“I just wish…”
“What?” Berkley asked when she didn’t go on.
“I just wish I could talk to him before then. Clear the air at least. I’m not happy with him. In fact, I might be liable to punch him the first time I see him. But he and I need to talk at some point, right? I really don’t want the first time we see each other to be at your fucking rehearsal dinner when we have to walk down the aisle together.”
“I’ve tried to talk to him about it,” Berkley admitted. “We all have. But he’s just not interested.”
That didn’t make any sense to Lexie. Why should he be the one holding all the cards here? He’s the one that left. If anything, he should be crawling on his hands and knees back to Lexie, and Berkley and Brent and everyone else, begging for a second chance.
Although, it seemed he’d already done that with Brent and Berkley.
So why not her? What thefuckwas his problem?
“I don’t get it,” Lexie said. “And I think that’s the hardest part. Why is he perfectly okay with you and Brent and the rest of the boys coming back into his life, but when it comes to me, the girl he loved, the girl he was planning a future with, he just has zero interest in any sort of relationship? What did I do wrong?”
She had asked herself that question a lot growing up, too. What had she done wrong to deserve parents like hers? What had she done wrong to be treated like a trophy to show off instead of a daughter to love and be proud of?
Lexie had never felt good enough, but during the year she spent with Mitch, she had started to believe in herself again. She had started to feel loved and safe and happy.
And then he left and took it all with him.
Lexie was so damn tired of all of it.
She wished she’d never met Mitch Frambough.
“Goddamnit,Grey!”Coachyelledfrom his perch next to Mitch on the bench. “You were so far offsides you might as well have been walking down Woodward!”
Grey skated back to center ice with his head down, mumbling “I’m sorry” under his breath.
“Kid’s been in the pros for three seasons and is still regularly going offsides.”
“He’s like a puppy,” Mitch said with a laugh. “Just too excited to get to the puck.”
“Well he needs to knock that shit off,” Coach said. “We’re going on a playoff run. The time for childish mistakes is over.”
Mitch nodded in agreement. Grey was young yet, barely twenty-three, but if he was good enough to find a permanent home on the Warriors’ second line, he shouldn’t be screwing up the small things.
“Alright,” Coach yelled. “I’ve seen enough.”
Several of the Warriors sagged in relief, shoulders drooping dramatically as they skated toward the bench. They’d been out on the ice for two hours, running drills and listening to Coach scream.
Mitch sat by and watched it all unfold, almost thankful he wasn’t out there letting Coach chew his ass out for missing a pass or reading an odd-man rush wrong.
Almost.Because truthfully, he’d give just about anything to be able to play again. Acting as an assistant coach for his old team wasn’t quite the same, but being near the game and helping the Warriors win games was a huge blessing, and more than he could’ve ever hoped for after his injury.
Once the skating portion of practice was over, Mitch and the guys headed into their media room to breakdown some game footage of the Toronto Tritons, who the Warriors would play in the opening round of the playoffs. They settled in to dissect not only game tape from the last time the Warriors had played Toronto, but also the Tritons’ last few games of the season.
“That goalie’s stick side is so weak,” Brandon Roberts, the Warriors’ veteran net-minder, said.
“Yours is, too,” Coach said.
Roberts scoffed but didn’t argue. Most goaltenders were weaker on their stick sides, so it wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. They chose to focus on stopping shots with their bodies, gloves, and lower pads instead of waving a stick through the air, hoping to magically fend off a puck.
So while the Tritons’ goalie may have been weak on his stick side, he didn’t appear to have any other holes in his game. The game they were watching was between Toronto and the Philadelphia Mustangs, a team that had also made the playoffs. In their final game of the regular season, when the Tritons and the Mustangs faced off, the Toronto net-minder only allowed one goal, a five-hole shot that got lost in traffic and snuck past him.
The Warriors would certainly have their work cut out for them, but they had speed, experience, and a strong defensive core on their side, not to mention three of the league’s top ten goal-scorers in Brent, Rat, and Grey.
“That guy is a brick wall,” Cole said. “Gonna be a tough four wins.”
