Sean

A Minor Penalties Short Story

Spotted Jax Grant and Tom Crowler getting lunch at a bistro near the Marina yesterday! They were deep in conversation and I think they shared a dessert? Wonder what important Sea Lions business they were talking about. I heard something about the penalty kill, but when I passed them to go to the bathroom it sounded like they were talking about dog breeds. I didn’t want to bug them while they weren’t working but I did shoot a sneaky pic.

(Image of Crowler and Grant dressed casually, sitting on opposite sides of a small table. Grant gesticulating with one hand while the other holds a fork. Crowler smiling at him.)

Top comments:

clions2010: Should have told them Easton needs to hang it up already if we want to win big this year!

grant16rules: idk shooting pics of guys getting a meal in their spare time is kinda skeevy. 

1682rox: just two guys being dudes sharing a dessert

(From: Secret team leadership meeting in downtown SF? posted to r/sf_sea_lions on 03/11/2025)

On Tuesday morning, Sean woke up to a text from a contact he hadn’t seen on the lockscreen of his phone in years. 

Tom Crowler: Is this Sean’s number?

Sean blinked at the message. Was he still asleep? No, he had to pee and his feet were cold, he was definitely awake. Beside him, his wife, Martha, snuffled in her sleep and burrowed deeper under the blankets, which she had both of, as usual.

He got to his feet and padded out of bedroom as quietly as he could. Martha had been working overtime at the vet clinic she started two years ago and needed all the rest she could get. Running her own business, even in sleepy rural British Columbia, was hard work. 

In the kitchen, he turned on the coffeemaker and leaned against the countertop while it did its thing. Tom Crowler. He hadn’t heard from Tom in years. Not since…what, 2013? It must have been, Sean hadn’t played hockey since.

God, hockey. 

It was hard to remember a time when his whole life had centered around playing the game, when he’d spent five days a week in the gym working on his endurance and every winter weekend on a bus that reeked of sweaty hockey gear getting to his next game. He used to track his own stats, not just points but faceoff wins and plus-minus, religiously. He used to think he had a future in the sport.

Getting drafted low in the sixth round made his dreams sound more realistic than they were. For a while he’d been motivated to try to make the team, or at least the AHL.

Sean did alright in Juniors, middle of the pack at best, but that could still mean a future in the sport. It took him till prospect camp to start doubting he had a career in hockey. The other rookies were faster than him and crucially, they wanted it more. Not that Sean could admit it to himself then. He’d figured he wasn’t ready yet.

Being drafted, even so low, made his college hockey scholarship in Michigan worthwhile despite the headache it caused him and his parents to send him to a college in the U.S. as a Canadian. At the time, Sean thought he would do the standard hockey player year or two of blowing off college classes to play during the season and to party out of it and then he’d make the AHL no problem and work his way up.

Reality had different plans for him. 

But here he was, a decade later and no worse for not having played a single game of hockey in the interim. At eighteen, he thought he would miss it. He thought the disappointment of not living up to whatever potential he imagined he had would destroy his life.

It didn’t.

His life turned out alright. 

No interminable travel to put on disgusting gear in tiny locker rooms with shitty water pressure. No alternately freezing on the bench and sweating on the ice. No ice baths, no joint pain, no money spent on gear.

He still watched, of course. He was Canadian after all. And from Toronto, making him that most unpopular hockey fan in the rest of Canada: a Huskies supporter. 

Tom claimed he was, too, having grown up in Sudbury, and he could recite the Huskies’ stats like a pro, but he never got riled up watching the games. In fact, Sean was hard-pressed to remember him being emotionally invested in any team at all. He’d watched Paul Zelinka’s highlights as a matter of course, as had everyone because the man was a genius, but he never went so far as to support Pittsburgh in the playoffs. His mom’s family came from Alberta, so he could have repped for Calgary or Edmonton, but he never did. The one hockey team he really cared about was their own. He took being team captain so seriously. At the time, Sean looked up to that quality. In retrospect, what teenager overthought so much?

No wonder he made it to the NHL and stuck around there when no one else on their Juniors team lasted more than a handful of years.

Sean wondered if he called himself a Sea Lions fan now he was their captain.

One way to find out.

Sean: Hi Tom, this is Sean. How are you?

He put his phone aside and cooked up some porridge for breakfast. He put raspberries and coconut flakes in Martha’s, she needed the energy. He only had raspberries in his own. One drawback of not playing hockey anymore and being in his thirties: His metabolism was much slower than it used to be.

