Page 3 of Two for Holding
Instead, Tom loitered around the buffet, pretending to decide between turkey sausage and turkey bacon for a good five minutes before Phil showed up.
“Up at dawn again, old man?”Phil asked jovially, reaching for the sausages and drowning them in maple syrup.
“You’re one to talk.”Tom loaded up on bacon and reconstituted egg scramble, which was both soggy and crumbly and tasted of wet cardboard.Protein-laden cardboard.
They both stopped by the cereal station for bowls piled high with Greek yogurt, oats, and raisins before finding a table close, but not too close, to the coaches.
“Have fun with the rookies last night?”Tom asked.
Phil groaned.“I went to bed at ten.Left them out there to experience the bright lights of Edmonton all by themselves.”
“Phil.”
“I know, I know.”
“TheAis for alt—”
“Fuck’s sake, Tom.”Phil thrust out his stupidly expensive watch.“It is 7:08 a.m.Do not tell me about the responsibility of being an alternate captain.So the rookies might have gotten a little wasted.We’re in fucking Alberta.What’s the worst they could do here?”
“I don’t know, crystal meth?”
Phil gave him an unimpressed look.“Breezy seem like the kind of guy who could get a dealer at the drop of a hat?”
Chris Calabrese, a twenty-two-year-old defenseman, absolutely didn’t seem like that kind of guy, and the rookies tended to follow his lead.
“You know they always let loose in Canada,” Tom said.“They’re all legal to drink here.”
“Jax was there.It’s fine.”
“Jax was there,” Tom repeated to himself darkly.As if his presence meant anything.
Sure, Jax had anAas well, but more as a PR move than a statement about his role in the team dynamics.Tom had to admit Jax could make the team look good; Kayleigh Williams from the media staff practically salivated the minute the call came in from the general manager about Jax joining the team.Having a personable, friendly guy would be a blessing for postgame media segments, even if he spoke a little too openly with reporters if you asked Tom (which no one had).
Tom was awful at media.
Kayleigh, the bubbly, friendly sort of person who actually enjoyed making phone calls and using social media, never told him so.But the longer she worked with them, the less well she hid her beleaguered sighs every time Tom clammed up when someone pointed a camera in his direction.
But PR gold or not, theAhadn’t only been given to Jax for the team’s sake.He wasn’t a responsible senior member of the leadership group, and based on his media personality and the way he always seemed to be wearing the most expensive designer clothes he could get his hands on, Tom doubted he ever would be.Breezy might worship the ground Jax walked on, but who knew what Jax might talk the rookies into?Rumor had it Philly dropped him like a hot potato because of all his partying.San Francisco’s general manager invited Tom to a special meeting to explain that a shiny new letter on Jax’s chest would “rehabilitate his image,” as if at some point on the six-hour flight from one coast to another, he’d turned over a new leaf and become responsible, making him fit to wear the letter.
No one needed the rookies to get into whatever he did in his wild, crazy parties.
Unbidden, the image of Jax standing in the doorway of his hotel room, with his sweats slung low on his hips and his hair a mess, paraded across the forefront of Tom’s mind.
Phil flicked at Tom’s forehead, drawing him back to the here and now.“You’ve got to get over your problem with him.”
Tom coughed up half his orange juice.“I don’t have a problem with him.”
“Uh-huh.You just never talk to him outside of practice, and you only hang out with the other guys when he won’t be there.Not super captain-y of you, man.”
Wincing internally, Tom admitted, “I didn’t think anyone noticed.”
“He definitely did.”
Great.Now, Tom had to start spending time with Jaxandmake it seem as if he’d never seen what he’d seen last night.What a nightmare.
“I promise he’s a nice guy.”
Tom rolled his eyes.“Phil, you think everyone is nice.You thinkjournalistsare nice.”
