Chapter 8 #3
Genuinely happy to see him, Alex smiled and leaned closer so he wouldn’t have to shout. “Did we fast-forward two years without my knowledge?”
Mitch shivered. He was probably cooling off now that he wasn’t running around. He stole Alex’s beer from his hand and took a sip. Alex let him. Truth was, if they weren’t in such a public spot, Alex would buy him a beer, no question.
A stool freed up. Mitch dragged it over and perched on the edge. “How was Florida?”
“Hot.”
“Hot like you?” Mitch asked, smug smile on his face.
Alex took his beer back from Mitch as “I Kissed A Girl” started over again for at least the third time since he’d walked in the door. “I’m too hot to handle.”
Mitch’s snorted laugh turned into a genuine belly laugh.
Alex smiled back at him. “Get it? ’Cause Florida has a panhandle.”
“That was so lame,” Mitch said through chuckles. “Tampa’s not even on the panhandle.”
“No?” Alex shrugged. “Okay.”
“How’d it go with the kids?”
Alex raised his broken arm. “They were focused too much on my purple penis, and not enough on hockey and teamwork.”
Mitch grinned and stole Alex’s beer again. “Purple penis,” he said after a sip. “Sounds like a cocktail at a gay bar.”
Alex laughed and didn’t bother reclaiming his drink. Over on the other side of the restaurant, a group made of Yano, Marco, and a few other guys sang along to the music.
Fuck, why was this song on repeat? Was Satan torturing him for leaving Florida?
Leah sidled up behind him. “Why does Mama Jean hate us?” She clutched his arm and pleaded with big eyes. “Make it stop!”
“Hey, now,” Mitch cut in. “This is our victory song.”
“But why?”
Mitch shrugged. “Apparently a team of college dudes equates to a team of perverts who think two girls kissing is hot.” He raised a hand. “Present company included, even though I’m firmly dudes-only.” He choked out a cough and his eyes went huge in his face. “That’s not… I mean, I’m not…”
Shit. Mitch had outed himself to someone he didn’t know and was panicking. Alex could see the fear written all over his face.
Concerned, Alex reached for him. “Mitch—”
“Yo, Grey!” someone called from somewhere behind them. Mitch hopped off his stool, threw a “Be right back,” over his shoulder, and disappeared into the crowd with Alex’s beer.
“Dean, tell me something.” JP slung an arm around Alex’s shoulders and came in close, as though about to impart important knowledge. “How long have you been flirting with my student?”
“What?” Alex frowned and shrugged off JP’s arm. “We were just talking. Friends do that.”
“Do they do that, while standing too close and gazing into each other’s eyes, while sharing a beer through the same metaphorical straw?”
“I—What?” Alex glanced at Jay, standing behind JP, for support. “He’s crazy.”
“He’s also right,” Jay said. “You were making googly eyes at each other. Like this.” Jay pursed his lips, widened his eyes, and batted his eyelashes.
“You look like a demented cartoon horse,” Leah told her boyfriend.
Jay pointed at Alex. “Googly eyes.”
Alex threw his hands up. “I’ve never made googly eyes at anyone in my life.”
“Yeah, we know,” JP said. “That’s why it’s so weird that you’re doing it now.”
“Except, I wasn’t.”
JP patted him on the cheek. “You’re so cute in your obliviousness.”
“You like him,” Jay said in a singsong voice.
Of course, Alex liked Mitch. If he didn’t, he wouldn’t be spending so much time with him.
Alex liked tutoring him and hanging out with him and talking to him.
He even got excited when he checked his text messages and found one from Mitch.
Mitch made him feel special in ways he hadn’t anticipated.
The way Mitch focused all of his attention on Alex when they were together made Alex feel like he was the center of Mitch’s universe.
Mitch had a way of making the world seem brighter, less intense.
But he didn’t like like Mitch. Did he?
God, when had he reverted to teenager status?
“You liiiiiiike him,” Jay kept singing.
Annoyed, Alex left and went to find Mitch.
* * *
Mitch left Yano and Marco behind and, ignoring calls of “Grey!” from somewhere on the other side of the room, headed to the back of Mama Jean’s where he was sure he’d find Cody.
It was quieter back here, the music not quite as loud, and the noise from the crowd muted. Cody was sitting in a booth across from a couple of people Mitch didn’t know. Mitch ignored them both and squeezed in next to his best friend.
“Where’d you get the beer?” Cody asked. “And how come you didn’t get me one?”
“It’s Alex’s. I stole it. Here.” Mitch held his glass out to Cody with a shaking hand.
Cody ignored it and narrowed his eyes on Mitch. “What’s wrong?”
“What? Nothing.”
