Chapter 24
Twenty-Four
Alex was nervous. And it was freakin’ adorable.
The bookstore at Bay and Richmond, in downtown Toronto, had been turned into a mock event venue for Alex’s book launch and signing.
Display tables and stands had been moved aside or relocated to make room for a folding table draped with a white tablecloth and topped with a dozen copies of Alex’s new book.
Next to the table was a thirty-six by twenty-four-inch poster with an image of the book cover, short quotes praising the book from review sites, newspapers, and other authors, and a picture of Alex’s handsome face.
People browsed the bookstore, yet four dozen more stood in line, waiting for the man of the hour, who should’ve been sitting behind the table, ready to sign copies of his book for his fans.
But instead, he was hiding in the employee lunchroom, tugging at his tie. “I changed my mind.”
“About the book launch?” Mitch peered out the lunchroom door’s glass window. The line extended from the table, around displays, to the front of the store, out the door, and onto the street. Wow. “Because I’m pretty sure it’s too late for that.”
“About the signing,” Alex corrected. He finally managed to get his tie off and paced a path between the refrigerator and the little round table. “I should’ve done it in Tampa.”
The NHL preseason started in less than two weeks and Alex was needed in Tampa for team practices, which was why he’d pitched it as the book launch location.
His editor, Kate Harvey, had ixnayed that idea.
Alex’s publishers wanted a huge turnout and big name bloggers and journalists.
They wouldn’t get that in Tampa, where hockey just wasn’t as popular as it was in the north.
So here they were, at the end of August at the height of a scorching hot summer in Toronto, on the second of Alex’s three days off and four days before Mitch needed to head back to GH for his junior year.
Yet Alex wasn’t having it.
Out in the bookstore, Toni met his eyes through the door’s window. She tapped her watch.
Alex was officially ten minutes late to the start of his own book launch.
The publicist who’d organized the event appeared from behind a long display of magazines, where she’d hidden half a dozen boxes filled with additional copies of Alex’s book.
Upon spotting the table with the empty chair where her author should’ve been sitting, her jaw clenched and she headed for the lunchroom Alex and Mitch were currently occupying.
Mel Hassler was cute and perky, all blond and blue-eyed, with a smile a mile wide. But holy crap, she was scary. Mitch exited the room, giving Alex a minute alone, and blocked her entrance.
“I just need five more minutes,” he said.
Her eyes narrowed. “You have two.”
“I can work with two.”
She crossed her arms over her chest. Mitch palmed the handle behind him and opened the door, slipping back into the lunchroom while keeping an eye on the scary dragon lady. She didn’t move, even when he closed the door and held up two fingers to indicate he had two minutes.
She scowled at him through the glass.
All right, then.
Mitch hustled Alex to a corner of the kitchen, out of Mel’s direct line of sight, and gave him a hard, fast kiss.
“Cody’s going to meet us out back with the car,” he lied. “You ready to go?”
“Go?” Alex stared at him blankly. “I can’t leave. All these people are here and most of the team came out to support me. I can’t let Kate and the publisher down, and oh my God, I can’t believe your reverse psychology just worked on me.”
“Me neither,” Mitch said, ridiculously proud of himself.
“Ugh.” Alex leaned against the counter and scrubbed his hands over his face.
Mitch grabbed Alex’s tie off the counter and ran the silk through his fingers.
His man looked especially dashing today in fitted black suit pants and a light blue shirt.
The forest green tie Mitch held would make Alex’s eyes pop.
Alex was tense as hell, the prospect of being on display in front of all the people here intimidating the crap out of him.
It was kind of funny, given that he played hockey in arenas that held thousands.
Moving Alex’s arms out of the way, Mitch slipped the tie around his neck. “You’re going to be awesome out there.”
“You think?”
“Uh-huh.” Finished knotting the tie, Mitch took a step back and ran his hands down Alex’s arms. “Besides, those people out there are probably way more nervous about meeting you than you are about meeting them.”
“If you say so.”
“I don’t get it.” Mitch eyed Alex curiously. “Remember when you were a guest panelist at the kinesiology lecture? The day we met? You didn’t seem nervous at all.”
Alex shook his head. “That was different. I wasn’t promoting myself. This is… This is way more personal.”
Mitch put his arms around him and held him close, but pulled back abruptly. “Holy shit balls!”
“What?” Alex pulled back, panicked eyes huge in his face. “What’s wrong?”
“You never answered my question.” Mitch fisted a hand in his hair. “I can’t believe I forgot.”
“What question?”
“About why the NHL is and isn’t what you expected.”
It took Alex a second, but when he finally figured it out, he threw his head back and laughed, long and loud. The sound never failed to make Mitch grin like a dummy.
Alex brought Mitch’s hand up his lips and kissed the back. “God, I love you. I’ll tell you later. Promise.”
“I’ll hold you to that.”
There was a hard knock at the door. Mitch tugged on Alex’s hand to get him moving. “My two minutes are up. That’s how long I had to get you out there.”
“Wait, come back here.” Alex reeled Mitch in and kissed him softly, making Mitch’s belly flip. They shouldn’t be kissing where anyone could walk in on them, but with Mel watching the door, Mitch didn’t worry. She knew about them and wouldn’t let anyone barge in.
Two days from now, they’d fly back to Tampa. And then two days after that, Mitch and Cody would fly to Vermont for school, leaving their perfect Florida summer behind. Mitch had gotten used to seeing Alex every day, but he’d have to get used to seeing him once a month until next summer.