Grabbing the bowl and his coffee cup, he headed for his office. Accounting wasn’t as glamorous as playing hockey professionally, but he liked working from home and having a steady income. He made his way through his emails for a while. Around eight the door closed when Martha left for the clinic. Sean huffed out a breath and began work on his newest clients’ financial records. He got through everything they gave him for the last quarter before remembering to check his phone again.

Tom: I’m good. Are you still in the GTA?

Sean: No, I moved to the Victoria area with my wife three years ago.

He meant to put his phone aside again when he saw the texting bubble appear. Trying to refocus on work was futile. He spun around in his desk chair. The bubble hadn’t resolved into a new text. He went back to the kitchen to get another cup of coffee and drank it slowly in the living room, looking out at the back yard. Two robins flitted around the birdhouse, pecking at the seed.

They should get a dog. Or a cat. Or one of each. What kind of vet didn’t have pets?

They’d always talked about a future with a full house, animals and kids, the whole shebang, when Martha had her practice up and running and they had their own house. They did now. Maybe it was time to talk about more.

It would feel a lot less lonely puttering around the house all day if he had a few pets to keep him company.

The robins flew away. Sean returned to his desk. 

Tom: Even better. We play Vancouver next week, want tickets?

Sean typed his agreement before he could think about it twice.

****

Martha had never cared about hockey, so Sean took a coworker to the game. It was a little awkward, given they usually interacted via video conference. After, he had to leave because he had young kids and needed to be home in time to help his wife with the night shift, meaning Sean loitered in the stands and wait for Tom alone.

When most everyone but cleaning staff and a few stragglers had cleared out, just past the point Sean started to feel awkward, a young woman wearing a headset, a blazer and a friendly smile came up to him. “Sean McAllister?”

“That’s me.”

“Follow me, please.”

Sean did, feeling oddly flattered at the celebrity guest treatment. He’d never been to one of Tom’s games before, not even when they were still in touch, in part because the logistics never worked out when he played in the NCAA, in part because Tom never asked.

Never before now, a dozen years after the last time they’d spoken.

Tom met him outside the visiting locker rooms. The smell of worn hockey gear wafted out from the open door and with it a wave of nostalgia so strong Sean had to swallow hard against the memories. Running down corridors lit up with fluorescents carrying his stinky hockey gear in a bag over one shoulder, hair wet after he and Tom had gotten caught up talking about the game under the showers and were in danger of missing the team bus. Passing around goalie gloves in the locker room, everyone taking a whiff and then groaning in disgust when they did. Long, earnest talks from their coach after which Sean left the rink feeling about ten centimeters tall.

When he turned to greet Tom, the sense of déjà vu intensified.

Tom looked exactly like he had as a teenager, only more so. He was still tall and slim, but it had become a quality rather than a side effect of growth. His hair was still thick and dark, but he’d figured out how to style it in a way that made it seem messy on purpose rather than as if he didn’t care. His face was still serious, but the expression suited an adult. 

They shook hands. Sean had held his out on instinct, but it felt strange when they touched. He and Tom were never the kind of friends who casually crossed personal boundaries when they were young. Sean had had hockey friends like that, guys who always had their arms slung over someone else’s shoulder or their feet kicked up on someone else’s lap. Tom was never so unthinking about his own body.

“It’s good to see you,” Tom said when their hands separated once again.

“Yeah,” Sean agreed. “I mean, it’s good to see you, too. Been too long.”

Tom smiled in response, tight and uncomfortable and exactly how Sean remembered him.

“So, uh, what‘s the plan?” Sean asked. “Do you have to get on a plane in an hour, or…”

“No, we’re staying the night. I hoped, um. I hoped you knew a good restaurant around here somewhere?”

Since he lived out in the boonies, Sean didn’t, but he had years of experience googling shit, so they found a nearby Asian fusion place with good reviews where Tom could get his fill of protein post-game and Sean could eat without mainlining Lactaid. “Worst part of Juniors,” he recalled, stuffing his phone into his pocket after checking the directions. “I can’t believe I was too stupid to stop eating cheese.”

“Cheese is pretty good.”

Sean squinted at him. Tom had already been halfway to a keto diet when they were teenagers, no way had he come around on lactose as a pro. Before he could inquire more thoroughly, a tousled blond head peeked out of the locker room.

“Tom,” Jaxon Grant chided. “What are you still doing here? Go on, have fun!”

“I’m working on it.”

“Work faster.”

In a move Sean would never in a million years have expected, Tom stuck his tongue out at his teammate before turning back to Sean. “Sorry. Jax, uh…well, I’ll tell you over dinner.”