“Don’t lie to me. Your eyes are bigger than your face. What happened?”
Mitch took a fortifying sip or three. Swallowing roughly, he leaned closer to Cody. “I just came out to a complete stranger. In the middle of a crowded restaurant.”
“Excuse us,” Cody said to his friends. He pushed Mitch out of the booth and followed him to the hallway that led to the restrooms, where they tucked themselves into a tiny out-of-the-way alcove. “Tell me.”
“I don’t even—” Mitch reclined against the wall and rubbed his chest. “I just blurted it out.”
“To who?”
“I think she’s a friend of Alex’s.”
“Oh.” Cody rubbed Mitch’s shoulders. “Then I’m sure you’re fine. Alex doesn’t strike me as the type to be friends with people who are dickheads.”
“Right.” Mitch’s hammering heart slowed. “Right, of course. You’re right.” He fell forward onto Cody and rested his forehead on Cody’s shoulder. “I was careless. Then I tried to backpedal and tell them I’m not gay, but I couldn’t lie. Not with Alex right there.”
“You were being yourself.” Cody ran his nails through Mitch’s hair. “That’s a good thing.”
“Anybody could’ve heard. What if there’d been a recruiter nearby? Or worse, a reporter? Fuck.” Straightening, Mitch downed the rest of the beer, then set the glass on the floor.
Cody’s eyebrows pulled down and he rubbed Mitch’s arm. “Because you can’t be gay in sports.”
“No. At least not yet.” Mitch had been having so much fun tonight after their win. Then he’d gone and fucked it up by opening his big mouth. What if Alex’s friend, whoever she was, told someone who told someone else who told a reporter who splashed it in the newspapers?
NHL scouts would never look twice at him and he could kiss a pro hockey career goodbye.
“Want to go home?” Cody asked.
Mitch bit his lip. “Alex is here.”
“How did I know you were going to say that?”
They ran into the man himself right outside the hallway. “Hey, there you are,” said Alex. His presence took over the room and his broad shoulders were so perfectly outlined in his long-sleeved T-shirt, Mitch wanted to jump him, audience be damned. “Hey, Cody.”
“Hey, man.”
“You okay?” Alex asked Mitch, eyes soft.
Mitch nodded once. “Peachy.”
Cody cleared his throat. “I’m heading home. Alex, you mind giving Mitch a ride back when he’s ready?”
“No problem.”
Cody said his goodbyes and left.
“Uh, sorry.” Mitch scratched his arm, feeling exposed for the first time all night. “I can get a ride from someone else.”
Alex tilted his head. “Why?”
“Because my best friend just foisted me on you?” There were so many jokes Mitch could make with that.
That he couldn’t think of a single one was a testament to how out-of-sorts he was feeling.
Accidentally outing himself to a stranger, plus being in Alex’s presence, made for a jittery, nervous Mitch.
Yeah, he was a total badass.
“I don’t mind,” Alex said. “It’s not like you live very far and it’s a little too cold to walk. Especially with no pants.”
“I have pants. Somewhere.”
“It somehow doesn’t surprise me that you don’t know where they are.”
Mitch dropped his gaze to Alex’s long legs. “You could shed yours and join me à la Risky Business.”
Alex grinned wide. “Not going to happen. Do you want to maybe go find them and come with me?”
“Where?” Mitch asked. Not that it mattered. He’d go anywhere with Alex. “To get more beer?”
“Not quite. I have something for you, but it’s in my car.”
Mitch went to find his pants.
He joined Alex outside five minutes later in jeans and a hoodie, because Alex was right—it wasn’t exactly warm. Fall had truly hit earlier this week. Goosebumps broke out over the back of his neck as he hopped up onto the trunk of Alex’s rental car.
“What’d you get me? Is it dirty? Wait, can I guess?”
Alex got something out of the car before joining Mitch on the trunk. “Sure.”
“Hmm.” Mitch drummed his fingers against his lip. “A prostate massager?”
Throwing his head back, Alex laughed long and loud, the sound reaching into Mitch and settling in the vicinity of his heart.
He, Mitch, had done that—made Alex laugh so hard he almost fell off the car.
Mitch couldn’t do anything but chuckle along with him.
In the bright glow of the streetlamps and glare of headlights from passing cars, Alex’s hair was more cinnamon than dark brown, the laugh lines around his eyes more pronounced.
“No,” Alex said. “It’s not a prostate massager.”
“Am I warm?”
“You’re very, very cold. It’s just a little something from Florida.”
Mitch had never been to Florida, so… “Sunscreen?”
“Not quite. Though you’ll definitely want to bring some when you come visit me.”
