Chapter 16
Sixteen
Alex’s team only had one game scheduled between Christmas and New Year’s and, coincidentally, it was against Toronto, which was how Mitch found himself sitting next to Toni at the Air Canada Centre at six thirty on New Year’s Eve.
The rule, according to Alex, was that each team had to make two tickets available for purchase to each player on the visiting team, up to a certain amount of tickets.
Or something like that. Mitch wasn’t sure about that last part.
He’d been too busy ogling Alex’s huge biceps as the man bench-pressed Mitch’s weight and change in the small workout room in his mom’s basement.
“Think you could bench-press me?” Mitch had asked from his position at Alex’s head where he was acting as Alex’s spotter.
Alex had eyed him, assessing. “Let’s try it.”
Except as soon as Alex had repositioned himself onto the mat on the floor, Mitch had straddled him, hauled him up, and kissed him, successfully distracting Alex from the rest of his workout.
There was never any heat in Alex’s gaze when he looked at Mitch.
His looks said I’m glad you’re here and I want to cuddle with you and You make me happy, not I want to jump you or You make me so hot, bow-chicka-bow-wow.
Really, it was very strange. Mitch knew some of his own looks said Do me right now!
, but he tried to hide them so he didn’t scare Alex away with sex, didn’t push for something Alex wasn’t ready for.
If he was ever ready for it. What if he wasn’t?
Mitch would’ve sworn an oath that he was hard and horny all the time.
And as much as he wanted sex, needed relief, he only wanted it with Alex.
Yet he knew from Cody and from Google that some demisexuals identified closer to asexual on the spectrum and weren’t interested in sex at all.
Would Alex be one of those people? What was Mitch supposed to do if he was?
At this point, Alex would probably rather bake a cake with Mitch than have sex with him.
Great, now he was sitting next to Alex’s mom with a semi and a raging case of confusion, in seats that probably cost over three hundred bucks each.
In typical Alex fashion, he hadn’t let Mitch pay for his own ticket—not that Mitch could’ve afforded it, and Alex knew that—just like he hadn’t let Mitch pay for anything on this trip except parking on the days they’d come into Toronto to play tourist, which amounted to roughly thirty dollars total.
Big whoop. Mitch was both annoyed and grateful. He was annoyful.
“I think everyone forgot to show up today,” Toni said. She held her popcorn bag out to Mitch.
“Yeah, there’s not much happening, is there?
” The game was about as interesting as watching a curling match.
It was as though the players were still in holiday mode, lethargic and overstuffed on food and needing a nap.
Alex had been excited for tonight’s game, but his teammates’ lifelessness must’ve rubbed off on him, because as the game went into the third period, he played about as enthusiastically as the rest of the team. So not at all.
Mitch hadn’t seen him since late this morning, when he’d left for team practice at the ACC right after his workout turned make-out session, leaving Mitch alone with Toni for most of the day.
A day alone with his, um, boyfriend’s mom?
Good friend’s mom? Guy he was seeing’s mom?
Yeah, they still had to talk about that.
Anyway, it would’ve been daunting, had he and Toni not gotten along so well.
They went to the movies right after lunch, and they got in for free because Toni was one of the managers at the movie theater.
Then they’d taken the train into the city so they could drive back home with Alex after the game.
And since they’d arrived two hours early for the game, they’d killed time window shopping at the Eaton Centre, which was a truly terrifying place. All those people!
Toni, it turned out, was French Canadian, from a small town in Quebec Mitch couldn’t remember the name of. Despite the fact she’d lived in Ontario for thirty years, French was still her first language and sometimes English colloquialisms still eluded her. Like f-bomb.
“Isn’t that a fart?” she’d asked.
Mitch had laughed his ass off. “Yes, a fart. That’s exactly what it is.” He couldn’t wait to tell Alex.
“I’ve watched golf games that were more interesting than this,” Toni said now, taking the popcorn bag back from Mitch.
“Do you think maybe we’re biased?” Mitch asked.
The rest of the crowd was screaming and hollering and waving hats and jerseys and signs as if this game wasn’t putting them to sleep.
It was possible that Mitch and Toni were so entrenched in hockey life, they could tell when players were making a lackluster effort.
“You might be right.”
Still, they didn’t leave, not when Alex had spent so much on their tickets.
“Tell me something.” Toni wiped her hands on a napkin and shifted closer. “Alex… Is he okay? I know he spent a lot of time with his grandpa when he was in Vermont and Forest isn’t doing well. How is Alex taking it?”
