Chapter 8
Eight
“Ha!” Mitch threw his controller aside and leapt off the couch, arms in the air. “Told you I’d win. Suck it, Dean.”
“You won the first race.” Alex navigated through Mario Kart’s menu. “One race does not a championship trophy win you.”
“Thank you, Master Yoda.”
“I could be Yoda.”
Mitch cracked up.
Instead of finding himself sitting across from Mitch at a restaurant enduring stilted getting-to-know-you conversation, Alex sat on Mitch’s loveseat engrossed in a fierce Mario Kart battle on this, his second date with Mitch.
Not that he was under the delusion that their pizza dinner-slash-tutoring session at Mama Jean’s last week had been anything but just that.
But letting Mitch call it a date had seemed like a saner idea that arguing with him.
Except this “date” was more of a hangout than a date, which was fine with Alex.
Less pressure, more fun. Mitch was on his best behavior too.
No come-ons, no innuendos. Nothing except a crack about how pizza was his favorite after-sex food.
It was a little freaky sitting here, attempting to anticipate when Mitch’s flirty half would make an appearance.
But maybe it wouldn’t. Maybe that guy, the I’m-the-shit-and-I-know-it guy, was finally taking a backseat, allowing the real Mitch, the video game playing, hockey loving, hardworking one, to take over.
Alex was kicking ass in the next race despite the hindered mobility in his right hand and enjoying the hell out of it, especially when he took a detour and Mitch lost his mind.
“What the fuck?” Mitch said, incredulous. “Where the hell are you? There’s no shortcuts in this race.”
“That’s what you think.”
“What? No. I Googled.”
Alex let out an evil cackle. “Not hard enough.”
“You’re going to show me where that is.”
“Not in this century, I won’t.”
“I’ll blow you for it,” Mitch offered.
“I’m sure you would.” Alex won the race with Mitch still a lap behind. “Who’s crowing now, brat?”
“This is so not how I saw this going.” On screen, Mitch’s poor, sad player finally completed her final lap.
“Ugh.” Mitch picked a cold broccoli floret off the pizza they’d ordered from Mama Jean’s and chucked it at Alex.
It bounced off Alex’s shoulder, landed on the loveseat, then rolled onto the floor.
“For a laid-back dude, you’re way more competitive than I expected you to be. ”
“I’m an athlete.” Alex pointed out the obvious and picked up the wayward broccoli. He popped it in his mouth.
“Ew.” Mitch’s face scrunched. “That’s disgusting. What if I’d, I don’t know, peed on the floor or something?”
“Man, you had me fooled. Here I thought you were civilized.”
Mitch gave him the finger.
Hungry again, Alex nabbed one of the last slices of pizza out of the box on the coffee table and ate it cold.
“I can warm that up for you,” Mitch said. He cued up the next race, but didn’t start it.
“No need.” Alex bit into the cold pizza, still stunned that Mitch had ordered the cauliflower crust. It was unexpectedly thoughtful.
Mitch’s townhouse was warm and cozy, done in simple earth tones.
There wasn’t much in the way of decoration except for a few table lamps, a couple of dusty cookbooks on the kitchen counter, a bookshelf in the corner of the living room filled with DVDs, and a crescent-shaped wooden sun catcher in the window.
As the townhouse was boxed in on both sides, there wasn’t much natural light, but the bright indoor lighting created a sense of peacefulness, a quiet space to just be.
There was a small pile of dirty dishes in the sink and a clean pile in the dish rack.
A laptop, a couple of anatomy textbooks, and a thick binder sat atop the island.
There was a hoodie draped over the back of one of the island barstools, a haphazard pile of DVDs underneath the coffee table, and a discarded pair of socks next to the TV.
“Do you have any roommates?” Alex asked.
“Just one.” Mitch removed his ever-present flannel shirt, leaving him in jeans and a blue T-shirt.
He stretched out on the couch, one arm behind his head, making his T-shirt ride up to expose his toned stomach as if he was modeling for a magazine.
The smirk on his face told Alex it was intentional. “Cody.”
“Where is he?”
“Work. He has a job at the campus library. Should be back soon, I think.”
“How’d you guys meet?”
Mitch’s smile turned genuine and he let out a small laugh. “First day of first grade. Some older kid was picking on me. Cody punched him in the ‘nads.”
Alex laughed, even as he cringed and fought the urge to protect his sensitive bits.
“We got in so much trouble. It was awesome.”
“Only you would think so.” Alex polished off his slice and wiped his hands on a napkin.
“How’s your grandpa today?” The laughter disappeared from Mitch’s face. “Any better?”
Alex ran a hand through his hair and avoided Mitch’s sympathetic gaze.
