The Inside Edge: Chapter Fourteen

Walking into the dark lighting of Smokey’s Tavern, Brianne slowed to a stop as she canvassed the bar. She’d been finishing up her conversation with Danette when Fred and Mitch had passed by. With little more than a nod and the casual reminder that they’d meet her there, they’d walked out in the evening, leaving her behind to catch up.

            Now, as her eyes adjusted to the crowd milled around the dinky little bar, she sought out Mitch’s broad-shouldered frame. She supposed he must have been a hockey player in his own youth. He certainly had the build for it with his stocky frame, well-developed upper arms and large thighs and calves.

            Not that she’d been staring at him, she reminded herself forcibly as she finally spotted Fred’s hair of all things––the ends of which were sticking up in errands strands as usual.

            But, then again, it wasn’t like she’d never looked at Mitch before. That would have been impossible. She wasn’t blind.  

            Swallowing past a thrill in her stomach at the realization that she now had permission to look at him as often as she liked––after all, she would be on the rink with him, sitting on the game benches alongside him––Brianne silently pleaded with herself to keep it together.

            So, okay, Mitch was a good-looking guy. And yeah, he seemed nice. And…

            “Hey Brianne.”

            Thankful for the interruption in the guise of Fred’s voice, Brianne lifted her hand in a small wave as she steadily approached their table. “Hey guys.”

            “You made it.” Turning toward her, Mitch offered her an easy grin in greeting.

            Shifting her gaze shyly, Brianne shrugged. “Yeah. Sorry. I was talking to Danette.”

            “You two looked awfully serious.”

            For a moment, just the tiniest moment, Brianne considered confiding in the men. Perhaps they would be able to help her in her secondary goal as the team coordinator; they knew these families far better than she did. As Danette had said, they were clearly respected within the community. They might have some insight she could find useful in tempering the inter-team schism.

            But on second thought, she decided against it. More than likely, Fred would simply smile sadly at her and say that sometimes these things happen. Mitch would probably tell her it wasn’t her business and that their attentions needed to be focused on the kids.

            Wiggling her eyebrows, Brianne pursed her lips as she thought up a throwaway response. “I’m sure we were just discussing lipstick and hair products.”

            Fred laughed.

            Mitch shuddered humorously. “I’m sure.”

            Within minutes, however, after ordering herself a glass of chardonnay, all three of them were focused on the point of this get-together.

            “So…I’m going to let them teach me how to perform the drills that you teach them?”

            Mitch shrugged. “Sometimes. It’s proven fact that teaching someone else how to do something simultaneously makes you better at it.”

            Brianne nodded grudgingly. “True enough.”

            “But also, I want you to be their cheerleader, to get them to see one another as brothers not opponents to be challenged. I want you to be the…”

            “The mother?” Brianne cracked a bit of a smile.

            Mitch dropped his gaze down to the beer in his hands. “I don’t mean…well, I guess…”

            “And you think that’s worth me getting paid?”

            Fred chuckled. “She’s got a bit of a point.”

            Mitch sighed. “Well, I mean, your position is more-or-less made-up. We’ll figure it out as we go, how does that sound?”

            Brianne nodded. “Fair.”

            “Is there anything you’d personally like to take on?”

            Brianne’s eyes widened. “I don’t know anything about hockey. Or how practice should go.”

            “But you know what it looks like when a team works together,” Mitch reminded her. “And that’s what your presence is generally going to bring to the boys.”

            Brianne took a large sip of wine, anything to give her a moment to formulate a response, to think about the question. “Off the top of my head? I’ve got nothing.”

            Fred coughed. “There’s still competition and anger over positions.”

            “That’s on any team,” Mitch grumbled.

            “Not as bad as this,” Fred argued. Leaning forward, he fixed Mitch with a knowing glance. “Tell me you didn’t see Dean’s smile last week when Jackson rolled his ankle? He relished his own teammate getting hurt so he could take over his place.”

            Brianne gasped, one hand coming up to her mouth. “Was Jackson okay?”

