Chapter 9 #2
“What have you got planned for the rest of the day?” Sandro asked, and was it Bennett’s imagination, or had his voice gone a touch husky?
“Not much. Work.”
“Hm.” Sandro nodded slowly. “You seeing anyone these days?”
There went Bennett’s pulse again. “No. There’s been nobody since I almost got married in Vegas,” he said, just to see the anger darken Sandro’s face like it had at Thanksgiving.
“Uh-huh,” Sandro practically growled. “The model. That what you’re into now? Sleek and perfect and flawless?”
“That was a passing phase. I’ve always been into darkly handsome hockey players who don’t know how to say no.”
Instant scowl from Sandro. “I know how to say no.”
“That why you’re attending your brother’s birthday dinner on Sunday?”
“What’s wrong with that? I’ve got the time.”
“You have forty-eight hours between Saturday night’s game and Monday night’s, and now twenty-four of those will be spent driving.”
“Which gives me twenty-four hours at home.”
“Several of which will be spent sleeping. Is that really worth the trip? Worth you not being at a hundred percent for Monday’s game?”
Sandro shrugged. “It’s worth it for me. I used to do it for you, too, when we were together. Remember?”
Bennett opened his mouth to argue . . .
But couldn’t.
Because Sandro had done that for him. And the drive from Burlington to Chicago was two to three hours longer than the Burlington-Tobermory drive.
That was Sandro, though. Always showing up for the people he loved.
Which was no doubt why he was so insistent that he had another two to three years left with the Trailblazers. They were his family too. Retiring from hockey would no doubt make him feel like he was abandoning that family.
Had Sandro recognized that in himself? His body was beginning to fail him—Bennett had been around the team long enough now to notice which players were the most in pain, and Sandro made the top of the list—yet Sandro refused to acknowledge it.
“You’re not in your twenties anymore, though,” Bennett pointed out. “And your teammates are counting on you.”
“Oh, fuck you.” A splash of anger darkened Sandro’s cheeks. “I’ve never let them down.”
“You will if you’re not at your best on Monday. And your family will understand if you don’t show up. They know what you do for a living—I’m sure this wouldn’t be the first event you haven’t been able to attend.”
“It’s not.” Sandro swallowed the last of his beer. “Which is why I try to make it for the ones I can attend.”
“Even if it means you’ll be exhausted for the game?”
“I’ll be fine.”
“Jesus, you’re stubborn.”
“Seriously?” A genuine laugh burst out of Sandro. “Says the guy who insisted—for our entire rookie season—that he was fine when he clearly wasn’t?”
Bennett clenched his fingers around his beer. “That was different.”
“Why?”
“I thought you didn’t want to talk about it.”
“I don’t.”
“Then why’d you bring it up?”
Sandro let out an annoyed breath through his teeth. “I didn’t . . . Ugh. Never mind. Tell me about your favorite spots in LA.”
“Uh . . . why?”
“Because I need a distraction from the fact that I’m annoyed with you but still want to take you to bed.”
Bennett’s chest puffed out as a slow roll of desire and heat settled in his core.
“Don’t look so smug,” Sandro grumbled. “Tell me about LA.”
Bennett ate cheese and crackers and did.
“You turned it down?” Sitting in Sandro’s passenger seat as the sun began to set, Bennett forced himself not to sound judgmental when he said, “What the fuck for?” and failed miserably.
“Because team captain isn’t just a title,” Sandro said, smoothly navigating them out of downtown Burlington.
“It comes with responsibilities I didn’t want.
Dabbs is always in meetings with the GM and coaches, and they want his opinion on everything from the best day to throw the yearly holiday party to who to trade in exchange for a much-needed D-man.
I don’t ever want to look at my teammates and have to decide which one of them to trade.
I don’t want to lead, B—I just want to play.
So I told them to give the captaincy to Dabbs instead. He’s got the head for it.”
“You guys don’t trade players all that often, though,” Bennett pointed out. “It’s what makes the Trailblazers the fairy tale of all teams.”
“We don’t,” Sandro acknowledged. “But that doesn’t mean they never happen. And trust me, we’re no fairy tale. We have our problems just like every other team.”
