Chapter 8 #2
“Honestly, I have no fucking clue.” Cody moved the empty pizza box to the floor and propped his feet on the table. “Make of it what you will.”
Unhelpful. Okay, that was fine. Alex could wing it, which is what he’d been doing since meeting Mitch anyway.
“What was that thing about eating Mitch for breakfast?” Alex asked.
Cody’s smile was sly. “You’ll have to figure that one out for yourself.”
Fucker.
Mitch slid back into the room, slipping and sliding on socked feet on the wooden floor. He grabbed his controller from the table. Instead of retaking his seat on the other couch next to Cody, he plopped himself next to Alex. “What’d I miss?”
“We talked about you the whole time,” Cody said.
“All good things, obviously.” Mitch brought up the next race. “’Cause I’m the bomb diggety.”
Cody called Mitch a nerd, Alex chuckled, and they played Mario Kart until well after midnight.
* * *
Three days later, Alex pulled into the parking lot next to Amalie Arena. Exiting the car, he squinted against the Florida sun, even with his sunglasses on. The heat was so oppressive, it was hard to breathe and his T-shirt stuck to him almost instantly.
He fucking hated Florida.
Alex was Canadian, born and bred. He wanted snowy winter landscapes, spring rains, summer kayaking, and fall colors. Instead, he was stuck in Satan’s armpit. He loved playing hockey for Tampa, but Florida could kiss his ass.
Inside the arena, it was blissfully cool. Almost too cool, compared to the heat outside, like most indoor establishments in Florida. A happy medium did not exist. You either sweated your balls off outside or froze your nipples inside.
He missed Vermont already.
Chris Blair was exactly where Alex expected: in his tiny office attached to his treatment room.
“Knock, knock,” Alex said as he approached the door.
“Alex.” Chris stood and shook Alex’s left hand. “It’s good to see you. Come in, have a seat. You won’t bump into any of your teammates, I’m afraid. There’s no practice today.”
“I saw them this morning.” Alex took the chair across from Chris’s desk. “For the game of street hockey with the kids from the shelter?”
“Right. I forgot that was today. How’d it go?”
Alex shrugged. “You know what it’s like, trying to get Southern kids interested in hockey. I think most of them were just happy for an excuse not to be in school.”
“Any of them mention the dick on your cast?” Chris tilted his head, ostensibly to get a better look at it.
Alex groaned. The comments from the kids had ranged from “Did you draw that?” to “I hope you’re not fucking anyone with that thing.”
Seriously. The vocabulary on some of these ten year olds.
“Didn’t you see the doctor this afternoon about your arm?” Chris leaned back in his chair. “Could’ve asked him for a new cast.”
“I thought about it,” Alex admitted. “Seemed like a waste of time and resources, when this one’s still perfectly fine. Barring the purple penis, that is.”
Chris chuckled. “What’d the doc say about your arm? Rehab?”
“He thinks no. Just regular exercise to strengthen it back up. I’m sure my arm looks like a shrivelled melon under here.” It was also itchy as hell. “He’ll know more once the cast comes off, but everything looks good for now.”
“When does it come off?”
“Five weeks from now.”
Chris grunted and rubbed his chin. “First week of December. Add in a couple of weeks for strength training and drills… You talk to Coach yet?”
“Yeah, I called him on the way here. He’s thinking PT and drills once the cast comes off, then putting me back in the game after Christmas.”
“Makes sense.”
It meant another two months on the IR list, which, in turn, meant more time with Grandpa Forest. Rather than anticipating all that extra time, Alex felt the weight of his grandfather’s disease press on his shoulders.
It was becoming clearer and clearer that his grandpa would never see him play in the NHL.
JP and Jay kept giving him shit for visiting alone, insistent that moral support would make things easier.
Alex was certain nothing could make Alzheimer’s easier. At least he had the book he was writing as a distraction.
“I talked to your friend today,” Chris said, interrupting his thoughts. “Mitch Greyson.”
“You did?” Alex had been texting with Mitch since he landed in Tampa on Tuesday morning and Mitch hadn’t mentioned a thing. “How’d it go?”
“I like him. He’s intense, but he’s got a good head on his shoulders. Determined. Ambitious. Asked a lot of questions—the right questions. Smart. Knows what he wants. Hell, if he was graduating this year, I’d offer him an internship if he didn’t get drafted.”
Mitch’s ability to get people to like him was off-the-charts.
