Jayden was not so easily convinced.“Is it some loser like Brad Paisley or something?”
“Give ussomecredit,” Jax said.
“Have you heard what Phil listens to?”Charlie asked.
On the one hand, good that Charlie was coming out of his shell and making friends.He also had a point about Phil’s taste; Ben had heard more early-2000s hip-hop in the last two months than in the previous three decades.On the other hand, rude.
“It’s Billie Eilish,” Breezy revealed.
The room broke out into pandemonium.
“You’re really going to take all these kids to a concert venue?”Ben asked Mara, alarmed.
She held up the note from Lunes.“That’smyChristmas gift.Diego will help me chaperone.”
She let the noise continue for about three minutes past Ben’s tolerance for it, and then she whistled sharply.“Okay everyone, pipe down.”When they did, she nudged Jayden.“C’mon, kiddo.”
Jayden huffed an aggrieved sigh and pulled a bag of tiny, gift-wrapped objects from under the couch.“Thanks or whatever,” he told Breezy, handing him a card and a present.“I guess you were right.Hockey doesn’t suck.”
Ben would have to disagree, but he appreciated the gesture.
The presents turned out to be rainbow-colored homemade friendship bracelets.Breezy nearly teared up when Jayden tied his around his wrist, but he made it, Ben suspected, because he would definitely lose all of Jayden’s hard-won respect if he did.
It was a good Christmas morning.
Ben would have been quite satisfied to end the holiday on a high note, but to his surprise, the other hockey players followed them home when they left the shelter.
“Oh,” Phil said.“Yeah, I always invite everyone who has nowhere else to go over for the holidays.I don’t think I actually said anything this year, but I guess they’re here.”
“We don’t have enough food,” Ben said, a ludicrous statement in the face of Phil’s perpetually full pantry.A look out the kitchen window revealed the Scandinavians and Dmitriyev coming down the drive hot on the heels of the guys who had been at the shelter.They could maybe feed five hockey players if those hockey players accepted much smaller portions than usual.Eight wasn’t possible.
Charlie took one look at the approaching hordes and jerked his head toward the stairs.“I’m gonna go read a book or something.Let me know when they clear out?”
Phil was already on the phone with the nearest open Chinese restaurant, ordering what sounded like most of the menu.It fell to Ben to open the door and let everyone in.
“Hi,” he said.“We weren’t expecting you.”
“Coach!”Dmitriyev grinned.He wasn’t wearing his falsie, and thus, his tongue stuck out from the gap where his top right incisor used to be.
A few weeks ago, Ben noticed Dmitriyev putting in the fake tooth in the locker room, and Phil showed him the highlight reel of the shot on goal that had caused the gap.Dmitriyev had taken a puck to the mouth during an informal practice when his cage had been off and, consequently, had been out with a concussion for four straight weeks.But as he’d been taken off the ice, he was incandescent with joy at having blocked the shot.
Goalies.
God, Ben hoped Charlie didn’t turn out that way.
“Oh right,” Breezy said, big booming voice and big booming laugh unperturbed by the morning of talking at the shelter.“Coach is staying with East while his knee heals, y’know.And his nephew.Is Charlie here?”
“He’s hiding from you.I think he’s all peopled out.”
“Fair,” Luca said.He stood beside Breezy in the entranceway, looking for all the world as if he would prefer to be anywhere else.
They all filed in, leaving their shoes by the door, and immediately converged on the couch.
“Sorry,” Tom said hesitantly.“We always do Christmas at Phil’s.We all assumed…”
“You know what they say about assuming,” Phil said, stuffing his phone back into his pocket.“Makes an ass out of you and me.”
“Oh my God,” Jax groaned.“Tom was right.You are such a dad.You are the most dad person I have ever met.”
