“It’s good to be back. What do you need from me?”
“Right now, we’re about to head out to skate. So once we start running scrimmages, keep an eye on the d-line and see if there’s anything we can do to shore it up. Then if you don’t mind sticking around after, you can run through some video with the guys and break down what you’re seeing and what you would do in situations?”
Mitch grinned. It wasn’t the same as being able to get out on the ice with them, but if he could help this team win, this team full of guys who were his brothers for all intents and purposes, he’d do it.
It should worry him how quickly his thinking shifted away from LA and back to Detroit, but it didn’t.
“Sounds good to me.”
The next two hours passed in a blur. Being in the rink again was a feeling Mitch couldn’t accurately explain. It had only been a little over two months since he last skated, since he last went through practice with a team, but it was too damn long.
It felt good to be back.
After practice was over, the locker room cleared out quickly, the guys heading back to their respective homes to pack and prepare for their upcoming road games. Mitch wouldn’t be joining them, his back not yet stable enough to spend hours on a plane.
He found himself in the video room with Brent and Cole, watching film from the Warriors’ game against Pittsburgh earlier in the season. They’d be heading east this weekend, working their way across Pennsylvania, up to Boston, and through New York over the next week before heading home to play in Detroit on New Year’s Eve, as was tradition.
Brent broke the companionable silence when he turned to Mitch and blurted, “There’s something I want to ask you.”
Mitch’s eyebrow rose, and Brent and Cole exchanged a look.
Since when were these two all buddy-buddy, able to convey thoughts with quick glances?
“It’s about my wedding,” Brent said.
Mitch’s pulse kicked up, his heart pounding against his ribs.
“Okay…” Mitch said slowly. “What about it?”
“I want you to be my best man?”
Brent phrased it like a question, closing his eyes and turning slightly away from Mitch, as though he were bracing himself for Mitch’s response.
A thousand different scenarios ran through Mitch’s mind in the last several seconds, but that one wasn’t even in the realm of possibility.
Brent’s best man? Him? The man who had taken the coward's way out after getting his heart broken and left all of his friends—hisbrothers—behind without so much as a goodbye?
“Why?” Mitch blurted. “What about your brother? Or Cole? Why me?
Brent snorted, and Cole said, “I asked him the same question.” Cole met Mitch’s gaze then. “Look, bro. I’m all for second chances, and I’m not gonna lie, I missed you while you were gone. While this dude—“ he pointed at Brent “—is willing to forgive and forget, I’m not so easily swayed. You fucked up, and you hurt a lot of people.”
Mitch nodded, understanding completely where Cole was coming from. He looked at Brent.
“Cole said it. I’m willing to forgive and forget. You’re my best friend and, not to get all sappy here, but seven months apart hasn’t changed that. No offense, Cole,” he said, shooting a sheepish grin at the blond. “I had always planned on asking you to be my best man once Berkley and I set a date. Now that you’re back in our lives…I still want you standing next to me.”
“Then what about your brother?”
“I love my brother,” Brent said. “But he’s so busy with med school and has his head so far up his own ass that all I’m expecting from him is to show up at the wedding and drink his weight in booze.”
Mitch laughed; it seemed as though nothing had changed with Nate Jean in the past seven months.
“So will you?” Brent asked.
“Of course,” Mitch said, throat tight with emotion. “I’d be honored.”
A thought struck Mitch then, and his heart plummeted.
His face must have betrayed him because Brent choked on a laugh, taking a sip of water as Cole pounded him on the back before saying, “You just realized who the maid of honor is, didn’t you?”
