Mitts (OLD VERSION)

11. Family Game

Our third home game of every season was the family game. Everyone's families were invited to come, they got to sit in the VIP front rows at center ice, and we had a huge family dinner after the game.

I knew my parents weren't coming. I didn't even bother to invite them. We hadn't talked since I left home the day after graduation to stay with my grandparents in Texas for this past summer. We hadn't had a genuine conversation since I started testosterone on my 18th birthday last December. And they hadn't felt like my parents since I came out in 8th grade.

So, no. John and Mary Mitchell were not coming to Lowell to see their only kid play at a D1 level. They thought I was living with my grandparents and going to Austin Christian College to major in history education. They didn't know I was in Lowell, Massachusetts playing D1 men's hockey while majoring in mechanical engineering. And they didn't need to know.

"Jake, you need to run." Jamie rushed into the room, slamming the door shut behind him.

"What?" I asked.

"My family is on the way and-" Someone knocked on the door behind him.

"It's ok, Jamie." I chuckled, "Let them in, I basically know all of them from how much you talk about them."

He opened the door and four people walked in. A woman and a man in their early-40's, a teen girl who was probably in her junior year of high school, and a scrawny boy who had to be a freshman at most. All of them had wavy chesnut hair like Jamie's and tan skin. And I recognized all of them from the pictures Jamie had plastered on his corkboard and the stories he told me.

"Jake!" His mom, Ana, opened her arms with a grin. Jamie was a carbon copy of his mom, just taller.

"Mrs. Monteño, it's a pleasure to meet you." She hugged me, "Jamie has told me so many wonderful things about you."

"So polite, it's Ana my dear." She grinned at me, "Jamie has also told us a lot about you."

"All good things I hope." I chuckled.

"Pleasure to meet you, son." His dad, also named Benjamin, reached out his hand.

"You too, sir." I shook it, trying to remember all of the handshake tips that Trevy wouldn't shut up about at 3am on the bus home from Logan Airport.

"Please, it's just Ben." He chuckled, "Jamie, you didn't say how polite he was."

"Or that he had such a thick southern accent, you a cowboy or something?" His teenage sister, Andrea, asked.

"You must be Andrea." I smiled, "I'm just from Alabama, trust me I am not a cowboy. I can ride a horse though."

"Jacob, you didn't tell me that." Jamie gasped and I shrugged with a grin.

I looked over to his younger brother, Jack, who was most certainly freaking out right now, "Jack, right? How's everything with the lacrosse team going?" I asked him.

"It's going good. Really good!" He seemed shocked I knew his name, "Coach is letting me play with the guys and we've been training, and it's been good."

He was really nervous, "That's great. Don't let any of those net-heads give you a tough time, lax players are the worst." I chuckled.

"You just don't like them because of Gabe." Jamie rolled his eyes.

"Gabe almost ruined our numbers for the ideal gas law lab. Did you want to do that titration with HCl a third time?" I asked, "We already had to redo it because someone forgot to measure things before hand."

"Shut up." He rolled his eyes, "We had literally been up all night the night before doing calc."

"And watching Breaking Bad because you insisted on taking breaks," I pointed out.