Chapter 7 #3
CC let out a high-pitched eep and started running.
“Mr. Wiggles?” Bennett asked as Sandro chased after CC.
“In our defense,” Hughes said, “he came with that name from the store. Had a little tag that said Hello, my name is Mr. Wiggles.”
“And you didn’t think to change it? Also, what happened to his eye? Actually, you know what? I don’t want to know.”
“That’s probably for the best. Besides, we’re going to play two truths and a lie now. If you guess wrong, you take a shot.”
“A shot, huh?” Bennett looked over his shoulder as he followed Hughes inside. Sandro was goading CC into a best-of-three game of rock-paper-scissors for possession of Mr. Wiggles. “I hope you have enough beds for all of us. Your teammates are half-drunk already.”
“Did you notice any cars out front when you arrived?” Hughes asked.
“Uh . . .” Closing the sliding door behind himself, Bennett thought back to when Sandro had pulled into Hughes’ driveway. “Now that you ask, no.”
“Because everyone took an Uber here, and they’ll take an Uber home later. Only CC will stay the night.”
“Because . . . you’re an item?”
“No.” Hughes’ smile was all confidence. “Not yet.”
Bennett didn’t know what to say to that, and he was saved from having to figure it out when Sandro, CC, Eli, and Matty Coates trooped into the house, Mr. Wiggles still in CC’s grasp.
Sandro shrugged at Bennett as he toed off his shoes and left them by the back door. “Sorry I cost you a hundred bucks.”
“Money well spent,” Bennett told him.
Sandro beamed at him, and a firecracker went off in Bennett’s chest.
“Who’s up first for two truths and a lie?” Hughes asked as he removed a pizza from the oven where it had been keeping warm. They’d eaten Chinese before the obstacle course. Apparently, the pizza was to be their second course.
Eli raised a hand. “I’ll go. When I was a kid, I released my pet fish into the pond by my house and he got eaten by a bird.”
“Morbid, Eli,” Sandro muttered.
“I once lost my wallet in the Mississippi River. And I crashed my bike into a cow on my twelfth birthday.”
“Why do all of those seem like they could be a possibility with you?” Deeley asked.
Eli waggled his eyebrows and grabbed a slice of pizza.
“The cow thing is the lie,” Matty Coates said. Sandro, Hughes, CC, and Deeley, seated at the kitchen table with the pizza, nodded.
“The fish,” Bennett countered, because Eli’s voice had been slightly higher when he’d told them that one.
Eli jerked a finger at him. “The fish is correct. Screw the rest of you for thinking I’d leave Fishy for the birds.”
“You named your fish Fishy?” Deeley said.
“How the fuck did you crash your bike into a cow?” Hughes asked.
“How did you lose your wallet in the Mississippi?” Sandro countered.
“All good questions.” Eli nodded solemnly but didn’t elaborate. “You, you, you, you, and you.” He pointed at Sandro, CC, Hughes, Coates, and Deeley in turn. “Take your shot.”
“You’re up, Director.” Hughes nodded at Bennett while the others downed a shot of tequila. “Since you got Eli’s lie right.”
“Oh, uh . . .” Ill-prepared, Bennett sat across from Sandro at the table and grabbed a slice of pizza.
He took a huge bite, chewing slowly to give himself time to think as Hughes put a second pizza in the oven.
“My mom once left a twenty-dollar bill under my pillow from the Tooth Fairy. I took a candle-making workshop a few years ago as research for a documentary that never got green-lit. And . . .”
His gaze caught on Sandro’s as he thought fast, his mind working.
And once upon a time, your teammate meant everything to me, and I haven’t managed a serious long-term relationship since because no one has ever made me feel as safe and loved and secure as he did. I was the center of his world, and I blew it.
He didn’t say it, but he wanted to. But Bennett didn’t know how much—if anything—Sandro had told his teammates about their shared history, so he kept it to himself.
Sandro must’ve read something on his face, though, because he sat back and crossed his arms over his chest, a challenging glint in his eyes.
“And I almost got married in Vegas last year,” Bennett said, his gaze never leaving Sandro’s, “when I met a model while I was there for work.”
Sandro’s expression darkened. A muscle jumped in his jaw. Bennett didn’t think Sandro would’ve let so much show on his face if he hadn’t been drinking since they’d arrived.
