Page 86 of Two for Charging

“Oh.” Chris’s stomach sank. “Did I do something? Or, um, maybe tomorrow in Montreal—”

Luca sighed the same way he did when Chris suggested they watch a romcom instead of a miserable Italian arthouse film about two guys building a shack on a picturesque mountaintop somewhere. The guys never kissed despite obviously being in love, and their beards looked scratchy and awful. Chris did not understand the appeal. But he did understand Luca sighing as though Chris was pushing him into something he didn’t want to do.

“Or not. I’m sorry, never mind. I’ll—”

“Chris,” Luca said.

Chris fell silent.

“I cannot help you with sex anymore.”

Rushing sounded in Chris’s ears, so loud he hardly heard the plaintive “Why?” stumbling across his lips.

Luca gave him a look Chris couldn’t read. He hated it. He was good at reading Luca. He was the only person who was good at reading Luca. “You know why. You must know why. I have not been subtle.”

Chris tried to remember: Luca’s insistence, when he came back from his summer in Italy, that he do something to help Chris cover rent; the outings in Seattle and Chicago; him rolling his eyes at the stupid Furby; his lukewarm response when Chris told him how much Luca meant to him on the boat ride. How the nicest thing he’d come up with to say about Chris on the plane was about Chris’s silly underwear.

“Oh,” he said through numb lips. “Right.”

Of course it had been transactional for Luca. He’d said as much. He might have enjoyed the sex but didn’t want more of it. He must have been able to tell that Chris had developed feelings. Chris was such an idiot, falling for a guy who tolerated him at best and reading too much into his responses. He should have charged a hundred bucks a month in rent and called it a day.

Luca gave him a half of a smile, barely there.

“Sorry for asking,” Chris mumbled. “I—uh. Goodnight.” He turned on his heel and went to his room, where he faceplanted straight into his sheets and squeezed his eyes shut so the tears burning behind them couldn’t get out.

So this was how it felt to be turned down by someone he had feelings for.

What a cruel joke to finally understand what it meant to feel this way about someone when that someone would never feel the same.

Chapter Fourteen

Tom [reading from a notecard]: Teammate who’s best at a sport not hockey. Hm, interesting. A lot of us, myself included, are one-trick ponies. Hayes is a pretty good golfer, I think.

Mooney: Does street hockey count? Howie’s vicious at that.

Jax: Can’t believe no one has mentioned Phil’s “fishing is a sport” stance yet.

Tom: Does Phil still count as being on the team?

Breezy: No one’s mentioned Luca yet? He’s the obvious answer.

Hayes: Hate to admit it, but who smokes us all at sewerball before warm-ups every darn game day? Mazetti’s a really good soccer player.

Top comments

calabreezy: the most Italian thing about Luca so far: secret mad soccer skillz

amazetti: @calabreezy—football

seelionssaylions: Hayes looks like he’s in physical pain admitting Mazetti’s got talent. Did something happen there?

(From “San Francisco Sea Lions Call Each Other Out For Fun, Part 3,” posted to YouTube on 09/28/2025)

By the time they got on the plane to Montreal, Dmitriyev had been placed on LTIR.

The team’s mood, which hadn’t been good to start with after three losses in a row, was catastrophic. For once, Luca couldn’t blame Hayes. After Halloween, he’d accepted the new status quo with much more equanimity than Luca would have expected, better than Howie at any rate.

Still, Luca had to take his anger out on someone.