Chapter 6 #2
Mitch straightened. “He was?” He’d never met his grandfather, Edward Westlake, and his mother never talked about him. He’d died in a skiing accident before Mitch was born.
“Skier,” his dad said. Well, that made sense.
“Went to the Olympics in…shoot, I forget the year. Your mother was a teenager. Anyway, he wasn’t home often, and was always away training.
It essentially left your grandmother a single parent and, Mitch, your grandmother was a hard woman.
Strict. Unemotional. Took no excuses. Abusive, verbally and physically.
” He took a sip of his water. “She raised your mother to be the same way.”
So, what do you see in her? What made you marry her? Why are you still married to her?
Before Mitch could ask his questions, his dad continued.
“I think sports scare your mother. Her father was so obsessed with being the best, with winning the next competition, that he neglected his responsibilities at home and she never got to know him. I think she partly, if not mostly, blamed him for her harsh living conditions. I think she’s afraid you’re going to turn into him.
That you’re going to forget about everyone who loves you in your journey to the NHL. ”
Mitch shook his head at the hypothesis, though not to argue.
He understood where his dad was coming from and, for the first time, his mother felt more relatable than she’d ever been.
But Mitch was his own person and he wasn’t walking in anybody’s footsteps but his own.
“So Mom turned into her mother when she had her own kids?”
“No,” his dad insisted. “No, your grandmother was much, much worse. Constantly belittling your mother, finding fault with every little thing she did.” He sighed and scratched his chin.
“Your mother wasn’t always the way she is now.
When I first met her, she was bright and ambitious, with a zeal to succeed.
But when your grandmother passed away and running the business fell onto her shoulders, I think the weight of it made her determination that much stronger, but it made her harder too.
It was almost as if she was trying to make her mother proud from beyond the grave, so she took on a part of her personality. ”
A part? Or all of it? Well, his mom wasn’t physically abusive, so he’d give her that.
“Mom’s never talked about any of this.”
“No,” his dad agreed. “She plays things close to the vest.”
“Except when she disapproves, in which case everybody knows about it.”
His dad shot him a look. Mitch grinned and waggled his eyebrows, making his dad laugh and dispelling the tension that had come along with the discussion.
“How’s Dan?” Mitch asked. Just because his brother didn’t want anything to do with him anymore didn’t mean the opposite was true.
“Your brother’s doing well. He moved into a new apartment in Manhattan last week. He’s seeing a new girl. Can’t remember her name.”
Didn’t matter. She’d last as long as the others, which was about how long it took to walk from one end of Glen Hill to the other.
So, seven minutes.
“That’s not nice,” his dad reprimanded when Mitch voiced his thoughts.
Mitch shrugged. “But it’s true.”
His dad sighed, a faraway look in his eyes. “I’m sorry you two still aren’t getting along.”
“Not your fault.”
“Not yours either, I suspect.”
The hard edge to his dad’s voice had Mitch eyeing him closely. “What do you mean? I always thought it was something I did that made him hate me.”
“Dan doesn’t hate you.”
Mitch scoffed.
“It’s true. He asks me about you all the time.”
Mitch actually laughed at that.
“Hey.” His dad reached across the table and tapped Mitch’s cheek. “I’m serious.”
“Okay, so if he doesn’t hate me, he’s put this distance between us for the past five years for, what? Shits and giggles?”
“No, I suspect…”
“What?”
His dad shook his head.
Mitch kicked his foot under the table. “What?”
The expression on his dad’s face this time said, “behave or I won’t pay for your meal.”
Huffing, Mitch sat back. “I emailed him, you know. Yeah.” He nodded at his dad’s raised eyebrows.
“During the summer. The week before Cody and I went back to the Hamptons to visit. I wanted to let him know I was going to be there if he wanted to get a coffee or something. His return email said ‘you shouldn’t email me.’”
His dad winced. “I’ll talk to him.”
“Don’t bother. I’m done with it.”
Liar, liar, pants on fire!
Shut it, brain.
Mitch selected a roll from the bread basket and tore it in half. “Anyway, what are you doing in Vermont? A meeting or something?”
“Yeah. Client in Burlington wasn’t happy, so I thought I’d make a personal appearance. Smooth some ruffled feathers.”
That was his dad, constantly trying to put out fires.
The server returned with their meals. Mitch’s medium rare steak in peppercorn sauce and loaded baked potato smelled fucking awesome.
Seriously, smoothies and pizza were good and all, but a growing hockey player needed his meat and potatoes.
Too bad he only ate this well when his dad was in town, which was only once every couple of months or so.
