Page 40 of Two for Holding
Jax tried to distract Tom, first with more hockey talk, then with an increasingly desperate game of Would You Rather.But Tom was impervious to whimsy, and Jax ended up finding out Breezy would rather always have slightly wet socks than always be slightly too cold.As a consequence, Luca, who had been silent and dejected since Hayes’s outburst, started ribbing him for being the worst Canadian in the world, for which Breezy blamed his Italian blood, which forced Jax to sit between them for the remainder of the flight to avoid bloodshed.
Things didn’t improve in the locker room in Montreal.Hayes remained bitter and angry.As one of the team leaders—and especially with Phil out—some of the guys naturally took their cues from him.It made the power play awkward and uncomfortable, with Vanderbilt passing to Jax and Tom and summarily ignoring Luca’s existence.
In the second break, with Montreal leading 3–1, Hayes graduated from icy glares to hostile barbs about how ineffective the new special teams were.Jax listened, feeling helpless and discouraged.Maybe it had been overly ambitious of them to change the lineup so fast.Lucawasvery new in the big leagues, though he had so much poise.Maybe Morris had a secret long-term plan he hadn’t told them about, which explained why he didn’t intervene with Trout.Maybe they’d ruined their chances at a playoff berth.They’d been doing so well this season, too, and now the locker room was poisoned.
By the intermission, Hayes had talked himself up enough to get to his feet and stalk over to where Luca sat, sandwiched between Breezy and Howie.He examined the rookie head to toe.“That’s what you get for promoting his type.”
A shudder ran down Jax’s spine.“What exactly is his type?”He didn’t want to hear the answer, but he would much rather take whatever came than make Luca face it alone.The kid was only twenty-one.
Simultaneously, Hayes spat, “Mexicans,” while Howie said, “Queers.”
Dead silence fell across the locker room.
This was Jax’s moment.This was when he would intervene with a timely quip or a perfect takedown.This was what he had been preparing for his entire professional career.
No words came to mind.
Beside him, Tom got to his feet.
“Enough.”
At some point in the last month and half, since joining the team and learning first to challenge Tom and then to support him, Jax had forgotten how imposing he could be.At full height, with his eyes glinting, steely and determined, he made Jax’s breath catch in his throat.
“I will not have that kind of language on my team or in my locker room.If you’re going to speak about your teammates like that, you can do it from the bench.”
Then, he turned his back on the team and stalked out onto the ice.
Jax followed.He couldn’t imagine doing anything else.
The third period was an unmitigated disaster.For the Montreal Wyverne, anyway.The Crow took to the ice, and he was not fucking around.He scored his first goal three minutes in off a pass from Jax.Jax hadn’t even been going for the assist.He’d thought they’d have to deke it back and forth a few more times, but Tom saw some imaginary lane right between two opposing D-men, and a second later, the goal light went on.
One goal away from equalizing, they doubled down.Morris sent the first line out for longer, searching for chances, and Luca got them.With the puck on the wrong side of the ice, the Wyverne’s first-line winger racing on a breakaway, Luca sped up to cut him off at every turn and stripped away the puck in a neat little game of keep-away.
He spun around and shot it over to Vanderbilt, the puck control breathtaking.The next minute, Vanderbilt had passed to Tom, who had hauled ass toward the blue line as soon as he’d seen Luca’s play, and then the puck hit the back of the net.
The team barely paused to celebrate drawing even, not least because Vanderbilt had the assist, but he was clearly too much of a homophobe to get near Luca and too much of a coward to get near Tom.
Jax hugged them both as hard as he could.
“All right, boys,” Morris said when they made it to the bench, blissfully unaware that the first line couldn’t make eye contact.“We’ve got about seven minutes to wrap this thing up.I don’t wanna go into overtime, you hear me?”
He wasn’t great at reading the room, which made Jax wonder more than ever how he’d gotten the coaching gig, but he was absolutely correct.No one wanted to be here longer than necessary.
“Gotta get Cap the hatty,” Breezy added, a much better motivation for Jax.
Jax did his level best, sending the puck Tom’s way every time he had it on his stick.Tom, fucking on fire, tore across the ice at full speed.Jax remained firm in his belief of the unsexiness of hockey gear, but Tom made it work.He pulled his helmet off between shifts and pushed his sweaty hair out of his eyes, and Jax actually started chubbing up a little in his cup.
This was a disaster.
He had a lifetime track record of not making it weird with his teammates, a shining beacon with which to prove all the idiots wrong who said stuff like “I don’t mind gay dudes, but I don’t want them in the locker room, y’know?”And yet, he found himself here, at twenty-five, getting all boned up over his captain.It didn’t matter that Tom was gay or that he was out there performing the sexiest feats Jax had ever seen on ice.It was the principle of the thing.
In the end, Jax didn’t get him the hatty.He ended up with all of one assist on the board for the night, but he couldn’t be mad about how it happened.Montreal got chippy as the clock ran down, equally unwilling as the Sea Lions to go to overtime.It made them sloppy.One of their forwards got called for slashing, and on the ensuing power play, all of Jax and Tom’s strategizing paid off.Jax won the face-off.He took the puck forward, deked around a defenseman, and then doubled back, shooting to Luca.Luca picked up the pace, using his quick feet, right up the left side of the ice, and shot the puck neatly onto Tom’s tape.Luca’s aim had been so perfect Tom barely needed to tip it in, but it counted as his third goal of the night.With only two minutes left to go, the hats rained down on the ice for Tom.
A little smirk played around Tom’s mouth when they hit the bench, only a tiny upward quirk of his lips revealing he knew exactly how good he was.
God, Jax wanted to suck his dick.
Right there on the bench, just shoulder his way between those thighs, pull down his layers of sweat-soaked, disgusting gear and swallow him straight down his throat.He bet Tom would stink of exertion and wet hockey gear, repulsive at best but also familiar and comforting.He bet Tom had a fantastic cock.Jax would make it so good for him, too, really pull out all the stops and make him moan.Make him beg.Tom was wound so tight, Jax bet anything he’d beg so prettily.