Alex was on Tampa’s first line tonight and, to watch him play, nobody would know that he had anything on his mind besides hockey.
“I think he’s preparing himself for the worst,” Mitch said.
“I think he’s been visiting Forest as much as he can because he knows Forest doesn’t have a lot of time left. ”
In the loud crowd, Mitch didn’t hear, so much as feel, Toni sigh.
“Did Alex tell you that I work in the same facility where Forest lives?” When Toni shook her head, Mitch continued.
“I work in the admin offices on Sundays, and on my last shift before the holiday break, I went into the lounge to see Forest. We play chess together sometimes after my shift. Anyway, he was…not having a good day. The nurses actually sent me away because they thought Forest might get violent. He was angry and confusing his words and refusing to eat or bathe.”
Toni glanced away and blinked wildly.
“I haven’t told Alex yet,” Mitch admitted. “Don’t know if I should.”
Toni squeezed his hand. “He would want to know.”
Mitch nodded. “Maybe I’ll wait until it’s not New Year’s Eve to tell him.”
“I don’t think it’ll make a difference.”
Tampa lost 1-0, but it wasn’t much of a surprise to Mitch and Toni.
* * *
A couple of hours later, Mitch and Alex lay on Alex’s bed after a drive home where Toni recounted everything Alex had done wrong during the game and Alex rolled his eyes at Mitch in a way that was more fond than annoyed.
For her part, Toni scolded Alex with maternal affection, much swearing at the other team, many imaginary exclamation points, and hand gestures.
It was a far cry from Mitch’s own mother’s cold you-have-disappointed-me-child voice.
It was thirty minutes to midnight and Toni had already left for a party at her girlfriend’s place.
“You were going to leave me alone on New Year’s Eve?” Alex had pouted as Toni put on her boots.
She patted his cheek. “I would’ve stayed had you been alone, but now Mitch is here.” She hugged them both, called a “Happy New Year’s!” over her shoulder, and left.
Lying face-to-face in front of Alex, both of them in boxer briefs and T-shirts, Mitch poked him in the forehead and chuckled when Alex jerked back.
“What was that for?” Alex grumbled.
“Just making sure you’re not asleep like you were on the ice.”
“Ha ha,” Alex said blandly. “You’re hilarious.”
“I’m also right.”
“I blame the holidays.”
“Me too.”
Mitch ran his fingers over Alex’s eyebrows, his cheekbones, his six-day old scruff, committing his face to memory, every freckle, every expression, every almost imperceptible blemish.
They had three more days together here, and then on Sunday, they were leaving early for the drive back to Vermont.
Alex would visit with Grandpa Forest Sunday evening, then jump on a plane to Tampa on Monday morning, leaving Mitch alone in Glen Hill to resume his normal routine, which would now include missing Alex like a missing limb, and counting down the days until he saw Alex again. Which would be…when?
“What’s on your mind?” Alex asked.
“I guess I’m just wondering how we’re going to make this work. The long-distance thing.”
“Guess we should’ve talked about that before I kissed you, huh?”
“Doesn’t matter.” Mitch lifted a shoulder in a half-shrug. “I just…”
Alex smiled at him, soft and full of affection. “You just like having things in neat little boxes. I know.”
“That’s not true.”
“Really?” Alex tangled their legs together, his own hairier ones rubbing against Mitch’s. “So if I said, ‘I don’t know how we’re going to make this work, Mitch. I guess we’ll just have to wing it,’ that’d be okay?”
Mitch tried not to let the panic show.
“Uh-huh,” Alex said, smug. “Thought so.”
“Sometimes I hate how well you know me.”
“If I didn’t know you so well, we wouldn’t be here, would we?”
Mitch grunted and tucked his face in Alex’s neck. “Stupid demisexuality.”
“I’m offended on behalf of demisexuals everywhere.”
“No, you’re not,” Mitch countered. “You think I’m charming.”
“I also think pandas are charming.”
Mitch reared back. “Pandas? They’re the most useless animals on the planet.”
“But aren’t they super endangered or something?”
“Doesn’t make them any less useless. And we’re spending so much time and effort and money on protecting their habitat when there are other ecosystems that are more important and support a higher diversity of species.”
Alex was grinning at him, amusement written all over his face.
Mitch scowled. “What?”
Alex nuzzled Mitch’s cheek and Mitch felt his annoyance cool. “I like when you talk nerd to me,” Alex said. “Keep going. Talk nerdy to me. Please?”
Laughing, Mitch pushed him away.