20. Brent
This Isn't Funny
Sweat slid down my cheeks and dripped off the edge of my jaw, landing on my naked chest and mingling with the perspiration already running from my pecs down the ridges of my abs. I moved faster, pushing harder and harder until I was on the verge of bursting.
Only then, when my quads burned and my lungs screamed for air, did I slow my pace to a walk, letting my heart rate return to normal before getting off the treadmill.
The month since Valentine’s Day had passed in a blur of games, rushed dinner dates, and falling into bed with Berkley at night. Sometimes we forwent sleeping in favor of slow love making, and other times we were passed out before we could say “good night.”
Today we were doing dry land workouts to keep us sharp when we were on skates, so I decided to run a few miles as a cool down after Mitch and I hit the weights.
Absently, I wondered if my best friend was still here. I hadn’t seen him since I’d gotten on the treadmill, and I’d been meaning to ask how things with Lexie were going. Since I’d started dating Berkley and Mitch had started doing…whatever with Lexie, we’d hardly seen each other save on road trips. Being surrounded by teammates wasn’t exactly the ideal time to have a heart-to-heart conversation.
Not that all of us didn’t know each other’s business anyway, but still…some semblance of privacy was nice.
Walking into the locker room, my spirits rose when I found Mitch seated at his stall, freshly showered and fully dressed in his signature jeans, flannel, and backward ball cap. He was so engrossed in his phone that he hadn’t yet noticed me, so I chucked my reusable water bottle at him.
“Ouch!” he yelled, rubbing at where it had smacked him in the kneecap. “What the fuck?”
“I could ask you the same thing,” I said as I strode toward my own stall. “Where the hell have you been?”
Mitch waved his phone in the air as though that explained everything. “Lexie.”
I glanced around. Besides us, a few veterans milled around, having hushed conversations as they got ready to leave.
With the trade deadline approaching, I wondered how different this room would look in a few weeks. How many of my brothers would be wearing different colors, living in different cities and playing for different teams by this time next month?
I shook my head, not letting myself go there. As long as it wasn’t Mitch—or, God forbid, myself—everything would be fine.
“I was actually waiting for you,” Mitch admitted. “We haven’t seen much of each other lately, and I was hoping we could hang out. Get dinner and a few beers or something.”
Brent grinned. “You know, I was thinking the same thing. Give me ten to shower.”
Mitch saluted, holding his phone up again. “I’ll be here.”
Half an hour later, we were seated in a hole-in-the-wall sports bar on the outskirts of the city. We’d been here before and knew no one would pay us any mind. The crowd that came to this place was the blue-collar type—the kinds of men who worked at the local Ford and GM plants, in construction, or at auto shops. They came here after punching out to tie one on and shake off the long day of manual labor.
This wasn’t the steak and potatoes kind of place. It was greasy burgers, finger foods, and questionable fish sandwiches.
We each ordered a bacon cheeseburger and pints of beer—meal plans be damned. The bartender grumbled as he dropped the glasses in front of us, and we retreated into a booth in the corner.
After a long pull from his drink, Mitch set the glass on the scarred wooden table and leveled me with an inexplicable look.
“So, what’s new?”
“Dude, you see me every day.”
“Yeah, at work. I mean what’s going on in your personal life? How’s the fam? How’s Berk?”
“Fam is good,” I said. “I haven’t seen them in a while, but they’re planning on coming out for the opening games of the playoffs. As for Berk…”
I trailed off, unable to contain my smile. Mitch raised a brown and reclined in his seat, crossing his arms over his chest. “That good, huh?”
“That good,” I agreed. “She finally told me she loves me.”
Mitch’s responding smile mirrored my own, and he extended a hand for a high-five. “I told you you had nothing to worry about!”
After Vegas, despite the fact that I’d made it clear to Berkley she was under no obligation to return my confession of love, I’d still been a little discouraged that she hadn’t wanted to. I’d had a long heart to heart with Mitch, who’d told me to give her some time.
“That girl is crazy about you,” Mitch had said. “Anyone who sees you together knows it.”
I’d held onto that over the course of the intervening week. It was one thing to think we were happy, and that she reciprocated my feelings. It was an entirely different one to be told by an outsider that we were clearly in love, even if Berkley hadn’t yet said it.
But now that she had…at the risk of sounding like a sap, everything in my life seemed brighter these days.
Shaking my head, I refocused on the conversation at hand. “So what’s going on with you and Lexie?”
Mitch sighed and slumped against the booth. “It’s…complicated.”
“How? Have you talked to her and told her how you feel?”
In the same way Mitch had helped me see clearly where Berkley was concerned, I’d helped him figure out what to do with Lexie. Apparently, Lexie wasn’t interested in more than sex with him, while Mitch was ready for more.
“I want everything with her,” he said. “I’ve wanted everything with her from the moment I met her. But she’s so fucking skittish. I thought I was getting through to her. We were taking it slow, and I was giving her time to warm up to the idea of more. But it’s like every time I broach the subject, she finds some way to redirect. It’s exhausting, and I don’t know what to do.”