He was personable and friendly, and when he wasn’t trying too hard or hiding behind his walls, he was…
actually very sweet and considerate. That Mitch had stayed with him on Sunday when Alex hadn’t been allowed in to see Grandpa Forest had meant a lot to Alex.
Mitch could’ve wished him better luck next time and went on his way.
Instead, he’d sat quietly with Alex and then taken him ice skating to get his mind off things and make him feel better.
Yeah. Sweet. It was hidden under Mitch’s hard surface, but it was there.
It was there in how he hadn’t felt it necessary to fill empty silence with words.
It was there in how he’d so optimistically insisted that if they could just become friends, Alex might become attracted to him.
It was there in how he’d adorably and firmly declared that their tutoring session had been a date.
It was there in how he’d ordered the pizza with the cauliflower crust, just because it was the one Alex liked.
Alex leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, and refocused on the conversation. “Did you tell him that?”
“Yup. He told me to keep him in mind in two and a half years if things don’t go his way with the draft.”
“That sounds like him. I’m pretty sure he’ll be drafted, though.”
“I’m with you on that.” Chris turned his laptop toward Alex, where a video was paused. “I was watching YouTube videos when you arrived. I think he might be better than you were at his age.”
“There’s no ‘might’ about it.” Mitch was in a league of his own. Whoever drafted him would, however, need to spend some time schooling him on what not to say to the press. Why do reporters ask such stupid questions? wouldn’t fly in the NHL.
Alex nodded at the laptop. “There’s a video of his highlights from last season on there.”
“Where? Show me.”
“Actually, before we get to that,” Alex said, “there’s something I wanted to ask. A favor.”
“Shoot.”
“So, I’m writing this book…” He gave Chris the same explanation he’d given Mitch, about the dark side of professional sports, and finished with, “Do you think I could interview you for the book, get your perspective? You’ve probably got tons of stories about athletes playing through injuries or against doctor’s orders.
Is there anything you can share? And if this goes against client confidentiality, just say the word and I’ll pretend I never asked. ”
Chris nodded slowly. “It does, but I also think this is a good thing you’re doing.
Lots of people only see the glamor of professional sports, but you’re getting into the nitty gritty, into what a player’s willing to sacrifice for the game.
There are a couple of people whose stories would be good for you to hear.
Let me talk to them, see if they’re okay with me talking to you.
” He snapped his fingers. “Have you seen Theresa? Or Todd or Barb?” The team’s nutritionist, psychologist, and head physician.
“Not yet. I plan to before I leave.”
“Good, good.” Chris grinned. “Now that that’s out of the way, show me Mitch’s highlights.”
* * *
Mama Jean’s was always packed on a Friday night, but what Alex walked into the next day, after the GH Mountaineers won against Northeastern with a shutout, was chaos multiplied by a thousand.
It was loud, and standing room only. Also, because it was Halloween, there was orange beer and orange pizza and fake spiderwebs on the walls. And, of course, costumes.
“Jesus,” JP said from behind him. “I forgot how crazy people get after we win.”
Crazy didn’t even cut it.
They found Jay and his girlfriend, Leah, at the order counter, which was the only area of the restaurant where there was still a tiny bit of space. Alex had to shout his drink order over Katy Perry’s “I Kissed A Girl” to the vampire behind the counter.
In the middle of the restaurant, Mitch, dressed as Tom Cruise in Risky Business, dragged a taller, broader guy—the Mountaineers’ goalie, if Alex wasn’t mistaken—onto a tabletop. Mitch raised the goalie’s hand into the air. “Who kicked ass tonight?” he yelled into the insanity that was Mama Jean’s.
A collective “Marco, Marco, Marco!” went up from the crowd, the cheer so loud Alex’s ears hurt.
Mitch was in his element as he hopped off the table and traipsed from group to group, chatting and laughing.
For once, his affability in a crowd didn’t look fake.
Rather, he looked like he was having fun and letting loose and enjoying his win.
And he damn well should—he’d scored two of the four goals.
Parties had never been, and still weren’t, Alex’s scene, but being here after a win brought back all sorts of memories of his four years at Glen Hill College.
Good ones—like playing hockey, meeting friends who would become family, and making it to the Frozen Four his senior year.
And some not so good ones—like the team choking at the Frozen Four, and Grandpa Forest’s diagnosis.
“Buy me a beer, hot stuff?”
Alex turned at the voice near his ear. Mitch stood next to him, flushed, curly hair completely disheveled, oversized shirt hanging limp, white socks dirty from the restaurant’s floor.