“Sweet kid,” Jax said.“His parents are…”
“Let’s not talk about his parents,” Ben suggested.
“Ah.Good thing he has you to take care of him, then.”
Ben smiled weakly.“I hope so.He’s right, you know.You guys are doing a great thing here.”
Ben knew Jax was the PR department’s favorite player because he made the most headlines (or what passed for headlines in the hockey world).According to the internet, he also took first place among the hottest guys on the team.Ben obviously had other preferences, both because he had two decades on Jax and because he’d gotten stupidly fixated on Phil.
But when he complimented Jax on the project, he absolutely lit up, a wide smile breaking out across his entire face, and Ben could kind of see what the fuss was about.
Something tickled in his hindbrain, a sense of déjà vu he couldn’t place.
“All right, everyone, enough yapping.Get to carrying.”Phil tossed Breezy the Santa costume, and if any of them had thought he would be at all embarrassed by it, they would have been wrong.He donned it with a gleeful little laugh Ben would be hearing in his nightmares.
Inside the shelter, they found an array of teens still in their pajamas.Plates stacked with waffles alongside squeeze bottles of Mrs.Butterworth and a heart-stopping quantity of butter lined the big table in the dining room, as well as a few forlorn bowls with cantaloupe slices.A gift exchange had already taken place, wrapping paper littering the floor, and Ben spotted a girl at least a head and a half taller than him showing off a new bracelet to Charlie.It couldn’t have cost more than five dollars, but it had a Pride flag charm dangling from the clasp.
“Ho, ho, ho,” Breezy called.
Someone groaned.
“Merry Christmas?”he tried.
A few kids took pity and answered in kind.
“C’mon, guys.We brought presents,” Breezy said.
“Can we do it without the creepy old white guy suit?”asked a kid with an Afro and a glint in his eye.
Breezy sighed.“Jayden, comments like that are why Santa brings children coal.”
Jayden snorted.“No one ever gets coal for Christmas.Empty threat, dude.”
Breezy looked momentarily poleaxed.
“Sit down, everyone,” Mara called.
The children scrambled to obey.
“Chris, you can do this with or without the suit, but I recommend without.Everyone else, grab a seat and some waffles.”
Breezy pulled off the suit, huffing.“No one has any childlike whimsy anymore.”
Phil patted him on the back.“You can keep the spirit of Christmas alive for all of us.”
They started with the boring stuff: Boxes of Sea Lions merch, baseball caps and T-shirts, and their bestseller, the lace-up hoodies.
Ben frowned a little.“PR covers all of this?”he asked the closest hockey player.It happened to be Tom.
Tom shook his head with a fond, rueful smile.“PR covered the caps.Jax bought most of the rest out of pocket.I think Breezy helped?”
Again, a sense of recognition tugged in Ben’s stomach as he watched Mara force the teens into appropriate thankfulness.
“Okay, next up.”Breezy reached into the next box for a stack of envelopes with an artful bow on the front.“I have one of these for each of you.See, Charlie over there—” He waved, and Charlie sank into his seat, trying to hide behind his tall friend.“—told us one of the worst things about, um, about not getting to be yourself is everyone else is always telling you what to wear and how to present yourself.So we didn’t want to do that.”
“Unless we’re repping the Sea Lions, huh?”Jayden asked slyly.
Breezy made the universal I’m-watching-you gesture.“Anyway.Chloe, wanna pass these out?”
