The following morning did not improve matters.
Jax had used his curfew exemption to stay with his family, and when Tom didn’t appear at team breakfast, Phil knew he’d gone along without asking.When he didn’t show up on the team bus, the guys started talking.
“Maybe he’s already at the rink,” Breezy suggested loyally.“He wanted to practice his one-timer.”
“Cap doesn’t need to practice his one-timer,” Howie scoffed.
“Maybe he went out without us,” Mooney suggested.
“Do we suck so much?”Mats asked.
“Not because we suck.Maybe he wanted to…you know, meet someone.”
Hayes snorted loudly.“You have not been on this team long.Cap doesn’t do that.”
Mooney eyed him contemptuously.“Seniority doesn’t excuse asshattery.”
“Oh my God, get over it.”Hayes rolled his eyes.
“Hmm.”Mooney pretended to consider.“No.”
“You have all forgotten the sweaters?”Dmitriyev asked, aghast.“The Crow would not cheat on the sweater giver.”
“I’m sure there’s a very boring explanation,” Luca drawled.“Anyway, what about Jax?He’s missing as well.”
“He had a family thing.”Howie waved a dismissive hand.“Unless he took Cap along for that—”
“Hey, look over there!”Breezy pointed out the window at what appeared to be a bush.
Everyone followed his outstretched arm and then turned back to look at him quizzically.
“Thought I saw a raccoon.”He flushed up to his ears.
“We have to intervene,” Phil muttered to Ben as the team began mocking him for the outburst.
“Huh?”
“Ben.The infighting is starting, and if they get wind of Tom and…you know who…”
“What do you expect me to do about it?”
“Literally anything?Start an icebreaker or—or have Edwards do one of his meditation exercises so they all shut up?”
Ben sank lower in his seat.“We’re nearly at the rink.I don’t think now is the time.”
Phil studied him.He was picking at his fingernails, and he kept turning his phone screen on and off again as if he kept forgetting all the missed calls.Or as if he expected more.Ben didn’t have it in him to run a hockey team right now.Unfortunately, the team needed him.Phil needed him.
They found Tom and Jax waiting for them at the rink as the team bus pulled up.Since they were both standing beside Jax’s rental car, shooting the shit and looking like parents coming along on their wayward children’s field trip, it only caused more questions.
Even more so when they entered the rink and found Trout waiting for them on the ice.
“Shit,” Ben muttered.“Shit.”
“Sorry I’m late, boss,” Trout drawled.“Something came up, but I caught a commercial flight out.”
Van Giesing caught him a flight out, more like.
Practice was a nightmare.Hayes and Mooney claimed to have made up but still checked each other brutally into the boards every chance they got.Howie, not yet sure if he would be a healthy scratch, was more interested in where Tom had spent the night and kept hovering around him, trying to ask.And Trout ran the D-men ragged.For the last year or so, Phil’s litmus test for whether a practice went well was how Breezy held up.He dedicated the most time to conditioning to make up for how slow his size made him, and he had the advantage of youth, at least before Luca showed up and beat him out by a year and a month on that front.
