Chapter 1 #2
“We wouldn’t have blamed you if you’d skipped the party,” Kas said. “You look beat.”
“I am beat. It’s been a crazy forty-eight hours.”
The problem with being from Tobermory, Ontario, was that getting there from almost anywhere was a gigantic pain in the ass. It was on the very tip of the Bruce Peninsula, which separated Georgian Bay from Lake Huron, and the municipal airport was only open between May and October.
And the problem with living in Burlington, Vermont, was that you could only fly to a few major airports direct.
Getting from Burlington to Tobermory in November meant flying from Burlington to Toronto with at least one layover, a prospect that could take anywhere from four to fourteen hours, depending on the length of that layover, then driving three and a half hours from Toronto to Tobermory.
Or he could hop in his car and be there in eleven to thirteen hours, depending on how long he got caught at the border and how many times he stopped to stretch his legs.
The problem with that was that his sojourns home during the season were often incredibly short, and by the time he made it back to Burlington, he felt a little like the bumpy spot of ice the Zamboni driver missed after a game. Rough around the edges and barely holding it together.
“Have you slept at all?” Kas asked.
“A few hours last night,” Sandro replied. “It feels like I got there just in time for my niece’s party, then almost right away turned back around again.”
“Because you pretty much did.”
Grunting an agreement, he forked a bite of the vegetable puree and grimaced. Wow, that was . . . How could something that smelled so good taste like utter disappointment?
Over by the sink, the dishes were deposited onto the counter with a crash that had Sandro and his friends wincing.
“I wanted to talk to you about Eli,” Roman said as Eli attacked Cotton’s food-spattered shirt with a dishcloth.
Sandro pushed the vegetable puree to the side of his plate and started in on the potatoes. “What about him?”
“I need you to mentor him this season.”
“Why? I thought Prinnie was doing that.”
Roman passed a hand over his shaved head, his green eyes holding a hint of sympathy. “He’s . . . got some personal stuff going on that’s preventing him from giving Eli the attention he deserves. So I need you to take over.”
“But why me? The last rookie I mentored asked for a trade.”
“Because he wanted a warmer climate,” Roman pointed out with an air of are we seriously having this discussion again. “Not because of anything you did wrong.”
“Debatable. Get Cotton to do it. He likes Eli.”
Not that Sandro didn’t. The kid was a good guy and a good player. Just that being a mentor wasn’t exactly in Sandro’s wheelhouse. And mentoring rookies was tricky business—they were just so . . . young. Sandro wasn’t sure he’d ever felt twenty-five, even at twenty-five.
Roman raised an eyebrow. It was very judgy. “Cotton’s already mentoring DeShawn James. So you’re it, buddy. Don’t argue with me,” Roman snapped as Sandro opened his mouth to do just that. “You’re doing it.”
Sighing, Sandro stole what remained of the breadstick out of Roman’s hand and used it to mop up the sauce from the potatoes.
Truth was, as the Trailblazers’ director of player engagement, Roman was in charge of the mentorship program.
So if he told Sandro to mentor every rookie on their team and on their AHL affiliate, Sandro would do it, if only as a favor to his friend.
“Fine, but when he asks for a trade at the end of the season, don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
“Who’s asking for a trade?” Eli asked, bounding up to the table, having apparently given up on Cotton’s shirt.
“No one,” Roman replied. “Kas, take Cotton upstairs and grab a T-shirt out of the dresser in my room. His shirt looks like a hamburger died on him.”
Kas chuckled. “Now there’s an image.”
Eli winced. “Sorry, man. I tried to get the worst of it out.”
“Don’t worry about it.” Kas patted him on the shoulder on his way toward Cotton. “Nothing a little stain remover won’t fix.”
Grabbing a plate, Eli added a heaping spoonful of the vegetable puree to it.
Roman stole the plate out of his hand, making Eli squawk, and replaced it with a clean one. “Save your taste buds and eat the roasted vegetables instead,” he said, surprising Sandro into a laugh. “Hey, Eli, remember I mentioned I’d have to assign you a new mentor?”
“Sure.”
Roman jerked a thumb at Sandro. “Zanetti’s it.”
“Yeah? Dude. That’s awesome. When do you want to meet up for our first session? Maybe we could grab a coffee tomorrow after practice? I could pick your brain about how best to prepare for the interview.”
Sandro blinked at him. “What interview?”
“The one that filmmaker is going to conduct. You know, the one who’s filming us for a Trailblazers documentary this season? What’s his name? Ben something?”
“Bennett,” Sandro said through lips gone numb. “Bennett Jackson.”
“Yeah, him. He sent an email today with details about player interviews.”
The food turning sour in his stomach, Sandro set his plate down.
When he’d first learned about the documentary, he’d been thrilled. A chance to show the world how hard they worked and how dedicated they were to the sport? That could only be a good thing. And if they managed a historic third consecutive Stanley Cup win?
The documentary would be glorious.
Except it turned out that the producer or filmmaker or whatever-the-fuck he was calling himself was none other than Sandro’s college sweetheart who’d dumped him a year after graduation with no explanation.
Sure, it had been fifteen years, but that didn’t mean the memory of it didn’t still throb like the echo of an old wound.
Sandro had been planning a future with Bennett right down to the color they’d paint the primary bedroom in the house they’d share one day, and poof!
Bennett dumped him, quit hockey after only a season in the NHL, and more or less disappeared off the face of the earth, taking all of Sandro’s hopes and dreams with him.
Why couldn’t he have stayed gone?
And these interviews . . . Sandro had been driving all day, so he hadn’t seen Bennett’s email.
He’d figured someone else would be conducting the interviews, maybe an experienced journalist or a grunt working under Bennett.
Bennett’s camera crew had been loitering around the arena since training camp, cameras at the ready, but Bennett had been noticeably absent.
But what if Bennett was the one behind the camera, picking at Sandro’s brain to get at the heart of who he was and what made him tick and why the game meant so much to him? Was Sandro supposed to make himself vulnerable for the guy who’d walked out on him?
Fat chance. He’d given everything to Bennett once before. He wasn’t doing it again.
He was suddenly thrust into the past, nineteen years old and ready for whatever the future brought.
“You know there are better ways of doing this, right?” an amused male voice said directly ahead of Sandro.
Sandro peered over the top of his mountain of groceries, held in his arms like an offering, and met blue eyes creased at the corners with laughter.
Those eyes belonged to a guy in his late teens, like Sandro, with several-shades-of-blond hair that curled behind his ears and an easy grin that Sandro fell right into.
An energetic zip of awareness flooded his system, and he smiled back.
“In my defense, I only came in for one thing.”
“How’s that going for you?”
Sandro shifted the mountain slightly in his arms. “So far so good. But I saw the toilet paper’s on sale, and I fear that if I add that to my Leaning Tower of Pisa, I may regret it.”
“I can offer a hand,” the guy said, holding it out. The other held a bottle of hot sauce. “I really did come in for one thing.”
Shaking his head, Sandro slammed the door firmly shut on the memory of his and Bennett’s first meeting and forced a smile for Eli. “Tomorrow. Coffee. Super.”
Eli beamed and took his roasted vegetables into another room.
Oh-so casually, Roman plucked the remaining chicken skewer off Sandro’s plate and took a bite. “So. Want to tell me what’s going on between you and Bennett Jackson?”
“There’s nothing going on.”
“If you’re going to lie to me, at least come up with something better.”
But it wasn’t a lie. There was nothing between them, not anymore, and there never would be again.