“Problems that will be solved by the new wellness initiative?”
Sandro side-eyed him. “Is this on the record or off?”
“There aren’t any cameras here, babe.”
A quick blink at the endearment, followed by an even quicker bewildered glance.
“Right. Well, uh . . . no, to be honest. The wellness initiative isn’t going to solve anything.
Will it help? Absolutely. But our problems aren’t going to magically disappear, and even if they did, new ones would crop up.
No team is perfect. Maybe we look like a fairy tale to the outside world, but that’s not the reality. ”
No, it wasn’t, and Bennett was beginning to see that.
He saw it in how Eli Parker chafed at the restrictions that came with being an NHL player.
At how Sandro would lend a shoulder to a teammate but wouldn’t let them do the same for him.
Saw it, too, in how there was still a divide between the veterans and the rookies, despite Roman Kinsey’s best efforts at erasing it over the years.
Public perception versus reality was something Bennett would have to toe the line on with his docuseries. He needed to make everyone appear human in a way that didn’t shatter the illusion.
“This initiative was Roman’s idea?” he asked.
“Yeah.”
“Can’t help but notice that you didn’t say no to him either when he asked you to lead it.”
Sandro let out a disbelieving, “Ha!” before making a left turn. “I did say no. Repeatedly. Remember when I asked you to help me convince Roman I was the wrong person for the job? A task you failed spectacularly at, by the way.”
Ignoring that last part, Bennett said, “But you said yes in the end.”
“Technically, I didn’t.”
“It was non-verbal, and Roman and I both know it.”
Sandro mumbled something under his breath that Bennett didn’t catch.
“What’s the real reason you don’t want to lead this initiative?”
Sandro made a face at him. “I don’t have experience with organizing this kind of thing, B. I don’t even know where to start.”
It was the same excuse he’d given Roman, but there was more to it than that.
Bennett was sure of it. This wasn’t the first time Sandro would be working on something he knew nothing about.
He’d voluntarily taken a logic course through the philosophy department at U-M, and it had been the source of his all-nighters and sleepless nights for an entire semester.
His sister had once asked him to organize the surprise party for their mom’s birthday, and he’d spent hours googling event planning as though studying for a midterm.
And their college hockey coach had tasked Sandro with overseeing their senior year family weekend, which he’d stressed about up until the last parent had left.
He could develop Roman’s initiative. He just didn’t want to.
Bennett opened his mouth to point that out when he registered where they were. “How’d you know where I’m staying?”
“The organization owns this row of townhomes,” Sandro said as he parked in the circular driveway of a pitched-roof, two-story building split into three separate townhouses that was situated next to a cliff with views of Lake Champlain and the Adirondacks.
“It’s where they always put visiting stakeholders. Which one’s yours?”
“The far one. Seventeen C.”
“That’s the one Dabbs lived in last season when he got kicked out of his place. He has two dogs,” Sandro explained at Bennett’s raised eyebrow. “And his landlord didn’t allow dogs.”
“Huh. Who knew there was a bit of badass in Team Captain Kyle Dabbs?”
“I mean, he’s dating a player from a rival team. He’s definitely not as squeaky clean as he appears on the surface. Oh, hey, there’s your camera guy.”
Camera bag over one shoulder, Fowler Bugg exited the front door of the middle townhouse and locked it behind him.
He either didn’t notice or didn’t care about Bennett and Sandro sitting in Sandro’s car nearby—with Fowler, either could be true—because he got in his rental car and drove away without a glance in their direction.
“Where’s he off to?” Sandro asked.
“Meeting between your coaches and the GM about your upcoming road trip,” Bennett told him.
“That’s not something you want to sit in on?”
“No. I’m right where I want to be.”
Sandro’s eyes locked onto his. His right hand loosely held the steering wheel; the other arm was casually propped up against the windowsill.
He looked like a fallen angel. Bennett had always thought so. Physically, Sandro was the darkness to Bennett’s light.
But he’d been the light to Bennett’s darkness in every other way, even when Bennett had been falling apart during his rookie season in Chicago.
