Page 64 of Two for Holding
And when they found a bit of time to spare between practice skates and planning sessions, Tom would ask Jax to lunch, ostensibly to talk about the power play.
There wasn’t much left to say about the power play.
Instead, they spent hours making out on every available surface in Tom’s apartment until someone’s phone chimed with an alarm for the next meeting or workout or media opportunity.Jax felt weird when hewasn’tuncomfortably erect in his pants.
Despite the frequent kisses, Jax got the impression Tom had slowed things down intentionally.He never asked Jax to stay the night (a travesty, his bed was much more comfortable than Jax’s hotel bed) and never moved his hands below the waist.
Jax did the same on the ice and off: he followed Tom’s lead and hoped he’d be allowed to stay a little longer.
On Sunday, Washington came to town.
Their first game since the shitshow in Toronto had everyone tense.
Mooney retaped his stick three times, taping and untaping it over and over.He’d been pretty chill about everything, all things considered, and fully supportive of Jax and Breezy’s charity plan.He’d said he neither expected nor needed an apology from Hayes.Watching him unravel the tape for the third time, Jax couldn’t help but wonder if this was more of a “prove Hayes wrong” situation than Mooney wanted to admit.
He had that in common with Luca, who had been practicing like a lunatic.He clearly wanted everyone to know his promotion to first string wasn’t a fluke, and their faith in him hadn’t been misplaced.
As for Hayes, he and Vanderbilt kept to their corner of the locker room, laughing and shooting the shit as though nothing had changed.
Morris gave a rousing speech before the game about team unity.It was a surprisingly good speech, but somewhat out of place for a random game in the middle of the season and uncharacteristic for someone who tended more toward calm and quiet.
Weird quality in a coach, now Jax thought of it.At least Phil’s Thanksgiving intervention seemed to have awoken some sense of responsibility on Morris’s part to actually coach the team.While convinced most hockey coaches had at least a screw loose, if not a whole bit set, Jax had never before experienced such a strange coaching setup.He ought to ask Tom about Morris—maybe he knew more about the man—if only he could stop getting distracted every time he and Tom found themselves alone.
Awareness of the stakes thrummed throughout the locker room.So many players felt wronged—Luca and Mooney, for obvious reasons, Jax and Tom for reasons only known to themselves, and Hayes because straight white men hated getting called out for their behavior.If the team succeeded tonight with the new D-pairs, it would prove the tension had a worthwhile outcome.If they didn’t…Jax refused to think about it.
They got through the first period scoreless, which was something.In the second, a wily right winger got past Hayes and tapped one into the net on a breakaway.
Hayes broke his stick.
Easton waited for them in the locker room.He’d been watching from the visitor’s lounge in one of his game day suits, leg propped up on an extra chair.The cameras had been sure to catch him for the jumbotron, and he’d gotten a round of applause.Home game crowds could be so gracious.
“You’ve gotta get your shit together,” he told them bluntly.“Tom, what the fuck are you doing out there?”
Tom blinked, clearly shocked.
“You keep playing to Mazetti like you’re trying to prove your line switches were a good idea if you try hard enough.Stop it.Mazetti’s doing his job fine, but he’s still a D-man.Use Grant.”
A never-asleep part of Jax’s id sat up and took notice.Yes, please, use me.
“I…okay.”Tom had probably been avoiding playing to Jax too much because they were…because he didn’t want people to think…
Jax pushed the thought from his mind and forced down a protein bar and half a Gatorade.
They came out swinging in the third period.Jax won the face-off, passed to Breezy on the back-check when an opposing D-man got too close, and then hauled ass up the ice.The puck went to Luca, to Vanderbilt, to Tom—and then Jax had it.He was at a bad angle, almost too flat, but went for it all the same.He aimed and shot and the goal light went off, and then Tom crushed him into the boards in a hug so hard it hurt, followed by Breezy and Luca and finally Vanderbilt.
The equalizer lit a fire under them.Over the next ten minutes, Jax had another five shots on goal.The goalie was good, but no one could hold out under that kind of barrage forever.
With five minutes left on the clock, their line kept right on killing it.Vanderbilt seemed to have forgotten his hesitance from the previous periods and fed Jax the sweetest passes.Tom, on their other side, made good on his nickname, looming over the opposition and stealing the puck away.It was only a matter of time.
When it happened, what Jax would remember afterward was how he didn’t even have to look.Tom might as well have been on his wing forever instead of only a few weeks.Jax deked left around one of the Washington Wolves, right around another, the puck at the tip of his stick, and he knew instinctively he couldn’t make it all the way, not with all of them on him.But he also knew where Tom would be as if they’d been practicing their whole lives for this one moment.He shot the puck blind, aiming halfway between the blue line and the goal, and it hit Tom’s stick right on the tape.An instant later, the goal light went on.
It took a moment for him to process, and then he threw his arms in the air and crushed Tom to the boards.
“Fucking beauty!”Jax roared, meaning the goal, meaning Tom, all at the same time.
“Thatpass.”Tom had torn off his helmet, his hair dripping sweat, his eyes dark.Jax might die if he didn’t get Tom exactly like this, in bed, as soon as possible.
It wasn’t a close game in the end.Washington pulled their goalie with two minutes to go, hoping to equalize and go to overtime.But their defense was gassed, and no one knew what to expect of Luca yet, so when Breezy got him the puck and he sniped it straight across the ice and into the empty goal, the home crowd roared, and the game ended 3–1 in their favor.