We were a couple of sad sacks. He was in love with someone who held him at arm’s length emotionally, and I was in love with a woman who wouldn’t say it back.
I hoped, for both of our sakes, things resolved themselves sooner rather than later.
“You have to force her to listen,” I told him. “I know that seems easier said than done, but if you want to accomplish anything, don’t let her redirect. And if you get to the point where you’ve laid it all out there, and she still wants to run away…it might be time to cut your losses. Because you know what, bro? You’re not exactly getting any younger.”
Mitch flipped me off, and I chuckled, grateful that, for the moment, that forlorn look of heartbreak was gone from his face.
“I did,” Mitch said, pulling me back to the present conversation. He lifted his beer and drained the rest of it. I raised a brow, waiting for him to continue. Mitch did no such thing, instead rising without a word to get another.
Only when he returned did he speak again. “She agreed to try,” he said slowly. “But…she’s still not there all the way. I know she’s coming around, and that she cares about me, but it’s not like with you and Berkley, you know? I really feel like I put everything on the line for her and her response was to say ‘okay’ and keep doing what she’s been doing. I’m at my wit’s end.”
Despite the fact that my friend was clearly hurting and flustered and a whole slew of other emotions I could clearly read on his face, in the way he removed his hat and shoved his fingers through his shoulder-length, dark blond hair, I couldn’t hold back a chuckle.
“I never thought I’d see the day.”
Mitch leveled me with a glare. “This isn’t funny.”
“You’re right. It’s not funny in the ha ha kind of way. It’s funny in an ironic sort of way. You spent your adult life never settling, moving from one woman to the next, keeping them all at arm’s length emotionally. And the first time you fall for someone, she’s…well, she’s giving you a taste of your own medicine.”
Mitch dropped his elbows heavily onto the table, his head following suit into his hands. “How the fuck did I get here?”
“I don’t know, man. But if you think she’s coming around…keep fighting the good fight. Speaking from experience, I know how difficult it is, and how easy it would be to walk away, to wash my hands of it all. But my life is better with her in it. I wouldn’t trade that for anything.”
The trueness of that statement settled over me like a warm blanket on a cool winter’s night. Five months ago, I hadn’t even known Berkley Daniels existed, and now I couldn’t imagine my life without her. My outlook on my future had shifted so quickly, but near imperceptibly. One day, I was moving along, content with my personal life and career.
The next, there was Berkley, dancing up to me at the bar and turning my entire world on its axis.
As though my thoughts had conjured her, my phone buzzed on the table, the screen displaying her name and one of my favorite pictures of her. Across the table, Mitch was engrossed in his own screen.
“Jean…” he said.
I held up a silencing hand and answered my phone.
“Hey, baby.”
“Have you seen the news?” Her voice shook, and I instantly straightened. Dread—though I didn’t know what for—settled heavy and oily in my gut.
Based on Berkley’s tone, I could tell something was very wrong.
“What news?”
“Detroit Sports News just posted an article online about the trade deadline. It’s kind of a roundup of all the rumors around the league with emphasis on the Warriors, obviously. They discuss the talent you guys have currently and places where you could use some help and…”
“Berk,” I said, exasperated. “The point?”
“Apparently, the Warriors are shopping you.”
I felt all the blood drain from my face, my hands going numb in an instant.
The Warriors were shopping me? Their veteran top goal-scorer and assist leader? Their assistant captain? The man who’d been on the team for seven years?
My shock from a moment ago went almost as quickly as it had come, replaced instantly with rage.
“What the fuck?”
“My thoughts exactly,” Berkley said. “Where are you?”
“Dinner with Mitch,” I said. “But I’m coming home.”
“Yours or mine?”
“Mine.”
“See you there. Love you.”
I mumbled the sentiment in return and hung up, my phone clattering to the table.
“I take it she called to tell you the news,” Mitch said.
“What the fuck?” I repeated.
“Look…trade rumors are bullshit more often than not, and Sports News is notorious for guys going off the cuff to get clicks. The Warriors have absolutely no reason to trade you because there isn’t anything better they could get in return.”
“Future draft picks,” I said absently, and Mitch shot me a look that said, get real.
“No prospect, hell not even a handful of them, could match your talent.”
“I appreciate you saying that,” I said through clenched teeth, “but I’m not exactly in my prime anymore.”
“Could’ve fooled me.”
My mind spun in a thousand different directions. I had to call and warn my family, to let them know things were probably about to get ugly. The deadline was a week away, and teams were already making moves. My thoughts drifted back to earlier, when I’d looked around the locker room and wondered how different the team would look in a few weeks.
Would I even be around to see it? I’d never once stopped to consider I could be one of the guys wearing new colors in a new city, playing for a new team.
“I have to get home,” I said, standing up. Mitch followed me. “I…”
“Berk,” Mitch said with a nod.
Silently, we both withdrew a few bills from our wallets and tossed them onto the table, covering the beer we’d had and the food we wouldn’t be sticking around to enjoy.
Berk. Yes. Everything would be fine once I get home to my girl.