by N. J. Lysk
It was crazy, but it wasn't like anybody had ever called Thomas sensible, was it? He literally put knives on his feet and went as fast as he could for a living, after all.
"Oh, you brought skates?" Uri asked, seeing his sports bag.
Thomas turned to the object of his fantasies. "What? Um, yeah, of course."
"It's just... we're playing on grass."
Thomas laughed, startled. Uriel had said it was field hockey and of course most people didn’t mean that to be hockey on rollerblades, which was what the coaches had them do when the ice was in use by a different group. "Oh, man, okay. No worries. Running is much better exercise, supposedly," he added a little wryly. Uri looked curious, but didn't ask.
"You don't like running?" Uri sounded surprised.
Thomas shrugged. "It's alright, but nothing compared to skating."
"Mmm... I quite like running," the man said.
"Well, then I guess you'll be faster than me," Thomas responded. "How are those reflexes, old man?"
"You keep calling me that." Uri frowned a little. "You realise I'm not even thirty yet, right?"
"Not even thirty? So how old is that? Twenty-nine?"
The not so old man rolled his eyes at him, but told him what he wanted to know, "Twenty-eight."
Thomas gave a nod. "Guess you'll do," he determined with a lingering glance.
Uriel almost tripped on thin air as he snorted and tried to turn to look at him simultaneously, and Thomas gladly took the chance to reach for his arm and hold him steady.
He didn't pull back like Thomas had expected, instead allowing him to hold on as he straightened. He couldn't quite figure out this combination of shy and bold—teasing and blushing. It was driving him a little nuts, and intriguing him like crazy.
"How old are you then?" Uri's eyes were dark and intense and for a moment Thomas couldn't think of the words.
"Twenty-two," he managed in the end, swallowing.
He couldn't quite tell if he'd surprised Uriel with the information because at that point the other man gently disengaged his arm to take the keys out of his pocket and unlock the intricate gate at the entrance of what had once been a big state in the outskirts of London city.
Thomas whistled. "Wow, and you thought my flat was fancy?"
"It's not so glamorous inside," Uri explained. "The building was donated by the family a long time ago, but they didn't exactly provide funds to maintain the carpeting and curtains, if you know what I mean."
As they entered the main hall, Thomas realised why Uri had dismissed his first impression: you could tell there had been money here once, in the fixings and the fine shape of the columns, but you could also tell there wasn't that much now, in the cracked tiles on the floor and mismatched sofas. "It's pretty big, isn't it?"
"Yeah, and it's got a great garden. Maybe the best part for the kids."
"Well, let's put it to use!"
THOMAS HAD GONE FOR a t-shirt with the Hell Flames colours and logo—wearing his real uniform without the padding would have made him look like a scarecrow, for one thing—but he didn't expect it to matter. Love hockey as he always had, he was well aware there were plenty of people who didn't care enough to know their local team.
When they stepped outside and the children milling about the place—some of them idly passing a tennis ball with their sticks but most of them just chatting—noticed at once; he thought he'd underestimated himself. He'd walked into plenty of rooms where he was expected and admired, but it still warmed him when they all stopped.
He barely kept his palm from hitting his flaming face when some of the younger children run towards Uri and threw their arms around his middle. Uri was laughing, looking slightly overwhelmed by all the small bodies clinging to him, and half ordering, half begging to be liberated.
An older teenager approached, flicking a long ponytail composed of tiny braids. "Brats," she said, raising her voice sharply. The giggling mass of kids slowly stepped back.
"Hey, Blendi, how's things?" Uriel asked her.
She shrugged, expression still bored but Thomas had seen how fast she'd come over, how relaxed her shoulders were. "Same old."
"Well, got something new for you," Uri replied, already waving an arm to call the remaining kids closer. Uri pointed his thumb at Thomas. "This is Thomas Kiau, he plays for the Hell Flames and he was dope enough to come over and give us a few pointers."
