the only ones.”
Tom glared at Jax.
“What?”Jax said.“It’s true.And so long as this coaching situation is going on, we’re gonna need you two to step up.”
“What do you mean?”
Tom and Jax exchanged a glance.They’d talked about it a few times now, and it became more and more clear with each passing game.
“We want Luca to have more ice time,” Tom said.“Breezy, you’re on the first D-pair now.What do you think about having Luca there with you?”
Luca took a slow, measured sip of his water and turned to Breezy.Breezy met his gaze, steadier than Jax expected.
“I think that’s a good idea,” he said.“Me and Hayesie do okay, but our styles are pretty similar.Luca’s different enough we could really make something special happen.”
“We thought so too.”Jax leaned forward.“We were also thinking about the power play.Right now, we’ve got Hayesie on the first unit, but we think you would be a better fit, Luca, with Breezy and Hayesie on the second.”
“Hayes will not be happy,” Luca observed.
“That’s your only objection?”
A smile stole across Luca’s face.He was so extremely good-looking—with eyelashes some women would kill for and the face of an angel—it made Jax uncomfortable.It made Jax want to pat him on the head and make sure no one ever hurt him.Given everything he’d witnessed so far about Luca’s personality, he would probably claw off Jax’s face if he tried, but the urge remained.
Proving Jax’s point, Luca said, “I obviously agree I am the best at everything.”
Breezy groaned.“He’s gonna be insufferable.”
“We’ll talk to Hayesie,” Tom said, although it appeared as though he found the thought alone about as pleasant as chewing glass.
“I would like to be there.”Luca returned to his salad once he’d said it, nodding in satisfaction.
“Why?”
When Jax laughed at the question, Tom cringed.He was such an awkward man.An awkward, gorgeous man who had put off his usual visit to the most aggressively heterosexual hairdresser in the Bay Area long enough his hair had begun to emulate something akin to style.It fell across his forehead, giving him a subtle delicacy, highlighting the sharp cut of his nose and jaw.
Also, he’d put on a tank top after practice, and Jax wanted to lick his biceps.Apparently, finding out he had a queer teammate was a gateway drug into fantasizing about that teammate.Jax couldn’t wait for his subconscious to finish working through this so he could be the best platonic friend Tom ever had.Right now, he kept having to hold back his most id-driven thoughts.
“It seems…the right thing to do.”
Breezy nodded at Luca in approval.
Luca’s assessment turned out to be correct.They broached the topic with Hayes and Morris on the flight from Calgary to Montreal.Morris nodded thoughtfully, voiced a few concerns about Luca being a little too new to be a good addition to the special teams, but said he’d give it a shot.Luca, standing awkwardly next to the four-way seat, gripping the backrests when they hit turbulence, said very little except how glad he was for the opportunity.His expressive eyes remained steady when he added that he hoped Hayes would be open to giving him advice.
Hayes’s expression darkened and darkened as the conversation went on.At the end of it, he shot Tom a nasty look.“Everyone warned me you were an asshole,” he said.“I kept saying no, no, he’s just shy.Guess I was fuckin’ wrong.”
“James,” Tom tried, the first time anyone had used Hayes’s full given name in Jax’s hearing.Heedless, Hayes stalked to the rear of the plane and found a seat by himself, where he stayed for the rest of the flight.