“He was still a bit agitated.” It was hard to imagine that Grandpa Forest had once been Alex’s staunchest supporter, his sounding board.
A man who never judged, who always had time for people in need, and made Alex feel safe when his dad had walked out.
Grandpa Forest had put his own life on hold to spend four months in Toronto with Alex and his mom right after Judd left, spending hours with Alex, eating ketchup chips, as they dissected the previous evening’s hockey game.
That his disease had turned him into someone who sometimes got so confused, he suspected people of poisoning him was often impossible to grasp.
It left Alex feeling like he was swimming in mud.
“So he remembered who you were?” Mitch asked.
Alex’s belly clenched. “No. He hasn’t recognized me in over two years. He thinks I’m my dad.”
“Oh.” Mitch sat up. “Shit, Alex. That blows. Who does he think your dad is, then?”
Alex shrugged. “My dad doesn’t visit. He left my mom and me when I was nine. Cut off all contact with us and with Grandpa Forest.”
Mitch’s eyebrows pulled together and he opened his mouth.
Alex grabbed his controller. “Let’s play the next race.”
“Alex, I—”
The front door opened, cutting Mitch off and saving Alex from what was, in all likelihood, pity Alex didn’t want or need.
“Dude!” Cody—presumably—called as he trudged down the hallway toward them. “My eyes are broken.”
“What the fuck does that even mean?” Mitch asked.
“It means there was a—oh, uh, hi.”
“Cody, you remember Alex?” Mitch muted the television. “Alex, my BFF-slash-roommate, Cody.”
“Hey.” Alex stood and offered his left hand. “Good to see you again.”
“Uh-huh.” Cody shook Alex’s hand, eyeing Alex, then Mitch, then Alex again. “What’cha guys up to?”
Twin spots of color appeared on Mitch’s cheeks for no reason Alex could figure out. “Just playing Mario Kart. Why are your eyes broken?”
Cody pilfered the second to last slice of pizza and took a seat on one of the barstools. “There was a fucking used condom in the men’s room at the library. First, it’s a fucking restroom. Why couldn’t you find the goddamn garbage? Second, who the fuck does it in the library?”
“People who like books?” Mitch offered.
“You’re such a brat.” Cody spoke around the pizza in his mouth.
Alex grinned and threw his hands in the air, as though he’d just scored the game winning goal.
“Shit.” Mitch flopped back on the couch and covered his face with a pillow.
“That’s what I’ve been calling him,” Alex told Cody.
“I never should’ve introduced you,” came Mitch’s muffled voice through the pillow.
Cody beamed at Alex. “We’re going to be such good friends.”
“Just shoot me,” Mitch mumbled.
“What was that you were saying the other day about Alex and I being able to eat you for breakfast?” Cody asked him.
“I have no idea what that means,” Alex said.
“Nothing.” Mitch popped up and found a third controller. “It’s nothing. Codes, want to play?”
They spent an hour and a half playing round after round of Mario Kart. Cody, it turned out, wasn’t very good but he didn’t seem to care that he lost every race.
Eventually, Mitch paused the game. “Gotta piss,” he said, and disappeared down the hallway.
Alex got up to refill his glass. Other than the water jug, the fridge also held butter, assorted condiments, three jars of Cheese Whiz, a plethora of fruit, celery, and about four gallons of maple syrup. What the hell Mitch and Cody were making with those ingredients was anybody’s guess.
“Mitch invited you over tonight?” Cody asked when Alex had retaken his position on the loveseat.
“How else would I be here?”
“It’s just…” Cody lowered his voice. “Nobody has ever set foot in this house since we moved in last year except me and him, his dad, and my mom.”
“Okay?” Alex squinted at him. “Sorry, I’m not understanding.”
Cody peered down the hallway, keeping an eye out for Mitch, most likely.
“It was Mitch’s suggestion. That this should be our space.
I think he sees it as his safe space, where he can let his guard down and be himself, not have to be ‘on’ or pretend.
None of his friends have ever been here.
I don’t think they even know where he lives. Yet, here you are.”
“Here I am,” Alex repeated, baffled. “What does that mean?” Did it mean that Mitch felt safe with him?
Safe enough that he didn’t feel like he had to pretend to be somebody else?
Safe enough to let down his guard and his walls?
Mitch was certainly less “on” with Alex than he had been, but Alex wasn’t dense enough not to notice that for every piece of personal information he gave Mitch, Mitch held one back.
Mitch had revealed virtually nothing personal about himself in the few times they’d hung out.
Everything Alex knew about him was surface stuff anybody could’ve learned by spending a few hours with him.
The one thing Alex did know—that Mitch didn’t invite people into his home—hadn’t even come from the man himself.