Page 77 of Two for Holding
“This is a public service,” Mooney told him.“Have either of you ever been to the Tenderloin?”
“No.”Jax hadn’t even known there was a part of the city called that until he’d pulled the shelter up on Google Maps.
“Yeah, if you leave without getting pickpocketed, I will be fucking amazed.”Mooney shook his head at the both of them.“This is a cool idea and all, but I’m not sure if you guys know what you’re getting into.”
“We’ll make it work,” said Breezy from the driver’s seat.He had a light blue pickup utterly unfit for parking in San Francisco.He also had boundless optimism and apparently no need for caffeine in the morning.
Mooney shook his head again.
“And you’re sure you’re okay with doing this?”Jax checked in again.“We kind of jumped on this idea after what Howie said that day.But what Hayes said—”
Mooney pushed his sunglasses down his nose expressly to roll his eyes at Jax again.“They’re not, like, separate issues.And if you think a homeless shelter for gay or trans or whatever kids in California will not be full of Latinxs, I don’t know what world you’re living in.”
He turned out to be right.
They’d scheduled a meeting with Mara, the coordinator for the shelter who’d been emailing Jax.From her emails (professional, cordial, and frequently organized using bullet points), he’d imagined her to be about forty.It turned out she was twenty-four and had blue, pink, and purple stripes dyed into her hair.She was also the only white person on the premises, besides Jax and Breezy.
She caught Jax eyeing her hair.“We had a hair night last night,” she said in lieu of an actual explanation.
“Looks dope,” Mooney said.
“Thanks.So, come on through, and we’ll go over the basics.”
The basics turned out to be a comprehensive list of rules outlining what they could and couldn’t do, mostly centering on the kids’ safety.
“Um,” Jax said.“You know hockey is a contact sport, right?We won’t try to get anyone hurt, but—”
Mara shot him an unimpressed glare.“Yes, I am aware.This is to cover my own ass and to make sure the big-shot hockey players understand what it means to be responsible for teenagers.They will try to use the hockey sticks as weapons to hit each other with.Ice skates are basically knife shoes.Someone might try to use them as such, and many of them will use them as such unintentionally.If this whole partnership deal lasts for more than one session, you will end up calling 911 at least once.”
Jax’s pulse quickened.He’d imagined fun, happy times explaining to kids how to get a sweet pass and what the five-hole was.Why, he had no idea.His dad had made a good point: Peewee hockey was a fucking bloodbath.
“Knife shoes,” Mooney whispered.“That’s metal as fuck.”
Mara glared at him.
He shrank back in his seat.
Mara steepled her fingers, elbows leaned on her desk.“Okay.Last question.Are you sure no one on your team will say something shitty and homophobic to my kids?”
“That’s kind of why we’re here.”
Jax closed his eyes.Why couldn’t Breezy think before he spoke?
Mara’s eyebrows rose, the piercing in the left one shifting with the movement.“Explain.”
“We had an incident in the locker room,” Jax said.“Some…things were said.Not just homophobic things, racist, too, and, uh… We don’t want to be a team where it’s okay to say hurtful or prejudiced things.The captain shut it down when it happened, but we, um, Breezy and me, felt like we should be doing more.We earn a stupid amount of money, so we can do something good with it instead of being bigoted shitheads.”
For the first time, Mara smiled at them.
“Really?”Mooney asked.“Telling you we’ve already fucked up makes you trust us?”
“Oh, no.I’m pretty sure you’re all idiots, but your hearts are in the right place, and I can work with that.This captain of yours, he coming too?”
Jax had managed to go a full ten minutes without thinking of Tom.Now, he couldn’t help but remember.When the charity stuff was up and running, Tom would miss him.Because they couldn’t see each other anymore.Because Tom was so deep in the closet, he couldn’t be associated with this.Or Jax.
“Yeah,” Breezy said enthusiastically.“He signed up for a few dates.None of the ones with cameras and PR, though, which is Tom all over.He’s a humble guy, you know?”
Humble.Sure.Humble, self-loathing, and terrified.