"Is that a hockey team?" A voice asked among the almost twenty children surrounding them. Some of the others laughed, good-naturedly and he caught a high pitched voice explaining, but there was no further ribbing like Thomas would have expected.
"Yeah," Thomas said, signing as he spoke—it was just good manners with a group of strangers. "We play on ice, but it's about the same. People think you play hockey with sticks, but actually it's a whole body sport..."
HE'D GOT THEM TO DO a few passing drills first, just to get an idea of whether they could, really, and then he'd put Blendi and another of the bigger kids on the goals and set everyone else to try to score. He let them get into it, then wandered around and watched. If someone missed a shot or used a dangerous move—the concept of high-sticking was taking its time to penetrate—he took them for a little walk to the opposite goal, then watched them try again there. It was a little trick from Coach Yani back in little league, so kids wouldn’t have to fail twice in front of the same teammates and get discouraged. It also had the invaluable advantage of allowing different players to try their skills against each other. It was how you found your position, and how you discovered you were useless against a left-handed goalie.
Uri stood by him for a bit, which Thomas was starting to find flattering until he noticed the other man was trying to learn how to give feedback, not staring at his arse. Then he found it even more flattering; great as skating was for his backside, Thomas had spent a lot more time working on his hockey than worrying about what he looked like, and it was nice to have someone acknowledge his expertise.
Kyeran had been a model player so far, but after they had some juice and biscuits for a mid-morning break, he approached Thomas and looked up at him with his big soulful eyes. "Can we play?"
It took an effort not to laugh at the sheer despair in his posture and voice, even as he fully sympathized. "Yes, sure, we can give it a go. Everyone can pass, and that's the most important thing," he added, hoping he was being direct enough without making Kyeran feel singled out. The kid was better than anyone his size and even some of the bigger kids—Thomas wasn't surprised he preferred it to football.
He clapped twice, then waved his hands above his head for good measure. All of the kids could hear, but he wasn't so sure they all spoke English that well—after all, immigrants were often the less able to earn enough to keep their own kids at home. "Okay, so we're going to have two teams. Uriel—"
"Uri!" A little girl corrected him.
"Uri," Thomas agreed with a nod and a smile at the man. He was starting to understand that Kyeran's admiration wasn't an isolated incident; all these kids seemed drawn to Uri like moths to a flame. "Uri will captain one team, and I'll captain the other. We'll be goalies because we still got a few inches on you, and fair's fair."
Blendi rolled her eyes at him. "Sure, you'll just take up the whole goal."
Thomas laughed again. "Well, I could sit down, but I don't want to make it too easy on you, Blendi."
She rolled her eyes at him. "Whatever. Then I'll be in Uri's team."
The rest of the kids were pretty good sports about getting assigned to teams depending on their size and skill except for a pair who insisted they had to be on the same team because they were cousins.
“Micah, Sabine,” Uri said stepping forward. “We’re all playing together right here.” He pointed at the lawn in front of them, grass short enough to run in and two plastic goals on either end that looked like they might have been left out in the rain once or twice. “And if you play on different teams, you can bet on it.”
It was a
surprising twist to the argument, but Thomas caught the pleasure on the kids’ faces at once. “Oh, gods, Micah, let’s!” the long-haired one told the other. “If I win, you gotta do my chores for... two days!”
Micah might have been a little older or maybe just more world-weary, because she rolled her eyes at her cousin. “Okay, whatever, but I’m on Uri’s team.”
Sabine grumbled but agreed—apparently Thomas’s status as a professional player didn’t make up for his lack of personal connection to them.
Being on goal wasn't that entertaining for Thomas, who'd always felt the position was too static and required too much sustained attention without enough action. It required great skill, of course, just not the kind he personally excelled at.
