Page 1 of Two for Charging

Prologue

Kayleigh [off-screen]: Hi! I’m Kayleigh, the San Francisco Sea Lions’ local media gal, and I’m here with our newest addition to the team, Luca Mazetti. Luca, tell us a bit about yourself.

Luca: Hello. I’m Luca. I’m twenty-one, and I play defense.

Kayleigh: …Okay, so where are you from?

Luca: Rome.

Kayleigh: And, um, before now, you played on the Sea Lions’ AHL team, the San Diego Pups?

Luca: Yes, I was sent there after training camp this year.

Kayleigh: So how are you adjusting to the NHL?

Luca: Fine.

Kayleigh: [sighs audibly]

Breezy [off-screen]: Fine! Luca got two assists in his first two games! That’s amazing! He’s doing so great! (He joins Luca on camera, throwing an arm around his shoulder.)

Luca: [looks away, hiding a smile from Breezy the camera barely catches]

Kayleigh: Breezy! You were our resident Italian before Luca came along! How does it feel to be replaced?

Breezy: I’m still Italian—

Luca: Please, you’ve never set foot in Europe. You are about as Italian as sauce from a jar.

Breezy: [speaking Italian]

Luca: [speaking Italian]

Kayleigh: Guys?

Top comments:

1682rox: wake up fam. new OTP just dropped

calabreezy: look how Mazetti’s face lights up when Calabrese walks on set. is it because he can escape the boring questions? or is it because he waits all day for the opportunity to mock his new bff?

puckpuckstick: @calabreezy—why not both?

(Video posted in The Rookery, the direct-to-consumer streaming service of the San Francisco Sea Lions and all associated teams, on 11/15/2024)

Chris “Breezy” Calabrese was not an Italian.

The moment Luca met him, he knew this fact completely and wholly. Nothing about Chris’s Canadian accent, his extremely polite manners, or his utter cluelessness when thrust into social situations reminded Luca remotely of Italy. Nor did his coloring, winter-pale and suited more for Montreal in February than Calabria in July. Even his stature, which Luca would describe as “big,” was not particularly Italian. Most of the men in Luca’s family tended toward a slimmer, wiry build. Not that there weren’t built men in Italy, but something about the packed muscle of Breezy’s tall, thick frame in combination with his wide brown eyes and messy dark curls screamed “built for cold weather and nice people.”

He was the only man Luca had ever met of whom his nonna would not say, “You’re so skinny! Eat some more!”

Unfortunately, Breezy labored under the severe misapprehension that he and Luca must become the best of friends because Luca grew up a few hundred kilometers north of a city neither Breezy nor his parents had ever visited but still thought of as “home.” Luca had missed his chance to explain why this notion was lunacy when Breezy first introduced himself—Breezy had bounded up, all excitement that they had a heritage in common, and Luca had been powerless to resist his enthusiasm. Partly, that was because he’d just arrived to a new team in a new place, and he’d been overwhelmed, out of his depth, and unwilling to admit to either emotion. Partly, Luca couldn’t imagine anyone being able to resist Breezy’s warm, if oblivious, approach. He’d known Luca for less than a week when he offered up his spare room and refused to take “no” for an answer.

Luca just couldn’t parse why Breezy would want to be Italian.

But here he was, standing in the living room of Breezy’s two-bedroom apartment in Haight-Ashbury, staring at a map of Italy with different shapes of pasta indicated in each region.

“Cool, right?” Breezy asked, enthused. “My aunt Camilla gave it to me when I moved here.”