Page 96 of On the Line
Gabe ordered a margarita, so Mitch felt comfortable doing the same. After all, he wasn’t driving, and he was sitting across from his lone maybe-friend in the city. That alone was worth celebrating.
Their drinks arrived, and both chose their meals. While they waited, he studied the room, and couldn’t help but think that this would be the kind of place Lexie would like to go on one of their dates, or the kind of place Brent would like to visit when in town for a game.
He missed Brent and the rest of the Warriors, and goddamnit, he missed Lexie. So many times over the last few days, he had nearly picked up his phone and called her. But what would he even say?
Sorry I left you without saying goodbye?
Sorry I didn’t fight harder for us? For you?
There wasn’t anything that could take back what he’d done. It was pointless to even consider the what-ifs.
His face must have shown his anguish because Gabe said, “Tell me about her.”
“What makes you think there’s a her?” Mitch asked, nonchalantly taking a sip of his drink. Tequila mingled with lime juice and a burst of salt exploded across his tongue, and he greedily sucked down more.
“Look, man,” Gabe said, and Mitch felt he was about to get an earful. “I typically don’t pay attention to the gossip that follows other guys into our locker room. I know you were a huge piece of the puzzle in Detroit. We’re damn lucky to have you.”
“But?” Mitch prompted.
“But…” Gabe looked him dead in the eye. “But a former teammate of yours spoke to a national media outlet about how you disappeared. That you didn’t bother to reach out to any of them to say goodbye. Changed your number. Deleted all of your social media profiles. Basically wiped yourself off the face of the planet. I’ve been around this game long enough to know that’s not a typical reaction to being traded. There’s nothing in the rule books that says you can’t remain friends with your old teammates, Mitch. So it would stand to reason that you were running from someone, and the trade was the perfect opportunity to make a clean break. And since you did that, I can bet you haven’t had anyone to talk to, making me your only friend in this crazy city. And the only way we’re actually going to be friends, and start clicking on the ice as defensive partners, is if you tell me what’s going on.”
Mitch sat, still as a statue, blinking at him. Did Gabe live inside his head or something? Since he moved here, he’d spent three hours total with the man, and Gabe already had him figured out.
“That’s a neat trick,” Mitch said, again reaching for his margarita glass and draining it.
Gabe shrugged. “I’m good at reading people.”
Mitch would later learn that Gabe had studied psychology in college, intent on becoming a therapist if hockey didn’t work out.
Reaching up to flip his hat around so he could hang his head in his hands over the table, Mitch sighed and said, “Her name is Lexie.”
“What happened?”
While the absolute last thing Mitch wanted to do was dive into his woe-is-me tale in the middle of a quiet Mexican restaurant with a guy who was practically a perfect stranger, he knew he’d feel better if he got it off his chest.
So he started speaking, the words flowing from his mouth like water gushing over the edge of a cliff. He couldn’t stop them, not when he started talking about Lexie. The night they met. The first time they had sex. All of the little, perfect, endlessly frustrating moments that had let up to that fight right before he got traded.
“We weren’t exactly speaking when I got traded,” Mitch said. “I thought we were done. It was just…easier.”
“Easier for who? Because I gotta be honest with you, man, you seem pretty fucking miserable.”
“Moving on is going to be easier here, far away from her. This is just the…early stages.”
“Of?”
“Grief.”
Gabe stared at him, as if weighing his next words carefully. “I think you should call her. Or at the very least reach out to your old teammates. You can have them in your life and still give your all to the Knights. The two aren’t mutually exclusive, you know.”
Before Mitch could respond, their food arrived, and they both dug in, leaving him to marinate in his thoughts.
What Gabe said made perfect sense, but Mitch hadn’t exactly been in his right mind when he left Detroit. He left in a hurry, and not by choice. At the time, Mitch thought he’d been making the right decision to burn those bridges. As far as he was concerned, Lexie had made it perfectly clear where they stood, and it was at odds with Mitch’s own stance on their relationship.
After nearly two years of the constant back and forth with her, the will-we-or-won’t-we, the emotional whiplash, he couldn’t do it anymore. She had said what she needed to say, and Mitch hadn’t agreed with her. When she asked him to leave, her voice breaking, unable to even look at him, it felt final. Like they were finally, well and truly done. It wasn’t going to be one of those instances where one of them broke down a few days later and called the other, asking if they could talk. That talk wouldn’t lead to sex, Mitch giving in when Lexie used her body to distract him from all of the things she wasn’t saying to him. There would be no blissful few days or weeks when everything seemed as though it was back on track, that they would live happily ever after. There would be no fixing it this time.
And hehadtried those last few days before the trade. Texting and calling and showing up at her place.
It still felt sofinal.
