Page 2 of Two for Charging

It was horrifying. Did Luca have to be polite about it?

Undeterred by silence, Breezy kept going. “I know the map says orecchiette are the real Calabrian pasta, but I’ve always really liked those nests of tagliatelle, you know.”

“In Italy you are allowed to eat all pastas in all places,” Luca said, because he couldn’t not. “Except penne lisce.”

“Oh, of course.” Breezy laughed. “I thought…never mind. So this is the living room, and my bedroom’s on the left. If you hate the spare room, we can trade.”

“I’m not throwing you out of your room.” The thought horrified Luca, especially since Breezy refused to tell Luca what he ought to be paying in rent.

“I don’t mind. I’m pretty easy. I mean. Um, easygoing.” A flush suffused Breezy’s pale cheeks.

He might not be Italian, but he was adorable.

Luca stamped down the thought ruthlessly.

He could not afford to be attracted to a man right now, let alone one as ridiculous as Breezy.

“So, let’s put your things in here,” Breezy said, holding open the door to the room he’d indicated as a spare. Immediately, Luca could tell why he’d chosen the apartment. The spacious bedroom boasted a massive window facing out toward the rolling hills of San Francisco on one side and a walk-in closet on the other. The only furniture was a standard double bed, but Luca could envision living here with ease.

“Thank you again for letting me stay here,” Luca said, dropping his suitcase. “It’s extremely generous of you. I wish you would let me pay rent.”

Breezy waved him off as he had done the last four times Luca asked. Instead, he asked, “What can we do to make you feel at home? It must be hard, being so far away.”

His voice betrayed no hint of mockery, only earnest sympathy, and a swell of sudden, intense fondness burst in Luca’s chest.

Oh, that was so inconvenient.

He had to nip it in the bud.

So what if Breezy was openly, honestly nice in a way no teammate of Luca’s ever had been? So what if Luca wanted to savor every second of his attention? He needed to focus on staying in the roster and playing the best hockey of his life, and he needed his teammates to see him as one of the guys, as stupid as he found it. Breezy couldn’t know about this momentary spark of attraction, or he would be disgusted, and Luca would be right back where he started in Juniors. Alone.

As if he could hear Luca’s every thought, Breezy smiled, and Luca’s stomach flipped.

He needed Breezy to stop being so nice to him. If that meant risking his living situation, Luca could find his own apartment. But first, he needed Breezy to stop pursuing his friendship, or he’d have no chance at normalcy.

Luckily, Luca’s ill-fated stint playing Juniors in Winnipeg had taught him he had one strength he could rely on: he could make anyone hate him. Doing it to someone as nice as Breezy would sting, but better now than letting himself get attached and being disappointed later when Breezy turned out to be the same as every other hockey player.

Luca leaned against the doorframe of his new room, crossed his arms, and said, “Thank you for having me here. But there is one thing we must be clear on, yes?”

Breezy nodded.

“You are not Italian.”

Breezy’s eyes went wide and hurt, and Luca braced for impact. Good thing he hadn’t unpacked yet.

But then Breezy blinked twice, and a smile spread across his face, no less earnest than any of his others. “You would know, I guess! I mean, my parents always said… But whatever. You’re going to have to tell me all about what Italy is really like. And hey, you can even do it in Italian. I do speak the language at least!”

This was going to be so much harder than Luca had thought.

Chapter One

“Coaching a hockey team is hard work for several reasons. One, hockey is a fast, loud, aggressive sport, and the coach needs to be able to reliably track the movement of a very small piece of frozen, vulcanized rubber on the ice as well as make constant judgment calls about which line ought to play which strategy. As a writer, none of these things are my strong suit. Two, you have to be good at conveying the belief that your team losing a game is on par with a national tragedy. Another personal failing of mine is that I do not care, nor have I ever cared, about who wins or loses sports games.

When my uncle’s brother-in-law, the Sea Lions’ erstwhile GM Martin Pulvermacher, called me up to ask a favor to investigate someone on staff sabotaging his team, I wasn’t prepared for how much the players would look up to me. As their coach, they trusted my opinion on their professional skills, their teamwork, even their philanthropic efforts off the ice. Once, in order to pursue my investigation, I had to healthy scratch (i.e., take out of the starting lineup for a game) a player who had done nothing wrong, and I made him cry.

When the team discovered I was not a real coach, in an act of grace I have a hard time believing to this day, they unanimously agreed I should continue on, enabling their best chance at success, though it meant more work from all of them to make up for my failings. All this to say, coaching ended up being far more responsibility than I ever thought when Pulvermacher volunteered me for the gig. After a year on the job, I know I am never going to become skilled at or interested in reading hockey plays or deciding the lineup. But with these articles, I hope to at least live up to the trust the San Francisco Sea Lions put in me by revealing the truth about their owner, their defensive coach, and their GM.”

(From “The Odds Are Never in Your Favor, an Exposé on the Betting Scandal at the Heart of the San Francisco Sea Lions,” by Ben Sinclair, published in The San Francisco Herald, 07/20/2025)