But it was proof that whatever had been between them, maybe it wasn’t as over as they both thought.
“That one,” Hughes said immediately. “The Vegas one. That’s the lie.”
Everyone else agreed, except for Sandro, who eyed him curiously, brow pulled low over his eyes, and said, “The candle-making is the lie.”
Damn. Sandro could still read him, even fifteen years later and flushed from too much booze.
Bennett tipped his head in acknowledgment. “The candle-making is the lie.”
The other guys erupted in shouts of laughter, and Hughes poured out more shots.
Although he didn’t have to, Sandro downed one too, then slammed the glass on the table.
When his eyes met Bennett’s, Bennett expected him to ask about Vegas, but instead, he quietly said, “What’d you do with that twenty dollars from the Tooth Fairy? ”
Because it was Sandro asking, and because his teammates were debating the percentage of Vegas marriages that ended in divorce and not paying them any attention, Bennett answered honestly. “I walked to the corner store and bought bread, milk, a few cans of soup, and a couple jars of pasta sauce.”
Sandro nodded like he hadn’t expected anything less.
Hughes slammed a hand onto the table. “Zanetti! You’re up.”
Sandro drank another shot because . . . why, exactly? “I was in the school choir until I was seventeen.”
Bennett choked on his bite of pizza, recalling how Sandro’s singing voice sounded like a cross between a drowning cat and an out-of-tune piano.
Sending him an impish grin, Sandro continued. “I won a dance competition in high school.”
With those two left feet? Bennett almost said.
“And I almost got married in Vegas last year when I met an actor while the team was there for a game.”
Bennett’s shoulders shook with silent laughter.
“I don’t remember no actor,” Deeley said. “So I’m going with that last one.”
“The dance competition is the lie.” Hughes nodded decisively. “I’ve seen him dance.”
“Rude,” Sandro said. “But fair.”
The guys were divided on their answers, but it wasn’t until Bennett said, “All of the above,” that Sandro laughed.
“Wha—All of the above?” Eli gaped at him. “What the hell, Zanetti?”
“Cheater,” CC announced. He pointed at Sandro with the creepy bear’s arm. “Mr. Wiggles says you’re a cheater.”
“Mr. Wiggles says I’m clever.”
“Mr. Wiggles says . . . wait. What’s that, Mr. Wiggles?” CC put his ear to the bear’s mouth. “Yeah, he says you’re a cheater.”
“How is this my life?” Bennett muttered to no one, but he laughed along with everyone else.
A few hours later, he and Sandro—and Eli, since he lived in the same complex—headed out.
Bennett stood in Hughes’ driveway with Sandro while Eli searched inside for his left shoe, which had mysteriously gone missing.
Sandro, three sheets to the wind and temptingly flushed, was singing a refrain of “ba-pa, baaaaa, ba, ba, ba, ba-pa” to a rhythm he seemed to make up on the spot while he twirled in place.
Bennett’s stomach tumbled over itself. Longing and regret pulsed within him, and he wanted nothing more than to draw Sandro to him and kiss him under the stars until neither of them could breathe.
He was beautiful, whether he was sitting in a coffee shop with Eli or gearing up for a game. But with his arms stretched out as he twirled and singing to the tune in his own head, he was the magic Bennett had been missing in his life.
“Found it!” Eli announced, bouncing outside with one shoe on and the other held aloft in victory. “Can we get McDonald’s on the way home?”
“Definitely not.” Bennett held a hand out to Sandro. “Keys.”
Sandro passed them over without argument. “Don’t puke in my car,” he said to Eli as they climbed in.
“Please.” Eli scoffed. “I’ve got an iron stomach. Hey, Bennett?”
“Yeah?” Bennett said, following the GPS to Eli’s place.
“How come you’re sober?”
In the passenger seat, Sandro angled himself to face him. “Good question.” He poked Bennett in the shoulder. “How come you’re sober?”
“Because I chugged two half glasses of beer during the obstacle course about, oh, five hours ago, and I’m really good at two truths and a lie. Besides, I don’t drink much anyway. Not since Vegas.”
Eli yawned in the back seat. “How long did you know that model for before you almost married him? Or her.”
“Him. And four days.”
Sandro rested his cheek against the back of his seat and regarded him with eyes made darker by the night. “Did you wish it was me you were almost marrying?”
