Chapter 2
Two
The next morning dawned gray and miserable, which pretty well summed up how Mitch felt.
Sleep continued to tug at him, but he firmly told his body that it had gotten all the sleep it was going to get for now.
He couldn’t even bring himself to be glad that it was Friday, not with the full day ahead of him, and the full weekend, and the upcoming full week.
He wasn’t likely to get a full night’s sleep until next summer.
Cody was just about the most beautiful person Mitch had ever seen.
It had nothing to do with his tall and lithe frame, flawless fair skin, wispy dark blond hair, amber eyes, or perfect Cupid’s bow lips, and everything to do with the fact that Cody had had his back since they met in first grade on their elementary school playground in the Hamptons.
Mitch trusted him more than just about anybody on the planet, except for his dad.
Once upon a time, he’d also trusted his brother the same way, but five years ago Dan had cut Mitch out of his life for reasons Mitch still didn’t understand.
Cody had stuck by him while Mitch cried on his shoulder and hypothesized about what he possibly could’ve done wrong that was so bad it had made his older brother hate him.
Mitch and Cody had been joined at the hip since they were six years old, so Cody had felt just as betrayed by Dan’s one-eighty as Mitch had.
Mitch knew Cody better than anyone, just like Cody knew every part of Mitch, even the parts Mitch wished no one knew. Like all the crap that had gone down with his mother.
“Hey,” his best friend said, distracting Mitch from his thoughts. Cody’s lean runner’s body made a reverse V on his yoga mat, his feet and hands planted on the ground, butt in the air.
“Hey, Codes. You got in late last night.”
“Yeah.” Cody straightened out into plank. “You were asleep on your bed with your laptop next to you and an open textbook on your chest, light still on.”
Mitch grunted. He plugged the blender in and found strawberries, raspberries, and blackberries in the fridge. They went into the blender. He peeled a banana and added it to the rest of the fruit.
“How was last night’s lecture?” Cody asked. He’d moved onto his back. His head and shoulders were on the mat and he was folded in half with his feet behind his head. “Did you get kicked out again?”
Fuck, really? Why couldn’t everyone forget about that?
Once. It’d happened one time during last year’s lecture series.
One of the panelists spoke about the importance of tailoring exercise regimes to suit client needs, and Halley hadn’t appreciated Mitch’s question, even though Mitch still insisted that “Is sex considered an exercise?” was a valid question.
Wasn’t his fault Halley didn’t have a sense of humor.
“No, I didn’t get kicked out, thank you very much. I kept my questions strictly PG.”
Cody snorted.
“Dude, you won’t believe who was there.” Mitch paused for dramatic effect. “Alex Dean!”
“Should I know who that is?”
Mitch rolled his eyes. He added orange juice to the blender, then got ice cubes out of the freezer.
“Alex Dean,” he repeated, dumping the ice into the blender. “Defenseman for Tampa Bay.”
“Defenseman? What’s that, football?”
“Hockey, you moron,” he said before Cody’s snickers reached his ears. Cody was messing with him, the jerk, his body twitching with laughter.
Mitch threw a stray raspberry at him. It bounced off Cody’s hip and landed on his mat soundlessly. Cody popped it into his mouth.
Ew.
“What was he like?” Cody asked.
“Really fucking hot,” Mitch said, hunting for the peanut butter. It wasn’t in its usual spot in the cupboard above the toaster.
Cody groaned. “Tell me you didn’t hit on him.”
“Only a little.” If broadcasting his interest by checking Alex out and winking at him could be considered only a little.
“Is he even gay?” Cody brought his legs down, sat up, and bent forward into a lunge.
“Is anybody gay in pro sports?” Mitch countered.
The short answer was no. Or, more accurately, yes but not many.
Not yet. People who came out in pro sports lost sponsors, lost playing time, lost fans.
Mitch wasn’t going to let his queerness affect his future career, which was why the only people who knew he was gay were Dan, their dad, and Cody.
If he had to keep his sexuality a secret until he retired, so be it.
“But what if you find somebody you want to spend the rest of your life with?” Cody had once asked.
Mitch had laughed and laughed. After Dan had turned his back on him, and his mother had cut him off financially when he’d declared his disinterest in the family business and his intent to pursue hockey as a career, Mitch wasn’t letting anyone get near his heart ever again.