It was apparently the kind Uri excelled at. He was still behind his team, occasionally he'd shout out instructions, but for the most part he just watched. The teams were pretty evenly matched; Blendi and another girl had decided to play at the front together while two boys that looked bigger but had to be about fourteen as well were fronting the opposing line. The size difference could have been too much, but Blendi was good with her stick and the other girl was fast enough to make up for the boys’ longer reach. Kyeran completed the opposing offense, which might not have been completely fair to the child playing with Blendi, but there was only so much adjusting Thomas could manage with players he’d never seen in action. This game was just for fun, he reminded himself.
The defence was all younger kids, four of them in each team, including Micah and Sabine, since no one wanted to wait on the bench. Their coordination wasn’t the best and they were too small to effectively block the older kids, but they seemed happy enough to needle their elders and let the adults do the actual goal-keeping. Thomas was aware he was meant to be watching the kids but when the black boy who was playing centre-forward for his team ran in Uri's direction, his breath caught at the utter, perfect stillness in the other man's body—a predator waiting to strike.
And strike he did, shifting his stick fast and easy to the exact place where the tennis ball was going to enter the goal area. The boy swore audibly, but didn't seem really angry, turning back for the next face off. This one he won, earning an enraged growl from Blendi. "T'Jean!"
That distracted T'Jean enough to allow Kyeran to swipe the ball off his stick. Thomas winced, fists clenching around a stick he couldn’t use. Kyeran couldn't keep the ball on his stick as he ran but it sent it dangerously close to Thomas's own goal until one of his little defenders stepped forward and kicked it away.
By the time they'd resolved that foul and explained that only goalies could use their bodies to touch the ball, Thomas's ears kind of needed a break. He swapped the defence and offence in each team and send Blendi and T'jean to their respective goals—he was making assumptions there, but he wanted them as far apart as possible.
Uri flopped down next to him on the bench overlooking the field. "I think they broke my brain," Thomas confessed.
He got a sceptical eyebrow in response. "Weren't you a tough athlete? Never give up and all that?"
Thomas groaned, leaning on his bent elbows. "Nope, I'm— I don't know, a teddy bear, a... a jellyfish! Squishy and soft."
Uri's laughter seemed to expand across the field, free and wild and uncontainable. Thomas thought a few of the kids might have been looking at them but he couldn't look away long enough to check. "A jellyfish?"
"What?” he demanded, straightening. “They're deadly."
"Most of them are just annoying," Uri pointed out, smiling a little. He wasn't watching the kids, either, Thomas noted.
He shrugged, then nodded towards the field. "What's going on with those two?"
Uri didn’t ask who he meant, and his smile was mischievous. "You mean, do they hate each other's guts or want to make out?"
It was Thomas's turn to be shocked. "What?"
Uri shrugged, glancing at the kids with a sort of absent-minded protectiveness. "There's sort of a running bet with the staff. For cake!" he clarified, quickly. "Not money."
Thomas snorted. “You think I would mind that you gossip about kids? I’m sure they’ll be gossiping about us the moment we leave today.” He looked back when there was no answer and saw that Uri looked serious. “What? I didn’t mean...” He lowered his voice. “I didn’t mean it like that, necessarily, just... People are curious. It’s normal. And when they don’t know the answers, they make them up.”
Uri finally looked at him again, nodding slowly. “Yeah, you’re right. Just... well, I don’t want this to look... untoward.”
“Untoward?” Thomas echoed, trying not to smile. “What would be untoward about asking a friend to volunteer with you? Even if it was a boyfriend, there’s no reason you can’t volunteer with people you already enjoy spending time with. As long as they do a good job.”
“I...” Uri’s face was colouring again, and Thomas’s thoughts were definitely untoward. Either the gods or the kids really liked Uri because right then there was a shout that had them both springing to their feet and running into the field.
It turned out to be nothing major. At least it hadn’t turned into anything major because Blendi and T’jean were being held back by their respective friends.
“What’s going on here?” Uriel demanded, his voice seemed to spread over the kids like a blanket of snow and most of them turned his way. “Jamil?”
It was Blendi’s friend who responded to the traditionally masculine name. “They told the kids to all come at Blendi at once until one of them scored.”
