“Hm?”
“Being part of the team.Playing.”
“Of course,” Phil said immediately, as if it should have been obvious.Maybe it should have been—he had dedicated his life to the sport.Since Ben had known him, though, he’d been so generous with his time and attention, helping with Charlie, with Ben’s coaching crises, with Tom and Breezy, and every other team member who’d come to him for help.
Ben chewed at the inside of his cheek, trying to decide if it counted as self-sabotage or as being a good partner to ask.“Are you sure you want to retire?”
“Hm?”
“Because you don’t have to.Your knee rehab is going well, I bet you could get a contract extension, and if not, there are other teams that would want you.Charlie and I haven’t been here long.If it’s really important to you—”
“Ben,” Phil said and took his hand across the table.“Thank you.”
Ben’s heart sank.Phil must have been waiting for this moment.He wanted to sign somewhere else and uproot them all.Ben would support him, of course he would, but it would be a wrench to do that to Charlie.
“I’m definitely retiring after the playoffs,” Phil said.“But thank you for offering.Means a lot to me.”
Swallowing heavily, Ben asked, “You’re sure?”
“Yeah.I, uh.I went and talked to Michelle.The sports therapist who works for the team.Breezy recommended her to me, and it was a good idea.Intense, but it put some things in perspective for me.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“Yeah.You know, I really hate contract negotiations.”
“Why?I mean, you came out of them a millionaire both times.”
Ben would never be a hockey nerd, but he’d looked up the members of the team back in August.Phil’s stats had interested him particularly because, even then, Phil had been the only player with whom Ben wanted to have a conversation.Phil had been drafted to the Carolina Twisters at eighteen and then sent back to his Juniors team in Canada for development.When San Francisco’s expansion draft came around the following year, he was traded to them and immediately became part of the starting lineup.After his ELC ended, his contract was renewed first for eight years at just over four million a year and then for five at six million.He had the kind of money that made money so long as it gathered interest.
Phil turned their hands over so Ben’s rested on top and he could trace the lines of Ben’s palm with his fingertips.“The weirdest thing about being an athlete for me is how entitled people feel to your body.Your height and weight are on all the stats sheets and people online talk about whether or not they believe what it says there.You make a bad play, and people keep saying you could have done better, you should have done better.I’m the one living in my body, and I know what I could have done in the moment.And I can deal with it from fans.I don’t love it, but it’s part of the deal.But contract negotiations…”
He sighed and looked out the window.“It’s putting a price tag on my body and what it can do for the person who owns it.Literally.Pulvermacher, Van Giesing—you know what they’re like now.And they’re the ones who bought me on the market and could choose to sell me to another team any time.We call them trades to make it sound civilized, but they’re trades the same way you trade stocks on Wall Street.My body is an investment portfolio to those guys, and it’s always made me uncomfortable.”
“I never thought about it like that,” Ben said.“That’s…yeah, that’s pretty fucking uncomfortable.”
Phil shot him a crooked smile.“I guess I always felt it more keenly because hockey’s such a white sport, you know?It’s better these days.Teams are getting more diverse, and we’re also doing more to make it accessible to kids from all walks of life.But when I started out in the NHL, there were way fewer Black guys around.Maybe it feels different in a more diverse sport.Maybe it doesn’t.I don’t know.But I was talking to Michelle about the last time I had to negotiate and how it made my skin crawl, and I don’t want to do it again if I don’t have to.”
Phil toyed with the ring resting on Ben’s finger.“Especially now.I’d be going in at a disadvantage with my knee, so it would mean letting the trainers shoot me up with every anti-inflammatory they legally can every time I feel a twinge instead of just taking a break.And if they catch wind that I’m married to you, that’ll be a liability on paper too.I don’t want to justify my life choices to a room full of guys in suits who think they own me.It’s not something I need to be satisfied with my career.I…I think I want to be one of the guys in the suits, making it more humane for the players.I know myself so much better now, and that’s thanks to you.”
Ben lifted the back of his hand to kiss it, which was, of course, when Charlie returned to the table.
“Gross,” he said.“What’s got you all sappy?”
“Phil’s being sweet.”
“I’m always sweet,” Phil said.
“True.”
“Really though, what’s going on?”
Phil looked to Ben, clearly unwilling to make Charlie’s day about himself.Ben loved him so much.
“I’m thinking about changing my name,” Ben said.
Phil snorted.“What, you got called Morris so much you want to make it official?”
“No, you idiot, I want to change it to Easton.”