            “Sure, sure,” Fred said dismissively. “But that’s not the point. In all my years working at the barn, it’s the first time I’ve seen such…such disloyalty in a team.”

            Mitch sighed. It held a weary note. “Yeah.”

            Brianne nodded but she wasn’t sure how to respond or even if she was meant to. Apparently, her silence said enough for, within minutes, she found herself pinned against Mitch’s eyes as he leveled her with a steady gaze.

            “Another reason why you’re here. On Sundays, practice never runs smoother. So we figured, if we’re going to get through this, we needed a way to make them all like Sunday.”

            “Hence you.”

            Brianne held up a hand. “Can I just please…I’ve said this before, but I really mean it. That’s a lot of pressure.”

            “Then use it to your advantage.”

            Now it was Brianne’s turn to throw Mitch a direct look. Only hers oozed with annoyance. “Very helpful, thank you.”

            Mitch grinned before bringing the beer up to his mouth and taking a healthy swig. “Hey, if I thought it would be easy, I’d have already taken care of the situation.”

            “So you see,” Fred assured her, throwing a friendly arm across Brianne’s shoulder. “Mitch really did mean it as a compliment when he called you our secret weapon. You have something no one else seems to possess.”

            “Terrible form and only passable stick handling skills?” Brianne quipped.

            Fred winked. “Something like that.”

            Taking a deep breath, Brianne finally forced herself to ask the question that had plagued her the past couple of days. “I don’t mean to pry…”

            Mitch’s eyebrows rose.

            Brianne cleared her throat. “You had mentioned that some of these kids have had a hard year. And while I know about the school merging… but, would that alone have had such an effect––?”

            Mitch and Fred exchanged looks before Mitch held up one hand, cutting Brianne off. “Let me put it to you this way. You know Beau?”

            “Of course.” Brianne barely resisted the urge not to roll her eyes.

            “Beau’s dad won’t even attend his games now that one team was annexed by another.”

            Brianne felt an unexpected flow of emotion punch her in the gut at the simple but crushing sentence. “He won’t watch his son play?”

            Mitch shook his head. “Nope.”

            “But…but…”

            “You aren’t from around here, but this town has been split between the East and West ends of town for as long as anyone can remember.”

            “But doesn’t he see that he’s only punishing his son?” Brianne cried.

            “Listen, you’re preaching to the choir,” Mitch insisted. Leaning back in his chair, he sighed. “I tried. With every one of them, I tried to convince these families that this was the time to take those old antagonisms and pre-conceived notions and put them to bed. I pleaded with them to do it for their children if no one else.”

            “Some people…” Fred shook his own head. “Damn stubborn fools.”

            “Beyond that, the division is alive and well within the school walls. Bullying and fighting.”

            “Between the kids on the team?” Brianne couldn’t believe that.

            Mitch gave her a deadpan stare. “Yeah. In one form or another. And that hatred and shame and anger doesn’t go away just because they step out on to the ice.”

            “No,” Brianne agreed quietly. “I guess it wouldn’t.”

            “You asked Charlie what happened to his eye the other day? You remember?”

            Brianne closed her eyes slowly in anticipation of what he would say. “He told me he got in a fight.”

            “Yeah,” Mitch agreed. “With George.”

            “Jesus.”

            “Prayer’s certainly not off the table,” Fred joked.

            “I had no idea it was that bad.”

            “Which only goes to say how much better it can get still.”

            Brianne gulped. Her fingers, around the stem of her wine glass, where almost white against the pressure she was pressing against it. “Right.”           

            “Hey.”

            Glancing upward, Brianne caught the tail-end of a soft smile leaving Mitch’s face. “This isn’t on your shoulders alone.”

            “We’re all in this together.”

            “We,” Mitch said, pointing from himself to Fred and then Brianne. “We are our own team.”

            “Damn straight.”

            Brianne took a deep breath. “I’ll do my best not to let you both down.”

            Fred laughed.

            Mitch gave her another of those soft smiles, when the tips of his mouth moved up almost imperceptibly. “Not likely you will, not from where I’m sitting.”