Thomas heaved a sighed. They weren't the first ones to think of it. "Whose bright idea was this?"
The hesitation was palpable, and then Thomas felt Uri step forward. He said nothing and Thomas didn't look at him, but the effect was immediate. T'Jean deflated, then raised his head and stared Thomas straight in the eye. "Mine."
Thomas nodded, acknowledging the admission. "Why did you think it'd be a good idea?"
The boy frowned, obviously confused by his lack of disapproval. "They're little, they can't... I mean, they needed some advantage, and she can't stop all of them at once."
"That would be a great strategy for a battle," Thomas told him, then pressed his tongue against the roof of his mouth and simply waited. He was bad at it, but he was willing to bet...
"But this isn't a battle?" T'Jean asked.
"No," he agreed. "It's not. Sometimes we might get a little carried away, and that's why there's a referee and video recording, of course. But we do not plan to do anything that will hurt other players. That kind of play will get you all thrown out of a real game, and for good reason." He glanced at Blendi. "It's true she's got a size advantage, but that doesn't mean four on one is fair."
"But..." It was one of the smaller children. "How do we play if they're bigger and faster all the time?"
"Skill," Thomas said simply. "And they're bigger, sure, but that also makes them easier to block, doesn't it? Everything has a downside. All that stuff we get from our parents; being strong or big or fast... that helps, but in the end, it's not what makes us who we are. A good player needs to work hard because they love the game, like a good lawyer needs to study hard because they love the job." He tilted his head towards Uri and saw the children's eyes follow. "Hockey isn't a battle, it’s not about who's bigger, it's about who can control the puck better, who can pass and receive passes, who can block the opposite player without fouling them. And about a team with a strategy, of course," he said to T'Jean. "You definitely want a captain who plans ahead."
"Blendi," Uri asked after a slight pause for Thomas to continue speaking if he wished. "Would you accept a penalty shot in compensation?"
"He should get time out," she countered.
"What?! I already explained—"
"Stop," Uri said in a normal speaking voice, but he might as well have had a megaphone. He turned to Thomas. "What would a referee do in this case?"
"The only players that can be given a time out are the ones tha
t actually executed the play," Thomas explained. "Blendi? Do you want them to miss five minutes of game time?"
"What? No! It was T’Jean, he should—"
"How many points does your team have?"
"Five."
Her sullen response was all the answer he needed, but he asked anyway, "And them?"
"Eight. Before..." She waved toward the opposing team.
"Okay, so here's what we'll do; we're resetting the count. You're both at zero now, and you get a penalty shot." Blendi didn't look like she'd stoop to smiling but she'd straightened a little. Thomas turned to the other team. "T'Jean will defend his goal." The boy nodded at once. "And," he finished. "I'm taking away your extra players, you're captains today and you'll have to pay attention to your team and decide when you need to swap them."
Technically, it was the coaches who observed the game and made such decisions, but if they were going to strategize for the team, then they also needed to keep track of their team's needs and skills. And it was just as well to keep them busy with something other than their overblown grudge. He sent two of the younger kids from each team to sit down on the grass. “You guys should pay attention to anyone doing the wrong thing and tell me, okay?”
They liked that a lot, which Thomas had known they would, having spent years watching his teammates get fouled and forced to wait out the referees’ verdict.
He explained the shootout procedures, reminding them high-sticking rules applied even when there was little chance of hitting anyone.
Blendi slowly bent into the position he'd taught her earlier. T'Jean just spread his legs and stared at her—Thomas had advised the first goalies, not them, but it wasn't the time to interrupt. Not when this was meant to be Blendi's opportunity to get back at her rival. T'Jean was wearing a helmet, that would have to do.
One of the kids in Blendi’s team exploded, shouting her name, and another followed. The other team took a moment to catch up and start hollering for T'Jean. Thomas laughed; if he'd wanted a realistic experience... He felt a touch on his arm and turned to look at Uri's dubious expression. "It's fine, just a little friendly competition."