Chapter 7 #2
“Oh, he dared you to do a cartwheel, did he?”
“Actually, he dared me to do the moonwalk, but I didn’t want to trip on my gown—it was weirdly too long, remember? So we compromised with a cartwheel.”
“How is a cartwheel a compromise? Better question: how come no one ever dared Jimmy to do anything?”
“Beats me. I think we were too busy fulfilling his dares or trying to dodge him to think about it.” Sandro did his climb-down, move-ladder, climb-back-up shuffle again. Bennett followed, his hands numb on the metal.
“Did you hear he got married?” Bennett said.
“Yeah. Eloped, right? With someone he’d known for only a few days?”
“That was, like, eight years ago, and they’re still together. I guess when you know, you know, right?”
“Hm,” Sandro said noncommittally, avoiding his gaze. “Do me a favor and pass me a string of lights? I need to plug them into this end.”
Bennett passed them up, cursing winter and Christmas and metal ladders. “Why didn’t you hire someone to do this?”
“Why? I can do it myself.”
Something warm swept through Bennett at the typical answer.
Sandro wasn’t an “I can do it myself because I don’t need help” kind of guy.
His reluctance to hire a professional for the lights had everything to do with his upbringing—he, like Bennett, had been raised by parents who didn’t believe in spending money on tasks they could do themselves.
Except Sandro was sixteen years into a lucrative and very successful NHL career. Bennett had googled his net worth—it was a lot. Like, a lot. Set-me-up-for-life a lot. The kind of money people like Bennett, who’d been raised by a single mom who worked three jobs, had only ever dreamed about.
The fact that Sandro still insisted on doing things himself if he could was charming as hell.
Bennett glanced over his shoulder, toward Sandro’s house. An older-model SUV was in the driveway, along with four tires—in addition to the ones on the car—and various tools spread around as if Sandro had dropped them there in surrender.
“What’s wrong with your car?” he asked.
“Nothing,” Sandro replied. “At the moment, anyway.”
“What’s with the tools then?”
“I thought I’d try DIYing it and swap my all-season tires for the winter ones myself. Then I remembered I know fuck all about cars and don’t care to learn.”
Bennett laughed, his breath pluming in front of him.
“I hope your rental has winter tires,” Sandro added.
“I never thought to ask.”
Sandro grunted as he climbed down the ladder. “That’s the West Coast in you.”
“Probably.”
“So,” Sandro said, moving the ladder a couple of feet. “You never told me what your plans are for today.”
“For Thanksgiving?” Bennett blew on his hands to warm them. “Fowler doesn’t believe in Thanksgiving, and he paid for his crew to fly home to be with their families, so it’s just me. I’ll probably make a frozen pizza and work.”
“Sounds terrible” was Sandro’s opinion on that. “You’ll come with me to Hughes’ place.”
“Uh . . . what?”
“He’s hosting for all the single players today. Nothing fancy. Just takeout. You’ll come with me. We’ll leave once I’m done.”
“Why? You just said it’s not your Thanksgiving.”
Sandro sent him a who-the-fuck-cares look. “So? It’s really just an excuse to eat and drink too much. It’ll be fun. You’ll see.”
“Okay. Sure.” As if Bennett was going to argue about spending more time with Sandro. He was smarter than that.
Sandro dug into the box for another string of lights—probably the last one for this house. Bennett eyed the gloves on his hands. They were nice. Looked like wool. Thick enough to block the wind and cold but thin enough that Sandro could still handle the lights.
“Let me borrow your gloves.”
“No,” Sandro said, laughing. “Fuck you. Get your own.”
“Selfish asshole,” Bennett teased.
Sandro just laughed.
Spending the afternoon with Sandro’s teammates wasn’t how Bennett had seen his day going, but he couldn’t say he hated it.
In fact, he wished he had his camera so he could record the complete debauchery that was Thanksgiving with the single guys.
The contract with the Trailblazers gave him carte blanche to film downtime, but only at the arena.
Outside of the arena, he needed the players’ permission.
And since Sandro had invited him here—as a friend, maybe?—stepping into work mode would feel wrong.
Besides, Deeley was filming this clusterfuck waiting to happen with his phone. If anything, Bennett could ask him to forward him the video.
Hughes had set up his schoolyard-sized backyard with an obstacle course for two.
Now that everyone had gone, the two guys with the best times were about to compete for the title of Obstacle Course Master.
The prize was a gift card for a nearby golf course, a case of locally brewed craft beer, and for some reason, a pink, one-eyed stuffed bear with a half-chewed ear.
Bennett was still trying to figure out if the ear had been chewed by a teething baby or a teething puppy.
According to Matty Coates, the Trailblazers’ goaltender, who was here because he was off with his longtime on-again, off-again girlfriend, the bear had been passed from Obstacle Course Master to Obstacle Course Master for the past decade.
