“Get some better glasses,” Jax muttered.
Phil peeked at Tom, who looked both apprehensive and hopeful.He hadn’t asked if they planned to come out anytime soon.Maybe that was an oversight on Phil’s part, because if they did, it would affect the whole team.If they did it right now, it would affect Phil’s enjoyment of his pig in a blanket.
Thankfully, Breezy bounded up to them.The woman on his arm had hair so blonde it shone silver under the strobe lights PR had installed for the event.“Guys!Happy last day of the year!This is Amélie.”
“Nice to meet you,” Phil said, wondering what had happened to the last one.Was it Chloe?
Gamely, Jax asked, “So how did you two meet?”
Breezy beamed.“Luca introduced us.”He waved over at Luca, who was dancing with an absolutely stunning brunette while still managing to glower about something.
“Of course he knows how to ballroom dance,” Mooney muttered.
“He would,” Tom agreed.“Makes the rest of us look bad.”
“The whole core together!”cried Kayleigh from PR, coming up from behind them like a sneaky pig on a hunt for truffles (if, in this case, truffles were content to feed the algorithm).“Group photo time!”
They arranged themselves in a semicircle, Amélie tucked between Breezy and Jax, which made her look even tinier.The new position allowed Phil to get a clear look at Ben again.
He was making an expression Phil had never seen before, his upper lip pulled tight in a sneer.
Trout clapped Ben on the shoulder in approval, and Ben loosened his tie further.
All at once, the absurdity of the situation struck Phil.It was so easy to forget, with Ben living in his house, taking care of his knee, and complaining about hockey, that what Ben actually wanted was to save their organization.In Phil’s opinion, there were better methods than running an undercover operation.But Ben had good intentions, even if he was putting himself and the team’s success at risk.He wanted to help Phil and the Sea Lions, despite the fact that he couldn’t care less about hockey, all for some distant relative who treated him like garbage.And to do so, he compromised his own morals by lying to everyone.
Phil ached, watching him.Physically, from his knee up to his hip, and then settling deep in his heart.
He didn’t want Ben to have to do this.It might not be dangerous, not yet, but it could eventually become so.And if anyone caught wind of his plan, well, maiming a man for life happened all the time during hockey games, and there were plenty of sticks around.
A fierce desire welled up in Phil to go over there and stop whatever was happening.He wanted to tell Trout off himself.He wanted to turn to Kayleigh and tell her to stop putting bullshit feel-good crap on Instagram and, instead, tell the world their organization was rotting from the inside out.He wanted to spare Ben from having to do this.Only the knowledge that Ben neither needed his help nor would appreciate him ruining months of work kept his feet firmly rooted to the spot.
Phil thought about sitting on the couch with Ben at the end of a long day of rehabbing his knee and helping Ben pretend to coach the team.Ben wiping down the kitchen counters because it made him feel better to finish the day with a clean kitchen.Ben’s acerbic commentary on the team, his tipsy countdown of the silliest things about hockey.
He wanted all those things, and he wanted them with Ben wearing the ring Phil had given him.Not to save Charlie from having to return to Utah, not to validate Ben’s living situation to CPS, and not because Phil was confused or angry or any of the other feelings Ben had accused him of.
Phil didn’t go around proposing to people to help them out.He’d dated Camille for three years before even thinking about ring shopping.If he didn’t actually, intensely want to be married to Ben, he would have come up with a less stupid way to convince Ms.Rodriguez and CPS that Charlie had a secure living situation.
Phil wasn’t just tentatively bi and somewhat into his live-in coach turned friend, lover, and guardian to the coolest kid he’d ever met.Phil was definitely extremely bi and in love with a man.
“I’ve gotta get some air,” he mumbled around suddenly numb lips.He grabbed a steak strip on a stick for moral support and slipped out a side door.
So.He was in love with Ben.Christ, couldn’t he have realized it a week ago?He would have put much more effort into giving Ben the rings.Guilt about shoving them at Ben in the kitchen when they’d been drinking and fighting churned in his gut.He should have been romantic.
Phil took a deep breath.
It was fine.This was fine.His timing sucked, and the complicating factors of Ben’s fake identity and the ticking clock of Charlie’s guardianship hearing didn’t make things easier.But Ben hadn’t rejected the rings point blank.He hadn’t even rejected Phil’s proposal outright.He’d only listed a bunch of reasons why it would be complicated and treated them as a rejection.
That, more than anything, meant Phil could hope.
He took another deep breath and ate his steak strip.
A salty herb blend coated the outside, making the whole thing tangy.Might be chimichurri.
Maybe Phil could talk Ben into letting him barbecue if they got married.It was the middle of winter, but the grill stood under the patio roof, and a wedding deserved good food.They wouldn’t be making a fuss of it, not least because, for all intents and purposes, Ben was his coach.The less eyes on their nuptials the better for the team, who were headed for a massive amount of pressure sooner rather than later when the truth about Ben, Trout, and Van Giesing came out.Still.If Phil got married again, he wanted to pick the menu this time.
Phil licked the last of the herbs from his teeth.He couldn’t get too carried away in daydreams.Ben had said he needed the marriage to be real, but that didn’t mean he had feelings for Phil.He might mean he couldn’t marry Phil at all.
Then again, Ben had believed Phil actually thought he was straight up until last week.Maybe he needed time to adapt.