Mitch stilled. “You...want me to come visit you?”
“Yeah, why not? My friends, the ones I’m here with tonight, they come at least twice a year. You could tag along with them.”
Mitch scrunched his nose.
“Yeah,” Alex said. “Didn’t think you’d go for that. For someone who appears to have a lot of friends, you’re really more of a loner.”
It shouldn’t come as a surprise that Alex was more observant than Mitch was used to. Every time Alex noticed something about him that Mitch had so successfully managed to keep hidden for years, it was like another part of his soul got exposed, leaving him naked and floundering.
“Anyway.” Alex handed Mitch a small, generic plastic bag. “Here. It’s nothing big. But it made me think of you.”
It was a small white bear decked out in the blue and white Tampa Bay uniform and holding a tiny hockey stick.
It was cute as fuck, though Mitch couldn’t guess why something like this would remind Alex of him.
Not that he cared. His hockey crush—who was now his real life crush—had thought of him while on business, so to speak, in a state over a thousand miles away.
Was it getting hard to breathe?
Mitch pointed at the jersey number on the back, 25. “It has your number.”
“Yup. You haven’t been shy about telling me you want to sleep with me, so I figure now—” Alex stole the bear out of Mitch’s hands and bopped Mitch on the nose with it. “—you can.”
Swiping his bear back, Mitch laughed and fell backward onto the rear windshield. “I see. This is your way of getting out of sex with me.”
“I’m not getting out of anything, seeing as I never actually said I’d have sex with you.” Alex balled the plastic bag, shoved it in his pocket, then mirrored Mitch’s position.
“That’s… Well, shit, I guess that’s true, isn’t it?”
They rested side-by-side, gazing up at the stars.
The temptation to reach out and thread his fingers with Alex’s, or shuffle closer and lay his head on Alex’s shoulder, was so goddamned strong, Mitch almost did it.
He wanted to be wrapped up in Alex’s strong arms and he wanted Alex to want that too.
He yearned for it, like he’d never yearned for anything before.
And for once in his life, Mitch wanted to stop hiding behind his carefully constructed walls and show someone other than his dad and Cody who he really was, even if he didn’t quite know how to do that.
Although, with the way things were going, Alex would have him figured out before Mitch figured himself out.
Which begged the question: Were Mitch’s walls involuntarily coming down, or was Alex that perceptive?
In Mitch’s peripheral view, Alex relaxed with a hand on his stomach and one arm behind his head. His chest rose and fell in slow breaths. Had his eyes not been open, Mitch would’ve thought he was asleep.
“How come you’re not in costume?” Mitch asked.
Alex made a rumbly sound in his throat. “Would you believe I forgot it was Halloween?”
Mitch turned his head toward him.
“It’s true.” Alex scratched his belly. “After my dad left, it was just my mom and me. She sold our house in the suburbs and we lived in this tiny apartment above a Chinese restaurant in Chinatown in Toronto for a few years. We couldn’t afford much and Halloween, buying costumes and candy, was an expense we couldn’t justify at the time.
So, I never really celebrated Halloween after my dad took off on us.
” A corner of Alex’s mouth tilted up in a half smile.
“My mom and I had our own tradition. If Halloween fell on a weekday, she’d keep me home from school and we’d watch not-so-scary movies, like Casper or Hocus Pocus or Ernest Scared Stupid. ”
“That sounds really nice,” Mitch whispered into the dark.
“There’s a party on my street every year for Halloween.
I hated going. I was the youngest kid on the block and the older kids would steal my candy.
Cody came one year and when some jerk tried to steal my stash, Cody kicked him in the shin.
” Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Alex turn to him.
“My mom never liked Cody. Said he was a bad influence.”
“I think he’s good for you.”
“My dad said that too, not long ago.” Mitch squinted against the streetlamp and wished it’d turn itself off so he could see the stars. That’d be way more romantic as he and Alex chatted quietly. “Cody was the best decision I’ve ever made.”
“How so?” Alex’s voice was quiet, made deeper by the night.
“He and my dad are the only people who’ve ever had my back. Cody’s been there through everything that happened with my brother—” Mitch sucked in a harsh breath.
“What happened?” Alex asked, as Mitch knew he would.
“I’ll tell you sometime.” Mitch turned to lie on his side, facing Alex. “I will. But not tonight. Tonight is for…ghost stories!”
Alex jerked back. “Um, what?”
Mitch poked him in the chest. “Tell me a ghost story.”
“No.”
“Why?” Mitch peered at him, leaned closer, and whispered, “Are you afraid of ghosts?”
Alex hesitated. “No.”
Mitch laughed so hard his tiny Alex Bear almost took a tumble onto the pavement.