            “I’ll cheers to that,” Fred seconded.

            Laughing, Brianne hoisted up her drink. “To our team.”

            “To Brianne.”

            “To yet another championship title!”

            It was as the three of them were heading out into the parking lot that evening that Mitch called out to Brianne singularly.

            “Hey, wait up a minute,” he said, his voice overriding the latter part of Fred’s farewell as the older gentlemen moseyed out to his rusty truck.

            Turning questioningly at Mitch’s request, Brianne waited for him to speak.

            Lowering his voice and his eyes to the pavement, Mitch seemed unsure what he’d meant to say. Or perhaps he was merely waiting to make sure that Fred was well and truly out of earshot before he spoke.

            “Yes?”

            “Well…Cory asked me to tell you,” coughing a bit, Brianne was oddly touched by the tint of color riding high on Mitch’s cheekbones. She got the impression he didn’t feel nervous very often. “Well, he’s really taken to you.”

            Brianne smiled. The words had a strong effect. Nodding underneath the streetlight flooding over them in the middle of the parking lot, she returned the compliment: “I’ve taken to him too. You have a great kid there.”

            “Yeah.” Running a hand through his hair, Mitch grinned. “And well, he wanted me to invite you over to dinner Friday night.”

            Brianne blinked.

            “It’s kind of a weekly tradition,” Mitch explained, his voice coming out a bit rougher than usual. “We watch game videos and work on his technique.”

            “Oh.” Brianne wasn’t sure what else to say to that piece of information.

            “And well…we both agreed, it might actually be good for you to watch it with us so we could explain a few things to you.”

            “I see.” Though she tried to disguise her voice, wrap it into a mask of neutrality, Brianne felt a bit letdown by the words. Mitch was inviting her over (at his son’s request, no less) to watch hockey videos.

            “I realize it’s last minute notice,” Mitch offered, throwing his arms out wide at the sides. “But, if it helps, I’m making lasagna.” For the first time, he raised his eyes up to fully catch the expression on her face. Then, surprisingly, he winked. “And I make a damn good lasagna.”

            Chuckling, anything to save face, to show him that she was just as personally unaffected by this conversation as he seemed to be, Brianne took a moment to respond. At last, her voice spoke, slow and low in the evening air. “As it happens, Italian food is my favorite.”

            Mitch grinned. “Yeah?”

            “And I work during the day on Friday so…what time should I come over?” Because, despite the quiet disappointment ringing in the back of her head, Brianne wanted to spend the time with Mitch. With Cory. She was willing to take what she could get.

            “Six?”

            “Six it is,” Brianne murmured. Lifting her hand in a quiet salute, she shrugged. “Well…”

            “Yeah,” Mitch said, looking down at his wrist as if to check his watch, never mind the fact that it was far too dark for him to clearly read it. “I’d better get heading back.”

            “Me too.” Taking a step backward, Brianne smiled. “Oh, and Mitch?”

            He raised an eyebrow.

            “In case I forgot to mention it, I’m really excited.” Averting her gaze, Brianne forced out the words: “To, you know, be on the team.”

            His slow smile in response to this was so at odds with his usually reserved nature that Brianne wasn’t sure how to respond to that. Nothing exactly unusual there.

            “At least, in an official capacity,” Mitch returned.

            Brianne’s forehead crinkled but before she could ask what he meant, he’d already turned on his heel, his stride casting him quickly toward his waiting SUV. “Unofficially, you’ve been a part of this team since the first day I met you.”

            Standing stock still, her mouth gaping open in surprise as his words floated clearly, loudly behind him, Brianne decided it was best to say nothing in response to that at all. For one thing, she hadn’t a clue what to say, how to proceed. And for another, she was terrified that if she dug a little too deeply into his meaning, she’d only find herself dissatisfied again.

            Instead, Brianne simply followed Mitch’s lead and turned toward her car. Her steps were light and energetic as she unlocked the door. Her countenance flushed with excitement.