It was a coveted prize. The gift card and beer were just bonuses.
“Timekeeper,” Hughes called from where he was resetting the course. “Who are our top two contenders?”
Bennett consulted the clipboard. “Sandro and CC.”
CC, dark-haired and dark-eyed and with sun-kissed skin like Sandro, but with an air of I-belong-in-a-teen-magazine to Sandro’s I-belong-in-a-men’s-fashion-magazine, rubbed his hands together.
“Christ,” Sandro groaned from a lounge chair. “I’m too old for this.”
“Yes, because you’re so antiquated,” Bennett said.
Heaving himself out of the chair, Sandro said, “I am according to sports blogs.”
“Come on, old man.” CC, four years Sandro’s junior and thus that much nimbler, stood at the start line—an actual line Hughes had drawn in the grass with spray paint—hopping from one foot to the other. “Bring your A-game. I’m a three-time defending Obstacle Course Master, you know.”
“How could I forget?” Sandro said as he joined him. “You’ve only mentioned it a dozen times.”
Hughes’ cough sounded like he was covering a laugh. He joined Eli, Coates, and Deeley—who was still recording—on the sidelines, and the betting began. They were split fifty-fifty between Sandro and CC, each of them placing fifty bucks on their chosen candidate.
“How about you, Ben?” Deeley said. “Who’s your money on?”
“Bennett,” he corrected, waiting at the start line with his stopwatch—an actual stopwatch that Hughes had provided him with in place of the app on his phone. “And a hundred bucks on Sandro.”
“Ooh hoo-hoo-hoo,” crowed Eli. “Big money on the table.”
Bennett narrowed his gaze on Sandro. “Don’t let me down.”
“Have I ever?” Sandro quipped back.
The comment settled heavily over Bennett’s shoulders, reminding him that he was the one who’d let Sandro down all those years ago.
But it was clear Sandro hadn’t meant it the way Bennett had interpreted it—Sandro shrugged out of his leather jacket, leaving him in jeans and a sweater, and blew on his hands like he was about to step into the boxing ring—so Bennett let the past go and clutched the stopwatch.
“Timekeeper, are you ready?” Hughes asked.
“Yes, but is there a point to keeping time?” Bennett asked. “They’re competing for the championship. Whoever comes in first wins.”
Everyone looked at him with varying degrees of who brought this guy?
“How are we supposed to know if we beat the all-time record if you don’t keep time?” Sandro asked, like this was obvious.
“Right. Of course. What was I thinking?”
Sandro rolled his eyes at the sarcasm.
“And who owns the all-time record?” Bennett asked.
CC raised a hand. “I do. And I’m about to keep it.”
Sandro scoffed. “Don’t get cocky. It’s not a good look.”
“Players, are you ready?” Hughes asked.
Sandro and CC nodded.
“On your marks, get set—” Hughes blew the whistle, and they were off, their teammates cheering them on as if there was more than a creepy bear, a gift card, and beer on the line.
First were the hula hoops, ten rounds around the waist without the hula hoop falling to the ground. Harder than it looked, Bennett knew from his own recent try at the obstacle course.
CC completed it first, and he shot to the next challenge, Sandro not far behind him. Here, they hopped from plyo block to plyo block that got steadily higher until they reached the monkey bars. After that, they were rewarded with half a red Solo cup of beer they had to chug.
Then came the hard part: an egg on a spoon they had to keep safe with cold fingers while slightly inebriated as they jumped over hurdles—this was where Bennett had lost his egg—tiptoed across a balance beam, hopped through a net of ropes, and jumped on and off a series of chairs.
The eggs got deposited into a bucket gently enough so that they didn’t break, there was another half cup of beer to chug, and finally, gliding down what looked to have been slides stolen from a child’s backyard playground.
Bennett was waiting for Sandro at the bottom of the slide, where Sandro landed in a heap at his feet, giggling uncontrollably.
Charmed and amused in equal measure, Bennett offered him a hand up. “Proud of yourself?”
“Depends. Did I win?”
“Nope. Sorry,” Bennett said, Sandro’s hand surprisingly warm in his as he hauled him onto his feet. “CC won by half a second. No idea if he beat his record time, though.”
“Shut up.” Laughing, Sandro rounded on CC, who was already hugging the bear to his chest. “He won again?”
Deeley waved his phone. “I’ve got the video evidence.”
Sandro cocked his head, regarding CC with quiet contemplation that made Bennett sigh and CC back up a step.
“No.” CC held out a hand to ward off Sandro. “Whatever you’re thinking, no. Mr. Wiggles is mine.”
Sandro pushed up the sleeves of his sweater. “We’ll see about that.”