Chapter 2 #2
Bennett shook his head. “What I want for this series is honesty. If jeans and a hoodie will put you at ease, that’s fine.”
“Cool. So, second question. Can I have the questions in advance so I can prepare?”
Bennett had to laugh. “Fuck no. I don’t want you prepared. I want you honest.”
“Eh.” Eli shrugged, an easy smile on his face. “Worth a shot.”
They rounded another corner, and the smell of ice as they walked deeper into the arena hit Bennett with a bolt of nostalgia he hadn’t expected.
Although his own hockey days were fifteen years behind him and he didn’t regret leaving the sport when he had—hell, he’d been younger than Eli when he’d quit after his first and only season playing for Chicago—that didn’t mean part of him didn’t look at Eli and wonder what could’ve been.
And not just with hockey.
Eli led them into the meeting room, and as if Bennett had conjured him, there was Sandro Zanetti, standing by a table that held about eight thousand Gatorades.
His Sandy.
As Sandro laughed with one of his teammates, his head tilted back, his stubbled cheeks creased, white teeth reflecting the overhead lights, and laugh lines at the corners of his eyes, the force of his happiness nearly bowled Bennett over.
He’d never been sucker-punched, but he assumed this was what it would feel like: all the air leaving his lungs at once, the unexpectedness of the hit leaving him disoriented and unable to think clearly.
Except it wasn’t unexpected. He’d known Sandro would be here. Known it even as he’d been pitching a Vermont Trailblazers docuseries to David a year and a half ago. And not because they were Stanley Cup champions—that was awesome and all, but not the reason Bennett had advocated for this series.
It was the team. The culture. Their reputation for a welcoming and inclusive environment.
The fact that they focused on player development instead of trading troublesome or underperforming players.
The team unity they were rumored to foster.
The emphasis on team and not on select players carrying the whole.
That was the angle. Where the story lay, Bennett still wasn’t sure, but it sure as fuck wasn’t that they were defending champions like David thought.
The fact that Sandro was on this team had only made Bennett push harder for David to green light this project.
Now that Bennett was here, though . . .
Christ.
He pulled up player stats in his head to distract himself from the mix of shame, regret, and what-ifs swirling in his stomach like a bad cocktail.
Kyle Dabbs. Team captain. Thirty-three. Six foot four. Two hundred and nineteen pounds. Born and raised in North Bay, Ontario. Traded to the Trailblazers from Florida four years ago. Was dating Ryland Zervudachi, forward for the rival Columbus Pilots.
Bellamy Jordan. Forward. Thirty-one. Six feet tall. A hundred and ninety-two pounds. Born and raised in . . . in . . .
At the Gatorade table, Sandro and his teammate were chuckling over something on his phone.
Sandro Zanetti. Forward. Thirty-eight years old.
Six feet. A hundred and eighty-six pounds.
Had been a Trailblazer since the team’s first season.
Born and raised in Tobermory, Ontario, to Danica and Teo Zanetti, two of the sweetest people Bennett had ever met.
One of four siblings and twenty-two cousins.
Consistently walked into a grocery store for one item and came out with more than a dozen.
Had made Bennett and his study group a selection of gourmet sandwiches for their contemporary film theory exam study session their junior year at the University of Michigan.
Could recite the alphabet backward, but, oddly, only when he was drunk.
Had gifted Bennett a fake potted tree for their two-year anniversary that he’d purchased at the dollar store because they’d agreed on a five-dollar spending limit for the occasion, given they’d been broke college students.
“It’s kinda scraggly,” Sandy said, laughter in his dark eyes. “Like you. All arms and legs.”
Heart a pile of mush, Bennett hugged the plant to his chest, the fake pine needles poking him in the neck, and pretended to be annoyed. “Why do you always have to roast me?”
“It’s my love language.”
Bennett still had that potted plant. Every year at the holidays, he hung little plastic Christmas ornaments on it.
That either made him very pathetic or very sad.
Both, maybe?
It wasn’t that Bennett was still carrying a torch for Sandy.
Not exactly. Just that with the benefit of hindsight, there was no denying that he could’ve handled things better.
Breaking up with Sandy and ending a four-year relationship with almost zero explanation before he’d crawled home to his mom’s to lick his mental wounds?
Not his brightest moment.
In fact, it was probably the single most colossally foolish thing he’d ever done.
But there’d been reasons for his actions, and although he hadn’t had the capacity to communicate those reasons at the time, now he was desperate for a chance to explain because . . .