Besides, Mitch was so closed off with everyone but his dad and Cody that simply the idea of someone getting far enough past his defenses to discover who he really was, was laughable.
His search for the peanut butter brought him to the empty container in the recycling bin. Fuck, he was supposed to buy some yesterday and forgot.
“Did he hit on you back?” Cody asked.
“No.” Mitch found a container of yogurt in the fridge and added half to the blender. It’d do for now as a peanut butter replacement. Then he added some protein powder. “He did check me out, but it was more curious than sexual.”
Yeah, Alex hadn’t seemed to know what to do with Mitch’s shameless come-on. Mitch had seen it on Alex’s face, when the man had realized he was being hit on. Alex’s eyes narrowed and he got a little furrow between his eyebrows. The confusion had been adorable.
“Probably because he’s not gay, dummy.”
Unfortunately, that was most likely true.
Cody’s laptop, which sat open on the island, beeped with an incoming message. Mitch opened the email, which turned out to be a Google Alert set for “Greta Westlake.”
“Why are you keeping tabs on my mom?”
“I want to make sure she’s not talking shit about you to anyone she shouldn’t be,” Cody said, falling into forward splits.
Aww. That was his Codes. Always having his back.
“Please.” Mitch clicked on the link. “She doesn’t give me a second thought, unless we lose a game.”
The link took him to a job posting for an executive assistant to the CEO of Westlake Waterless Printing, Greta Westlake.
Which meant that his mother had lost yet another EA.
That made, what?—three?—in the past year, if the information he got from his dad was correct.
It wasn’t at all surprising that nobody wanted to work for his mother.
She was a difficult, unforgiving, ruthless woman who took no excuses and expected two hundred and fifty percent.
She’d once fired an account manager who’d asked for a day off to grieve her recently deceased dog.
And she’d fired a guy in accounting because he’d had the gall to ask for a week’s vacation that coincided with the company’s busy fall season.
She got away with it because she had an excellent team of lawyers at her back.
And she wondered why Mitch didn’t want to work for the family business. Yes, please. Sign me up for that bullshit.
Not in this lifetime.
Mitch poured maple syrup into the blender, secured the lid, and turned the machine on.
The obnoxious whirring broke the quiet morning and made Mitch wince.
While his smoothie blended, he stuck a couple slices of bread into the toaster.
By the time he was finished pouring the smoothie into two to-go cups, the toast was done.
He spread Cheese Whiz on each slice, slid one onto a plate, and set it and a smoothie on the living room table for Cody.
“Thanks,” Cody said, on his back with his legs tucked into his chest.
“Welcome.”
As per their usual morning routine, Mitch rinsed the blender so the dregs of their smoothie wouldn’t crust and left it in the sink for Cody to wash.
With eleven minutes left to make the four-minute drive to the rink for practice, Mitch finished off his own toast and Cheese Whiz in three bites, then collected his equipment bag from the dining room they never used.
He found the keys to the car they shared on a side table, secured the spill-proof lid on his to-go cup, and slipped into his hoodie and running shoes.
“See you after practice?” Cody asked.
“Yup.”
He was out the door thirty seconds later.
* * *
Alex had no idea what he was doing at the GH hockey rink at seven thirty in the morning, sitting anonymously in dark jeans and a black hoodie in the stands, hidden in the shadows.
Reliving his college hockey days? Regretting the broken arm that prevented him from playing for the next six to eight weeks?
Occupying his mind until his visit with Grandpa Forest this afternoon?
It wasn’t uncommon for players on the injured reserve list to continue to travel with their team and even participate in practice sessions.
Alex’s broken arm, however, made it impossible for him to hold a hockey stick, which meant his attendance at practice would be limited to cardio conditioning and strength training, exercises he could do on his own anyway.
And, as much as he would’ve liked to travel with his team, Alex had been given a temporary leave of absence because of Grandpa Forest’s deteriorating condition.
A whistle blew, dragging Alex’s eyes from where he’d been staring into space and onto the ice, where his old coaches were putting their players through a power play drill.
Alex couldn’t see player names on the back of jerseys from where he sat, but he’d been sitting here since practice started at seven and he was starting to recognize skating patterns and body language.
The Mountaineers had won their first two games of the season. The third was an away game tomorrow against Colgate that Alex suspected they’d win.