Selfishly, Bennett wanted that light back.
He hadn’t forgotten that Sandro had said he wanted to take him to bed. But just because he wanted to didn’t mean he would.
Bennett wanted him so goddamn badly. Wanted to pull Sandro close and kiss him.
Feel Sandro’s beardstache rake against his jaw and his hands grip him closer and their lips cling hotly.
He wanted to trace the curve of Sandro’s cheeks with his fingertips and then with his lips before tracing the muscles in his shoulders, his biceps, his pecs, his abdomen.
Lower.
Sometimes Bennett thought he could feel the echoes of Sandro on his skin like a ghostly touch.
Sandro’s breathing sped up so minutely that Bennett wouldn’t have noticed had he not been paying such close attention to him.
He also noticed Sandro’s knuckles whiten around the steering wheel and the twin spots of color high on his cheekbones.
Sandro licked his lips, and Bennett had to force himself not to pounce.
Inhaling sharply, he unbuckled his seat belt and picked up his box of leftover cheese and crackers from the footwell. “If you want someone to bounce ideas off of for the wellness initiative, I’m happy to help.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. It’s a cool project. I’d love to be involved.”
“Okay,” Sandro said slowly. “But what about when you go back to LA?”
“I’m only a phone call away, Ro.”
Sandro met his gaze steadily, his meaning clear. You were only a phone call away back then too.
But he’d been a dumbass kid back then. Things were different now.
“I’ll let you know,” Sandro finally said.
Bennett nodded and propped his door open.
“What was the model like?”
Freezing with one foot on the pavement, Bennett let out a slow breath, his insides beginning to hop with an odd blend of arousal and hope. An inch at a time, he rotated in his seat to face Sandro. “Darren.”
The look Sandro sent him was very I don’t give a fuck what his name is, B.
Swallowing a laugh, Bennett said, “Sleek and perfect. But not flawless. That’s all airbrushing.”
Sandro swallowed, his throat clicking. He leaned forward, forearms draped over the steering wheel, his clenched fingers white with strain. “And what was it about him that had you almost marrying him after only four days?”
Bennett pulled his leg back in and closed the door. It was cold, for one thing, and for another, there was something about the privacy of the car that made it feel like they were the only two people in the world. Secrets were safe here.
“He made me forget, for a little while at least, that I’ve compared every relationship to what you and I had.”
Sandro turned his face away, looking out the driver’s side window. There was a spot at the base of his neck between his jacket collar and his hairline that Bennett ached to kiss.
“So why didn’t you marry him?” Sandro asked, still looking away. His voice sounded like a wave over a rocky seashore.
“Because I realized he wasn’t what I wanted.”
Sandro turned to him, a riot of emotion in his eyes. Fear, sadness, desperation—all there for Bennett to see. “What did you want?”
“In that moment?” Bennett thought back, recalling waking up next to Darren in a hotel room on the Strip the morning they’d been scheduled to get married and trying to imagine a future with him.
“Someone I could picture myself hosting backyard barbecues with or watching the sunset with after a long day or being excited to see after a business trip.”
“And he wasn’t that?”
“No. He definitely wasn’t.”
Whatever went through Sandro’s mind at that, Bennett couldn’t say. Sandro kept his thoughts off his face, which left Bennett somewhere in limbo, wishing that Sandro trusted him enough to let him in.
When a long minute passed without anything from Sandro, Bennett let out a quiet sigh and tapped his box of leftover cheese and crackers on his thigh. “I’ll be at the arena tomorrow. For the game.”
“I figured.”
“Okay.” Bennett opened his door and stepped out. “See you tomorrow.”
“See you.”
Rounding the hood, Bennett headed toward his house, both surprised and not when a car door slammed closed behind him, followed by the sound of footsteps. His heartbeat thumping to the tune of Sandro’s steps, Bennett unlocked his door and nudged it open before turning.
Sandro was closer than he’d expected, right there in Bennett’s space, cheeks flushed, eyes a little wild, and smelling like the soap he’d used after practice. With a tiny smile that hinted at what was to come, Sandro said, “I’m not drunk this time.”
Bennett pushed the door open wider.