Trout went white.“I’ll take you down with me,” he threatened.“Tell them all about your gambling debts.”
“Go ahead,” Ben said.“I’d suggest getting a lawyer first though.”
Trout had no comeback ready.
“How did the police even let you get on a flight to Minnesota?”Ben asked.
Trout said nothing.
“You thought he’d cover for you,” Phil realized.“They hauled you in for questioning, and you let Van Giesing know as soon as they let you go.He told you to follow Ben, didn’t he?When he couldn’t get ahold of him?”
Trout nodded, shamefaced.
Phil had a vague knowledge of police proceedings based largely on reruns ofLaw and Orderhe’d watched in hotel rooms across the country.He was pretty sure suspects were supposed to stay in the state.If Trout had been told to and hadn’t, he’d gotten himself into deeper shit than he was already in.
“What do I do now?”Trout asked.
Phil looked to Ben.
Ben shrugged.“Honestly, Lewis, that’s between you and the law.”He opened the door to his hotel room and gestured for Trout to leave.
Once the door clicked shut behind him, Ben collapsed onto the bed with a groan.
“You played it so cool,” Phil said.Ben had been so calm in the face of Trout’s desperation and had given nothing away himself, not even that he’d never had any gambling debts to begin with.It was a far cry from the man Phil knew him to be at home.
“I have no idea if I made the right play,” Ben admitted.“Who knows what kind of contacts Van Giesing has?If Trout tells him I sold them out, he could hire an assassin or something.”
Phil snorted.“I doubt he would.If you mysteriously vanish now, it’ll make the both of them look doubly guilty.Van Giesing’s better off if he disappears and Trout takes the fall.I’m sure he’s living it up on some island in the Caribbean right about now.”
“I guess murdering me over insider trading would be overkill.”Ben pulled the pillow over his face and groaned into it.“Okay,” he said.“I’m going to call Charlie one more time to make sure he’s okay, and then I will stop obsessing.”
Phil would believe that when he saw it.
No harm in sweetening the pot though.By the time Ben hung up, Phil had stripped down to his boxers and splayed across the bed on his side, propped up on one elbow.
“So,” he said, “your whole secret agent thing you pulled with Trout there?Kinda hot.”
“Oh, yeah?”Ben’s eyebrows pumped up.“What are you gonna do about it?”
Phil reached up to drag him in by his tie.“I think I’m gonna get you out of that suit is what.”
Not thinking about Trout, Van Giesing, or the police for a very pleasant half hour was almost as good as finally getting to kiss every part of Ben’s chest and belly.
Chapter Twenty
@Olivia_Starling: “Sea Lions defensive coach Lewis Trout has been arrested on charges of racketeering.Further information on the details as they come!”
Top replies:
@seelionssaylions: Yikes.On the bright side, maybe now the sea lions defense will start actually defending.
@SFClions: Oh my God that’s horrifying!I hope the team’s okay!They need to buckle down and focus on each other and hockey right now.I hope this shelter stuff will take a back seat.
(Posted to X.com on 02/25/2025)
Criminal proceedings, at least when it came to the kind of white-collar crime Ben had gotten stuck in the middle of, were astonishingly long-winded and dull.
Shortly after the team’s return to California, Trout was arrested.He’d elected not to fly home with the team and surrender himself.Instead, he’d rented a car out of the Minneapolis airport and driven east.Since he’d rented it under his own name and used his own credit card to fill up on gas, the police had found him quickly.
