“Maybe tomorrow.”
“You’re gonna kill me.”
Phil chuckled deeply, warm and satisfied.He rolled into Ben and wrapped his arms around him, heedless of the mess.“Just kidding.‘S a lot of work.But maybe worth it sometimes.”
“For special occasions,” Ben agreed.He should get up and get them both cleaned up, but he couldn’t see his legs moving anytime soon.
Phil’s hand stroked down his spine, warm and comforting, and he let himself drift off into sleep.
Chapter Nineteen
[…] With a rocky record hovering around 0.550, the San Francisco Sea Lions are a classic wild card even though they’re technically in third place in the division.Lines are still changing randomly from game to game, and their defensive players are showing major inconsistencies in terms of performance.It’s anyone’s guess if they’ll make it and, if so, if they can make it past the first four games.[…]
Top comments:
sealions4lyfe: Don’t listen to the haters, LFG!!!!
grant16rules: Crowler, Grant, and Vanderbilt best line in the league!
Sealionsfan8216: @grant16rules—[blue-and-teal heart emojis]
Susannah Lindenberg: When the Sea Lions are on, they are really, really on.Other teams would be smart to watch out!
(From “Pucks to Watch Out For: Playoff Teams for 2025,” posted to nhl.com on 02/25/2025)
The Monday after the All-Star Break, Coach Trout was taken in for questioning.
The team flew out to Minnesota for a game against the Furies followed by the rematch against Chicago that afternoon.With Trout missing for morning skate and not answering his phone, Phil and Ben took Charlie to the shelter for an impromptu three-day sleepover so they could both coach the team, which Ben felt awful about.
“Are we sure?”Ben asked for the fifteenth time, knee jiggling in his seat on the team’s charter plane.“I could—”
“If you stay home now, you’ll raise suspicions,” Phil said.The Sports Network might notice.Pulvermacher and Van Giesing woulddefinitelynotice.
Phil also didn’t like the thought of Trout being released and coming to see Ben and Charlie when he wasn’t around.He didn’t mention it to avoid freaking Ben out even more, but he thought Charlie would be safer at the shelter, with a round-the-clock adult presence and dozens of witnesses.In Phil’s ideal world, they would have brought Charlie with them, but they couldn’t take him across state lines before the court hearing.
Phil couldn’t stay behind with Charlie either, not when he’d been cleared to skate with the team again.Besides which, the Sea Lions needed Phil too.Ben couldn’t concentrate on hockey for long enough to care about the angle Van Giesing chose to pursue.The team needed Phil to keep up morale and provide some consistency in coaching decisions.
Ever since Van Giesing had looped Ben into his betting scheme, he’d been demanding line changes up and down the roster, most often shuffling Howie between the third and fourth lines and the bench.Van Giesing probably wanted Howie traded while he was on his ELC, Phil figured, or maybe sent down.It had already been odd when he made the roster straight out of training camp.Promoting a low-drafted rookie and then trading him would make team management look incompetent, but it would also be unexpected enough to earn a lot on the betting sites.
Whatever the purpose, it left everyone off-kilter and on edge.
Ben’s leg bounced for the entire flight.
After a glance around to make sure no one was watching, Phil placed a hand on Ben’s thigh.He shot Phil a weak smile, and his leg stilled.
They’d been married for all of two days, and Phil wasn’t done honeymooning.He let his hand slide up a few inches, just for the joy of touching Ben.
“It’s a three-day work trip.Surely plenty of parents have those.He’s fourteen, and he’s in a safe place with friends.It’ll be fine,” Phil said as the plane descended over the Twin Cities.He didn’t know who he was trying to convince, Ben or himself.
When Van Giesing started blowing up Ben’s phone as soon as they’d landed, Phil was glad he’d come along.Ben didn’t dare answer, letting the calls go to voicemail over and over on the bus ride to the hotel.Once they arrived, he set it gingerly on the table while he put his things away.Technically, Phil had his own room on the road, but he hadn’t bothered picking up a key.He liked waking up next to Ben.
The phone vibrated its way off the table onto the scratchy carpet, where it landed, face down, lighting up the floor as it continued to ring.
“Should I call the police?”Ben asked, watching his phone as if it might detonate at any moment.
“I don’t know,” Phil said.His faith in the police as an institution was about as great as his faith in the NHL reacting to his marriage to a man with open arms.Which was to say, if he saw any winged farm quadrupeds fly past the St.Paul Marriott, he might be inclined to give them a call.
They video called Charlie, who seemed more than fine at the shelter.No less than six other kids interrupted their call, among them Jayden, who asked to pass along such a hair-raisingly cutting chirp to Breezy that Phil wouldn’t have the heart to repeat it.Then they settled down side by side in bed for a restless night.Neither of them got much sleep, but being able to reach out and feel the curve of Ben’s hip whenever he needed to settled some of Phil’s nerves.