They walked to the restaurant at a brisk pace. A cool breeze blew in off the Pacific and Tom stuffed his hands into his pockets. He did always run cold.

They reached the restaurant at nearly eleven because hockey games went for a long fucking time. Sean'd had a sandwich before, but he was hungry enough for a second dinner. He didn’t have to maintain an athlete’s physique. Not that he’d let himself go, he went running every other morning and he wondered if Tom could tell, looking at him, that he kept in shape.

The late hour and the mid-week date meant the restaurant was empty. They ordered fast and then settled in their chairs. 

“This is a nice place,” Tom observed. “I like the art.”

The art was nice, not as over the top and kitschy as some Asian fusion places got. Any other time, Sean would have been happy to talk about it. He’d taken an art history class in college to fill a gen ed requirement and it turned out to not be as shit as he thought it would be. He remembered a few things from it and liked to bring them up when he wanted to impress people.

Tonight, he had other priorities. 

“It’s great. Why are we here?”

Across from him, Tom froze, his water glass at his lips.

“Not that I’m not happy to see you,” Sean added. “I am. But I haven’t heard from you in years.”

“Sorry.”

“I could have gotten in touch, too,” Sean felt compelled to mention.

“Why, um,” Tom licked his lips. “Why didn’t you?”

“A lot of reasons. I stopped playing in hockey.”

“Your rotator cuff.”

“You knew?”

“I kept track of your college games.”

Sean had no idea what to make of that. “Even before I fucked up my body, I wasn’t half the player you were. Got kind of jealous of you living my dream for a while there,” he admitted. “It took me a bit to get over it.”

“Sorry.”

“Don’t apologize for being successful. I guess I struggled with accepting I didn’t have a real future in hockey, more so when I got injured, and then I met Martha.”

“Girlfriend?”

“Wife.”

“Congratulations.”

Sean never bothered sending Tom a message when he and Martha got engaged, or when they got married. The wedding was two years ago and by then, he and Tom hadn’t spoken in four times that. Hearing Tom congratulate him now left a strange taste in his mouth, bitter like day-old coffee.

“Anyway. She’s not much of a hockey fan. Guess it just…stopped being part of my life.”

Tom huffed a laugh. “Can’t imagine.”

The waitress brought over their food, a big steaming bowl of udon noodles with seared tuna and spicy kefir lime leaves for Tom and a salmon salad for Sean. They both dug in and ate in silence for a few minutes before Tom ventured, “So you stopped talking to me because you stopped being interested in hockey?”

It sounded simplistic, as if Sean had closed the door on a section of his life and left Tom behind it. The notion made Sean uncomfortable in the same way as telling Martha he didn’t mind her working late for the third night in a row and truly meaning it but not for the reasons she thought. “Why did you stop talking to me?”

Tom chewed a bite of tuna and swallowed it before responding. “Remember the night we made the OHL finals?”

The bottom of Sean’s stomach dropped out. 

He’d been drunk that night. They both had. Their coach got the team disgusting, watery light beers on the premise he would rather know what they were doing and they were doing it safely than let them procure their own alcohol. It took quite a few light beers to get drunk nowadays, but back then they were inexperienced and had just sweated out half the water in their bodies during the game and when the party ended and the team bus dropped them off, they were buzzed on the drinks and the adrenaline.

But Sean wasn’t drunk enough to forget the way Tom surged over to him, crossing the distance on the shabby couch in the basement of his billet family’s duplex with hectic movements to grab Sean by the shoulders and press a sloppy kiss to his lips. He certainly wasn’t drunk enough to forget how struck dumb he had been, totally speechless, unable to move or think or react at all when Tom dropped to his knees between his legs.

When Tom pulled down the band of his sweatpants he’d regained some motor control, but he’d been a dumb teenager so all he did was help Tom get his half-hard cock out. 

The blow job Tom gave him couldn’t have been as good as Sean remembered it being. He remembered a lot of spit and he remembered Tom moaning like he’d never tasted something so good and he remembered coming so hard he could barely stay awake long enough to pull his pants up afterward. The incidental correlation of the big win with the unexpected sex was the only reason Sean couldn’t help compare every subsequent blow job with that night.

Aware of Tom’s eyes on him, waiting for an answer, he cleared his throat.

“Of course I remember.”

“That’s why we lost touch.” Tom spoke with a firm certainty Sean hadn’t heard in his voice before. He had never realized Tom sounded unsure of himself, but hearing him speak with such authority put a hundred televised interviews Sean had half-listened to into stark perspective.