When he looked at it that way, the school year seemed endless.
He held on to Alex tighter and nuzzled Alex’s throat. Alex’s hold was just as strong, unbending, as though his thoughts had gone in the same direction as Mitch’s.
A second knock at the door.
“Okay,” Alex said into Mitch’s neck. “I’m ready.”
Mitch wasn’t. Not if he ever had to let Alex go.
Alex pulled back and placed a chaste kiss on Mitch’s lips. “Thank you.”
“For what? I didn’t do anything.”
Alex just smiled at him and kissed him once more before heading for the door. Mitch followed.
Because he’d follow Alex anywhere.
* * *
The roar that greeted Alex when he finally exited the bookstore’s employee lunchroom was so loud, he took an instinctive step back, bumping into Mitch. Mitch’s hand at his back steadied him, grounded him.
There was a line of people out the door waiting to meet him, but the group that snagged his attention was huddled together just a few feet away, carrying a huge banner that read “Congrats, Alex!” The group was made up of half his team, including Ashton Yager, plus JP and Jay, as well as his mom, Cody, and Geoff and Dan Greyson.
Alex glanced back at Mitch, who grinned merrily and joined in the cheering.
Overwhelmed, and touched beyond words, Alex’s nerves finally subsided in the face of the support from his friends and family. There was only one person missing.
At the back of the group stood a tall, thin man in his eighties with a bald head and wrinkles on top of wrinkles, grinning a toothy grin from ear to ear. His green eyes, the same color as Alex’s, shone with love and pride.
Alex’s heart soared. Grandpa Forest?
But when he looked again, there was no one there.
Mitch’s hand on his elbow dragged him back to the present. Mitch led him to the table with the empty chair behind it where he’d be signing books for the next few hours.
“Wait.” Alex reversed course, taking Mitch with him to a hidden corner of the fantasy section, away from prying eyes. “Wait here a sec.”
“What?”
He left a sputtering Mitch behind and went back to the table. Or, more specifically, to his messenger bag hidden underneath the table.
Mel tapped her foot impatiently. “Are you ready?”
“Two minutes.”
He ignored her frustrated sigh and pulled a copy of his own book out of his bag, one he’d saved especially for Mitch. He’d gone full sixth grade and drawn a heart under the dedication, with a personal note to Mitch written in pink marker.
The dust jacket of “No Guts, No Glory” was shiny, with raised lettering and an attractive cover that depicted an action shot of a player in full gear, stick in hand, chasing after the puck. Alex’s headshot was on the inside back flap, right beneath his author bio. It was all so surreal.
He headed back to Mitch. Evidently, Mitch had spent the minute Alex had been gone perusing the novels on the shelves—he now had a small stack at his feet.
He turned at Alex’s approach and grinned at him.
Mitch had foregone his penchant for flannel for this event, instead opting for fitted charcoal pants and a light purple shirt.
His curly hair flopped everywhere and he only had eyes for Alex.
God, Alex would miss the shit out of him when he headed back to Glen Hill College in a few days.
He’d gotten used to having Mitch in his space.
Sharing a bed, sharing meals, folding Mitch’s laundry on laundry day, coordinating who got the bathroom first. Alex never thought he’d have the kind of relationship he did with Mitch, but now that he did, he wasn’t ready to give it up, even if only for the school year.
Living together hadn’t always been easy, especially at the beginning as they got used to each other.
Not to mention that having Cody underfoot, whose bedroom was a door-less loft, had severely impacted their sex life.
But they’d made it work and four months had flown by faster than either of them expected.
Mitch now had full monetary support from his dad so that he wouldn’t have to work as much while at school, as well as a tidy sum from his full-time work at the café in the Channel District that he’d put into a savings account.
He’d also grudgingly agreed to let Alex pay for his flights to Florida so he could visit without straining his financials.
And instead of working himself to the bone in an effort to distract himself from how much he missed Alex, Mitch had signed up for piano lessons.
Alex had secretly bought him a grand piano as a gift that was scheduled to be delivered the day after Mitch arrived back in Glen Hill.
They didn’t have much space for it in the house, but Cody said that if they stored the dining room table they never used in the basement, they could put it there.
Alex handed Mitch the book.
Mitch grasped it gingerly in both hands. “For me?”
He hadn’t yet seen the finished product. The advance reading copy Alex had been sent over the summer hadn’t had the dedication.
“Alex,” a voice growled. Alex turned and there was an annoyed Mel, glaring at him and pointing at the table. Alex touched Mitch’s hand briefly before following her and finally taking his seat.
Mitch appeared from the fantasy section seconds later and tucked himself in next to his dad and Dan against a wall of sci-fi novels.
He ran his hands over the front cover of Alex’s book reverently, then flipped the book over and did the same to the back.
Alex’s gut clenched as he waited for Mitch to open the cover and flip through the first few pages. Would he think it was lame?
Mel led the first person in line over to him, which was, of course, when Mitch landed on the dedication page.
His breathing hitched. His eyes went wet.
His chin trembled. He glanced at Alex with red eyes, an expression of utter devastation and profound love on his face.
Alex’s heart clenched so tight, he thought he could die happy right here, right now, with everything he’d ever wanted right in front of him.
He winked at Mitch, who gave him a watery smile and hugged the book to his chest.
For Grandpa Forest. I miss you every day.
For Mom, for your unwavering love and support.
And for my own real-life Adrian. Thank you for bringing love and laughter into my life when I needed it most.