Well, because Sandy wasn’t so much the one who got away as the one Bennett had been stupid enough to let go.
And considering their relationship was the one Bennett had compared every relationship to thereafter . . .
Okay, fine, yes, he was still carrying a torch for the guy.
Pathetic and sad.
And given the way he’d ended things, he wouldn’t blame Sandy if he didn’t want anything to do with him.
But how did he tell the man who’d once meant everything to him that he’d broken up with him because the pressures of playing for Chicago had made him hate the sport—and thus his life—and he’d left Sandro because he’d had to deal with his shit and he hadn’t wanted to drag Sandro down with him? Would Sandy even care anymore?
Casually, as if Sandy had known he was there this entire time, he lifted his dark-eyed gaze from the phone and met Bennett’s from across the room. There were a dozen feet between them, yet the distance felt like a yawning chasm, wide and bottomless.
The breath caught in Bennett’s throat, and he was suddenly hyperaware of the space he took up in the room in a way he hadn’t been before. Trailblazers’ players, coaches, and staff mingled and laughed and shot the shit while Eli waved at the GM to grab his attention.
Sandy held Bennett’s gaze and Bennett’s lungs squeezed tight.
Fuck, Sandy was even more handsome now than he’d been at twenty-two.
He’d always had a naturally sun-kissed hue to his skin that he’d inherited from his father, and his jaw was more angular than Bennett remembered, his face long and narrow with cheekbones that went on forever.
His dark brown hair was short, sitting in a messy, just-got-out-of-bed cap on his head, and the short beardstache was sexier than it had any right to be.
He was broader and more muscular than he had been fifteen years earlier, the NHL having kicked his fitness into shape.
Bennett was staring at what could’ve been and it felt farther away than ever.
Hi, he mouthed, desperate for any reaction from Sandy. A smile, a wave. Hell, even a fuck you, because that would at least mean that Sandy felt something.
Sandy swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing visibly, and something flickered behind those dark-as-sin eyes. Surprise? Bitterness? Apprehension?
Once, Bennett had been able to read him like a book.
Had practically made it his job to know everything about him.
Now, there were too many years between them, and Sandy’s expression was closed off in a way it had never been before.
In fact, it was so closed off that Bennett didn’t expect him to respond, and his gut cramped in preemptive loss.
But hi, Sandy mouthed back.
Bennett let out a puff of air, a mix of shock and delight punching through him.
“You okay?” Fowler asked.
“Huh?”
“Bennett, Fowler.” The GM, Ramsey, approached with a wide grin. “You found us. Thanks for going to get them, Eli.”
“Sure thing,” Eli said and pulled out a chair at the table.
Ramsey positioned himself directly in front of Bennett, nearly blocking his view of Sandy. Bennett leaned sideways slightly to keep Sandy in sight.
Sandy raised an eyebrow like he was amused by him, which sent Bennett’s stomach into a freefall.
“What’s the plan for today?” Ramsey asked.
Fowler elbowed Bennett in the ribs, a clear get it together, and he pulled his gaze off Sandy and got to work, feeling a little more hopeful than he had in a long time.
“Who wants to start us off?” The Trailblazers’ director of player engagement, Roman Kinsey, stood at the front of the room as the meeting finally got started, holding a plastic bowl filled with folded pieces of paper.
He gave the bowl a shake and held it aloft over the center of the massive table.
“I’m going to volunteer someone in three, two—”
“I’ll bite,” Team Captain Kyle Dabbs said, reaching into the bowl.
From where he sat at the back of the room with Fowler, Bennett frowned. Were they . . . picking names for Secret Santa? Not out of the realm of possibility, considering the holiday was less than six weeks away.
Except Dabbs unfolded the slip of paper, gave it a quick glance, and said, “CC.”
So, not Secret Santa.
Or, at least, not secret.
Across the table from Dabbs, Colter “CC” Clarke linked his fingers together and held them under his chin, batting his eyes.
Dabbs set the slip of paper aside. “That was an epic goddamn game-winning goal against Minnesota last week.”
“Fuck yeah,” CC crowed as a few other guys banged the table in agreement.
Fowler leaned closer to Bennett. “What is happening?” he asked quietly.
Bennett shook his head. Fuck if he knew.
Roman Kinsey held the bowl out to CC.
“Prinnie,” CC announced with a flourish, reading off the paper he’d selected out of the bowl. He turned to the man next to him. “You smell really good today.”