Page 32 of Two for Charging

Luca pushed his plate forward and rested his elbows on the table. “I am glad to hear you are learning your own worth. But I meant to say Jax is right. It would be good to see gay athletes. If I had—” He cleared his throat and looked away. “If I had seen examples like you two, I would not have felt so alone.”

The bottom of Breezy’s stomach dropped away, and he entered free fall, blood rushing in his ears. There was no way he could say anything, and sitting on the inside of the booth with Luca blocking the way out, he couldn’t leave either.

He attacked his food, shoveling big bites into his mouth so he couldn’t be asked to speak.

“Oh,” Tom said, surprised. “You’re— But you, um… Well, you seem to meet a lot of women.”

“I call it ‘being bisexual.’ It is a brand-new concept I invented myself.” Luca picked up his silverware and began delicately cutting into his tacos, splintering the shells as he went.

Through his own mouthful, Chris couldn’t resist telling him, “They make it to fit in your hand. You don’t need cutlery.”

“If I were meant to eat food with my hands, God would not have given me a knife and fork.”

“You’re making your life harder though. So what if you get a little sauce on your hands—”

“Then I will smear it in your face.”

Chris stuck his tongue out, aware there was a nonzero amount of food sticking to it. Luca grimaced in disgust.

Tom cleared his throat. “Thank you for telling us about you, Luca. I. Um…I don’t know where to go from here. No one’s ever come out to me before. Well, except Phil, I guess, but I don’t think that counts.”

Luca shrugged fluidly. “It seemed fair to tell you. So you are looking to come out to the team?”

“If they notice on Halloween, I’m okay with it. If they don’t, honestly, it would be a little easier, but either way is all right.”

Which meant Chris still shouldn’t talk to anyone about it. Which would be fine. Hayes was great at not noticing things right in front of his face. Last year, he hadn’t noticed Mooney being Mexican and Luca not being Mexican.

And Vanderbilt also seemed oblivious to what his wife got up to at every team event she could swing it. The two of them deserved each other. Maybe the team would make it through Halloween, no worse for wear.

“—eezy? Chris?”

Chris snapped to attention. Luca never called him by his first name.

“Why are you being so strange about this? Is it a problem for you to live with me now? Should I—”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Chris said firmly. “It’s not a problem. I’m just worried about the team. Which isn’t to say I think you should stay closeted,” he added to Tom. “I don’t like when people fight, that’s all.”

Tom looked between him and Luca. “You two fight all the time.”

“No, we don’t,” Luca said at the same time as Chris said, “Not seriously.”

Their eyes met.

A spike of melancholy speared through Chris’s chest—a desire to never lose the sense of belonging he felt with Luca in the full knowledge that someday he would, because no one lived with their best friend forever.

He shoved the rest of his enchilada in his mouth so he wouldn’t say anything stupid.

Chapter Six

“On the Sea Lions, we’ve got an interesting mix. While team captain, Tom Crowler, favors classic looks like this black suit with a light blue shirt [image below], in recent months he’s spiced it up with silk ties and designer pocket squares. His alternates, Jimmy Hayes and Jax Grant, shine in very different ways. Where Hayes picks casual styles with turtlenecks and drawstring pants, Grant is known for his more eccentric yet formal choices. Check out the purple three-piece suit by Dior he wore to the team’s New Year’s gala [image below]. But our pick for team style winner is last year’s rookie Luca Mazetti, who shines in elegant tailoring with a few accent pieces. The man knows how to rock a suit, what can we say? Check out these pinstripes [image below]. The team’s style loser? Chris ‘Breezy’ Calabrese. Someone get this man to a tailor and find him a suit he didn’t get at Macy’s!”

Top comments:

Jefferson Howard: They’re hockey players, not fashion models. Who cares what they wear?

calabreezy: yeah I love Breezy, but fair

(From “Wearing Versus Styling: NHL Players' Game Day Looks—Who’s Hot and Who’s Not?” Posted to hockeygossip.net on 10/25/2025)