“Was it…” Sean swallowed hard and dabbed at his mouth with a napkin. “Did you not want to?”

Miraculously, Tom laughed. 

The sound catapulted Sean back over a decade, when eliciting Tom’s rare laugh filled him with pride like a helium balloon floating off to space. Hearing it now made his chest feel funny and light as if it remembered the sensation. 

Still smiling, Tom told him, “I definitely wanted to, and if you do remember it, you’d know that.”

“I thought so, but we never talked about it.”

“I wanted to,” Tom repeated. “God, I had such a crush on you.”

On a late-night YouTube spiral, Sean once learned that if the Earth ever stopped spinning for even a second, the atmosphere would remain in motion and would sweep across the globe with a devastating force, uprooting trees, knocking over buildings and throwing people out of windows.

Hearing those words out of Tom’s mouth had roughly the same effect on Sean.

“You what?”

“Why did you think I did it?”

“I…” Sean hadn’t thought about it. Sean had done his level best to put the incident from his mind except for during filthy, guilty jerk-off sessions. When he did chance upon the memory after turning an odd corner in his brain, he told himself it didn’t mean anything, it was a normal incident between good friends celebrating a big win. Guy stuff. Hockey stuff.

Tom smiled ruefully.

He was so gorgeous when he smiled. He ought to do it more. Sean had always thought so, had spent so much time as a teenager thinking of stupid ways to make Tom take everything less seriously.

Sean cleared his throat. “I think I had a crush on you, too.” 

“That makes me feel better about sucking you off. It would have been embarrassing if you didn’t even want it.”

What a Tom thing to say. Sean laughed and leaned back in his chair. “Have you been worrying about it ever since?”

“I was more worried you would tell someone and I would get outed.”

The smile fell from Sean’s lips. “Oh.”

It made sense that Tom was—that he identified—that he wasn’t straight. God, Sean probably wasn’t straight, a brand new nugget of information destined to become one of those uncomfortable facts he didn’t think about for too long, like how boring he found his job and how seldom he saw his wife though they lived in the same house.

Tom had never been one to run from responsibility, though. 

He must have known all those years ago, known and agonized over it.

“I wouldn’t have. I didn’t—I never thought about what we did as gay.” He winced as soon as the words were out. “I should have. It was pretty stupid of me.”

Tom shrugged. “It had nothing to do with you. The reason I stopped texting, I mean. I worried about myself.”

The enormity of it spread out before Sean all at once. “You’ve spent the last ten years…what, thinking I would go to the press?”

“Not you.” Tom glanced away, staring at his own reflection in the dark window. “But if you told a friend, or a girlfriend, or anyone, it could leak. And I thought it would be the end of the world.”

It hadn’t been Sean’s fault, then, or his responsibility. The thought was a breath of relief through his whole body. He didn’t have to know what any of this meant to him right now. “But it’s not anymore.”

When Tom’s gaze returned to him, the echo of jealousy spread through Sean. He’d never made Tom smile so wide, never made him look as if every care he had in the world had vanished. 

“It’s not,” Tom said. “It might even be a good thing.”

“I’m happy for you.” Sean wasn’t actually sure he was. Being happy for Tom meant being lost and alone for himself with all this new information. But one more glance at Tom confirmed he couldn’t say anything else. He couldn't take any part of this joy from Tom.

“Me too. And I’d like it if we could be friends again.”

That, at least, was uncomplicated. “I’d like that, too. Then I can brag to all my colleagues about how my friend is going to win a Stanley Cup.”

“Don’t jinx us!”

“You’re looking great this season, though.”

Hockey talk got them through the rest of the meal and they parted with the promise to text more regularly and for Tom to arrange tickets anytime he played in Vancouver, an excellent deal for Sean.

He watched Tom walk away, a tall, narrow figure in the darkness. Out of a coffee shop three doors down from the restaurant, a second person stepped out, slightly shorter and stockier. He fell into place beside Tom, matching his stride. Their shoulders and arms brushed against each other and Sean’s envy ate him alive.

On the drive home, he didn’t turn on the radio or Spotify. Instead, he watched the landscape go by and tried to think. He hadn’t formed a complete notion by the time he got home, but he sat down on Martha’s side of the bed fully dressed all the same, waking her up.

“How was the game?” she asked, voice rough with sleep.

“We’re not ready for a dog,” he told her. “Or kids. Are we?”

She pushed herself upright, her knees a mountain under the sheets as she drew them toward herself.

“No. I don’t think we are.”