“Christ, Ro.” Squeezing the steering wheel in both hands, Bennett groaned. “Don’t ask me that.”
A snore came from behind him.
Sandro looked back at Eli and dissolved into laughter.
“I’m surrounded by children,” Bennett said, mostly teasing.
That just made Sandro laugh harder.
They dropped Eli off without incident, and he swayed his way up the walkway to his building with Bennett calling out to him to drink a glass of water before he went to bed. Eli waved his shoe over his shoulder and disappeared inside.
Sandro rolled his lips inward and let them out with a pop. “I could use some water.”
“No shit,” Bennett said with a laugh, pulling into Sandro’s driveway. His car was still parked at the curb, the sandwiches he’d purchased hours ago no doubt soggy and gross, and the lights Sandro had installed earlier were lit up against the darkness.
He escorted Sandro up to his front door, and as he tried the keys on Sandro’s keyring to find the right one, Sandro whispered, “B. Psst, B,” as if Bennett wasn’t right there. “Check this out.” He unzipped his jacket, revealing the head of a pink one-eyed bear with a half-chewed ear.
Bennett’s jaw dropped. “Did you . . . Did you steal Mr. Wiggles from CC?”
As if on cue, Sandro’s phone rang in his pocket.
Sandro snickered. “How much do you want to bet that’s CC?”
Chuckling, Bennett pushed Sandro’s front door open. “He’s going to murder you. And you won’t even see it coming.”
Sandro laughed again and tripped his way into the house. “Shh,” he said, as if he wasn’t the one causing the racket.
“God, I forgot what a sloppy, giggly drunk you are.”
“Did you miss me sloppy and giggly and drunk?” Sandro asked, setting Mr. Wiggles on a side table. His phone stopped ringing and he muted the ringer.
“Not particularly. I prefer you sober.”
Sandro leaned into him. “Did you miss me sober?” As if his strings had been cut, he fell into Bennett and tucked his face into his neck.
“I missed you,” he whispered on an exhaled breath that tickled Bennett’s skin.
“You smell good. How come you don’t smell like pizza?
Why did you go away? Can I have some water now? ”
“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.” Bennett stuck his nose in Sandro’s hair.
Sandro did smell like pizza, but also like whatever shampoo he’d used this morning.
He was pliant and warm and so very real in Bennett’s arms. The need to hug Sandro close nearly overwhelmed him, yet he somehow managed to push Sandro away by the shoulders. “Water,” he croaked. “Be right back.”
Leaving Sandro in the entranceway, he walked the few feet into the kitchen, slapped on the light, and banged cupboards open and closed until he found the glasses. He filled one with water from the tap, sucking in a breath that didn’t smell like Sandro while he did so, turned—
And there was Sandro, leaning against the island, his eyes a tad clearer than they’d been a moment ago. “Are you going to go away again?”
God. Bennett had the odd sensation of his chest being carved out, and it was suddenly hard to breathe. “I live in California.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
Swallowing hard enough that his throat clicked, Bennett stepped closer and set the glass on the counter. He waited until Sandro grabbed it, his hand above Bennett’s, their fingers brushing, before saying, “No, Ro. I’m not going away again. Not unless you ask me to.”
Inhaling sharply, Sandro’s nostrils flared. He nodded once, though whether or not he believed Bennett was anyone’s guess. The glass felt like a bridge between them, a truce of sorts, middle ground where the way forward wasn’t muddled by their pasts.
Sandro’s gaze dropped to Bennett’s mouth. He licked his lips. Bennett still couldn’t get enough oxygen, and he swallowed to wet his dry throat. “I’m going to go,” he said, the words scraping his throat raw. He nodded at the glass of water. “Make sure you drink that.”
Sandro’s free hand clamped onto his wrist. “Stay.”
Closing his eyes, Bennett clenched his teeth.
His fingers jerked around the water glass before he very deliberately peeled them off.
He shoved his hands in his pockets so he wouldn’t take Sandro up on his invitation, but he couldn’t make himself step back.
Instead, he closed the distance between them, gratified by Sandro’s sharp inhale, and nudged Sandro’s nose with his own.
“The next time you ask me that,” he breathed against warm skin, “you better be sober.”
And he left before he did something he’d regret.