They chatted through dinner, Mitch keeping an eye on the time. Coach Bedley would bench him if Mitch arrived late at the rink, but Mitch had mastered the art of sneaking in right under the wire.
“I got a ticket to your game tonight,” his dad said after he’d ordered dessert.
“Yeah?” Mitch grinned wide. “Cody’s coming too. I promise not to suck today.”
“I won’t hold it against you if you do. Like I’ve said since you were a kid—”
“Hockey isn’t everything,” Mitch interrupted. “Yeah, I know.”
“Speaking of… Did you ever get to talk to that guy? The sports guy from the NHL team you were telling me about?”
“Chris Blair. No, he missed his flight and didn’t make the lecture. Someone else from the team showed up, though, and he’s going to try and set something up between me and Chris.”
His dad chased an ice cube with his spoon and popped it in his mouth. “That’s nice of him,” he said, crunching. “Or her. Who did they send in Chris Blair’s place? Another trainer?”
“Alex Dean.”
His dad almost choked on his ice cube. “The defenseman? Damn, why didn’t you lead with that as soon as you got here? Did you get an autograph? A picture?”
Mitch laughed at his dad, who was acting like a pre-teen who’d bumped into Miley Cyrus on the street. “No, I wasn’t there for an autograph. I was there to talk to him, get information.”
His dad shook his head. “Kid, I worry about you sometimes.” The server returned with his brownie sundae, and he promptly cut himself a huge bite. “What’s he like? He as big in person?”
“Bigger.” Six-four, broad shoulders, huge thighs, biceps Mitch probably couldn’t wrap a hand around. Deep set green eyes, perpetual dark stubble, kissable lips.
“You’re blushing.”
“What?” Mitch blinked and the restaurant came back into focus. “No, I… No. I don’t blush. Geez.”
His dad grinned at him, an unholy gleam in his eyes. “You are. Question is why. Is it Alex Dean, or someone else you’re thinking about?”
“I—I wasn’t…” Mitch groaned and rubbed his hands over his face.
His dad continued to laugh. Mitch balled up a napkin and threw it at him.
Giving up his protests, Mitch chuckled along with him. “Yeah, it’s Alex.”
His dad moved his dessert plate to the center of the table and offered Mitch a fork. “What’s going on? You seeing each other?”
“No? He’s my creative writing tutor.”
“Well, that’s not where I saw this going.”
Mitch forked a tiny piece of brownie and ice cream. “When I said I sucked at writing,” he said around his bite, “I meant it. Alex’s been helping me out.”
“That’s nice of him, but…why?”
“He’s benched for the next few weeks. Broken arm.”
His dad grunted. “Right. Heard about that.”
“And he’s here because… Actually, I don’t know why. Forgot to ask. Anyway, he’s a GH alumnus and one of his friends is my creative writing TA. He asked Alex to tutor me, so…” Mitch shrugged. “That’s pretty much it.”
“Huh.” His dad eyed Mitch closely. “And there’s nothing else going on?”
Mitch cut himself another bite of brownie and avoided his dad’s knowing look. “No.”
Silence.
“Maybe?”
More silence.
“I don’t know, okay?” Mitch dropped his fork, then ran a hand through his hair, and yanked.
“I don’t know. I mean, he doesn’t even—” like me.
Fuck, he did not want to admit to his dad how pathetic that was, and how hurt he still was by it, even though things had changed between him and Alex after Monday’s impromptu pizza date-slash-tutoring session.
“Doesn’t what?”
“He’s not like me, or you, I guess. He’s demisexual.” Mitch shouldn’t have blurted it out like that. Alex no doubt wouldn’t appreciate Mitch telling a second person about his sexuality, but this was his dad. He wasn’t going to advertise it to the world.
His dad blinked, brow furrowed. “So, he likes sex only half as much as other people? How do you measure something like that?”
Mitch snorted a laugh. “No. It means he doesn’t experience sexual attraction unless he’s formed a strong emotional bond with the other person.”
“Ah. He falls with his heart first. Like Cody.”
It was Mitch’s turn to blink at his dad. “How do you know that?”
“Please,” his dad said. “I’m not stupid. I’ve noticed how he is. Which means, I’ve also noticed how my own son is. Is it the fact that you have feelings for Alex but he doesn’t have any for you that has you twisted up in knots?”
Laid out so plainly, Mitch’s unrequited crush made him seem pitifully immature.
“Sorry, kiddo.”
“He said he could have feelings for me. At least, I think that’s what he said?” Mitch scratched his head and blew out a breath. “He needs me to be real with him, but I don’t know how to do that.”
“Take your time,” his dad said. “Nobody said it’s now or never. You have a fragile heart—”
“What? I do not.”