Mormon.Pulvermacher was a Mormon.A strict one too.
Strict enough to reject a family member for their sexuality or for being transgender?
Phil shifted in his seat so he blocked Charlie from view.It all seemed too much of a coincidence: Ben getting a head coaching job on the strength of nothing but some college hockey-level coaching and Pulvermacher’s good word; Ben getting a wayward nephew delivered to his doorstep,andboth nephew and Pulvermacher being Mormons.
Whatever Ben was up to, chances were Pulvermacher knew about it.
Phil pretended to stretch to catch a glimpse of Pulvermacher, still on his phone.Had he made the wrong call in deciding to trust Ben because of his nice eyes and strong kissing skills?Was Phil really so lonely that he knowingly let some guy hoodwink him in his own house because he wanted so badly to be wanted?
Or was there more to the whole thing?Could it really be as nefarious as Phil imagined?Pulvermacher wouldn’t work against the team, surely.He wanted them to do as well as possible.
Pulvermacher looked up and caught Phil’s eye.Phil smiled at him, and Pulvermacher returned the expression.For a moment, Phil imagined Pulvermacher coming over and starting a conversation.Maybe, if he and Ben were as connected as Phil thought, he’d recognize Charlie, and he’d say something that would tip Phil off about what was really going on.Or maybe, he’d want to reassure Phil about his status on the team, offer him a chat in his office to go over a new five-year deal.
Or maybe, down on the ice, all the hockey players would suddenly break into a synchronized dance number set to Tchaikovsky’sNutcracker.
Pulvermacher’s phone buzzed, and he stepped out into the hall to answer it.In his absence, the game began, and mercifully for the anxious spiral beginning in Phil’s brain, Charlie had a hundred questions.
Phil took a lot of joy in explaining the face-off circle, the different lines on the field, and the exceptionally shitty reffing.
“That was not interference,” he said heatedly when a Sea Lions goal was deemed invalid because Vanderbilt had skated too close to the crease.
They weren’t playing well, exactly.They were playing decently, better than the game against Toronto.But “better than the game against Toronto” was like saying the clown car drove better when it had wheels.
“Why does he keep playing to the D-men?”Charlie asked, squinting down at Tom as he raced across the ice.
Charlie already knew who played defense.
A spark of pride ignited in Phil’s chest.“Good question.”
In the second intermission, he took Charlie down to the private restrooms in the player area to spare him having to use the public facilities.He didn’t trust the average hockey audience member not to be a dick to Charlie, and Phil would definitely get recognized if he came into the restroom as well.Phil loved interacting with fans in staged, PR-approved settings, but not in a room crowded with people dying to piss out two hockey periods worth of beer.
With Charlie busy, Phil popped into the locker room.
The atmosphere was grim as the team filtered in off the ice.Hayes and Vanderbilt didn’t talk to anyone else, pretending at unforced joviality between them.Tom was similarly quiet, but Phil could tell he was blaming himself for the lack of team success again.This time, he had a point.
“You’ve gotta get your shit together,” Phil told the team as a whole.“Tom, what the fuck are you doing out there?”
When Tom looked up, startled, Phil continued.“You keep playing to Mazetti like you can prove your line switches were a good idea if you just try hard enough.Stop it.Mazetti’s doing his job fine, but he’s a D-man.Use Grant.”
Phil didn’t know Jax as well as he wanted to, given he was apparently in competition with the man as Tom’s best friend, but he looked as if he agreed.
Tom couldn’t even meet his eye, which meant Phil would have to invite him over sometime to talk him out of the guilt.“I…okay,” Tom said.
Out of the corner of his eye, Phil spotted Ben at the door, talking to Charlie.He’d loosened his tie, and his hair was rumpled as if he’d been running his hands through it.Understandable, with how the game was going.For a moment, he ached to take them both home.He’d put Ben in one of his silly T-shirts and watch the rest of the game from the comfort of the couch, where neither of them had to feel the pressure of being in public—Ben because he was pretending to be someone else, someone straight and into hockey, and Charlie because he wasn’t.
But Phil couldn’t.They had work to do here.He consoled himself with the thought of tomorrow.
Phil let them chat while he gave Breezy a few tips on how to work with Mazetti’s size and speed.Breezy usually played with Hayes or Nieminen, who were closer to his own build, and adapting play was always a challenge, particularly mid-season.
Breezy was eminently coachable as always.Phil had never known a hockey player as eager for criticism as him.
“Hey,” Breezy said in an undertone.“Can we do, like, a D-man dinner soon?I think Luca’s feeling pretty unwelcome, and things have been awkward.”
“For sure.I’ll set something up in the group chat.Good man.”Phil patted Breezy on the shoulder.Phil was an inch or two shorter, but it felt as if Breezy was looking up to him.
He gave it a few more minutes for good measure, chatted with Dmitriyev about the shitty interference call, and told Jax to make sure Tom didn’t get too down on himself.If he felt a pang of preemptive loss that someone else now got the job of babysitting Tom through his attacks of self-flagellation, well, Phil could ignore that for now.He hoped he would still get to see Tom when he stopped playing hockey, but it wasn’t as if they had much else in common.
“Sorry I took so long,” he said, meaning it precisely not at all, as he joined Ben and Charlie at the door.They stood in awkward silence again, Charlie resorting to examining the fact sheet about sea lions on the locker room door.
