Page 55 of Two for Holding
So much for impulse control.
Appetite gone, Jax went back to his hotel room to gather his things before the bus left.He kicked the door shut a bit too loudly, which took some doing as it was one of those doors that fell shut automatically and resisted when he tried to slam it.Poor impulse control.Ugh.
One glance around the hotel room showed the rumpled sheets where Tom had slept, the charger by the bed where Jax hadn’t plugged his phone in last night (because Tom had been here).The beer he’d taken with him to the shower, now empty.The room was a monument to his shitty impulse control.
Couldn’t a man have faults?Sure, he was a bit impetuous, but it had never gotten him in real trouble.Sometimes, he put his foot in it with the media or spent too much money on something stupid, but he played hockey for a living.They might as well put those in the job description.None of that was why he’d left Philly.He’d left Philly because some asshole wanted to blackmail him with pictures of his dick, and once they’d dealt with it, PR decided they wanted no part of a queer hockey player, although Jaxknewthey’d dealt with worse shit from straight dudes.
Kayleigh, the Sea Lions media rep, might be aggressively perky and into annoying fluff content, but at least she hadn’t called him a liability for something he couldn’t change.
The reasonable, rational voice in the back of his head, which sounded suspiciously similar to Tom asking for tips on how to be a better captain, reminded him that people with decent impulse control didn’t usually have other people blackmailing them with explicit photos.
Jax didn’t particularly want to listen to reason.Reason had never done shit for him.
To prove he had impulse control, instead of bagging the seat next to Tom and maybe holding his hand during takeoff back to California, Jax took the one next to Breezy.
“Oh, good,” Breezy said.“I wanted to run something by you.”
Jax raised an eyebrow, a trick he’d practiced for over an hour in the tiny bathroom at home when he was thirteen.It had served him well ever since.
“So everyone is super fucked up over the whole—” Breezy waved a hand.“—thing.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Like, Howie feels like shit, and Mooney’s super pissed, and I think Luca feels guilty, but he’d never say.”
“Yeah.”Jax leaned against the headrest, closing his eyes.
“And we need to fix it.”
“Don’t see how I can help.”
Breezy punched him in the arm, hard.
“Hey!”
“This isserious, dude.”
Jax opened an eye.“Iknow.That’s why I’m useless.”
“I don’t know what your deal is today, but you’re the guy who got us from being a bunch of dudes sharing a locker room to a real team.You got Cap talking to us.You got him to talk to the coaches—”
“That was all Tom.”
“Okay, well, it was your influence.”
“And it all turned to shit two months into the season.”
Breezy narrowed his eyes.“This is about the thing the guy from the Magpies said last night, isn’t it?”
Great.So, people had already seen the interview.
“Who cares what he thinks?”
“I do,” Jax snapped.“I should have kept my mouth shut.He’s right about me.”
“Hmm.”
“What?”
