Chapter 12 #2
Eli came in as Sandro was wolfing down a sandwich and a Gatorade, feeling incrementally better with each bite. Eli was still in his skates, and as he ripped off his helmet and flung it aside, one of Bennett’s camera operators walked into the kitchen.
Sandro ignored him and focused on his teammate. “What’s wrong?”
“What’s not wrong, Jesus Christ,” Eli muttered, clearly having as off a day as Sandro. Unlike Sandro, he’d done better at handling whatever was bothering him during the game.
The rookie keeping his cool while the veteran couldn’t keep his shit together.
Weird.
“Fuck, I’m so tired of Coach breathing down my neck,” Eli blurted, frustration bleeding out of his every pore.
He tossed his gloves onto one of the leather couches.
“I know you can do better, Eli,” Eli said in what was clearly supposed to be Coach Madolora’s voice.
“Don’t let me down, Eli.” He rolled his eyes.
“Yes, because that’s exactly what I’ve set out to do tonight, Coach—let you down. God.”
“Is there a reason he thinks you can do better? Were your parents all-star players in their day or something and he expects you to play at their level?”
“What? No. My parents are regular people. Madolora was my coach in the juniors. He used to say that I could do great things.” Eli waved his hands around almost sarcastically.
“And he’s still saying I can do great things.
” More hand-waving. “But, like . . . fuck. It’s not just the hockey, you know.
It’s the appearances and the endorsements and the pressure and the community initiatives and five thousand other things that are required of an NHL player.
At least in the AHL I could mostly coast by.
This is . . .” He finished with a low growl that had Sandro eyeing him warily.
“How did you deal with all this pressure and outside noise your rookie season?” Eli asked.
Sandro leaned back against the counter next to the fridge and almost groaned. Not this again. “I don’t remember, Eli, it was a zillion years ago. I just did.”
“But how? There’s no way your first NHL season was all pinecones and rainbows. Or hell, maybe it was, I don’t know. Everything just rolls off you.”
“Seriously?” Sandro barked out a hard laugh and slammed his Gatorade onto the counter.
“You want to know what my first season was like, Eli? Professionally, it was a dream. I joined this team for their first season, and no, we weren’t the best, but we certainly weren’t the worst either.
Nobody truly believed we could fill seats in this arena—hell, they were talking about moving us to a different city—but we did.
Were things perfect? God, no. But it was fun and the guys on this team clicked like we’d been friends for years.
Personally?” His voice cracked, and he cleared his throat, avoiding Eli’s wide-eyed gaze.
“Personally, life was a fucking nightmare. I was here while my boyfriend was playing for a midwestern team, and after three amazing years together, suddenly he wouldn’t talk to me.
He wasn’t okay, but he wouldn’t admit it, and trying to speak to him was like shouting into the void.
My personal life was falling apart while my professional one was shooting for the stars, and it felt like I was being cleaved down the middle.
” Suddenly more exhausted than he’d ever been in his life, he rested his head back against the cabinets and closed his eyes.
“I dealt with it by playing good hockey, showing up for my teammates, and pretending everything was okay even though it wasn’t.
I gave hockey all of my attention because giving it to my boyfriend and getting nothing back made me fucking sad.
Was that the right decision? I don’t know.
Probably not, considering I got dumped just before the season ended.
But short of quitting everything and going to Chicago to be with him, I didn’t know what to do.
So I played hockey and hoped everything would fix itself in time. But it didn’t.”
Grabbing the Gatorade, he swallowed the last few sips and tossed the bottle into the recycling bin. “So no, Eli, my first season wasn’t all pinecones and rainbows, but I sure tried to pretend it was.”
Eli was staring at him, his eyes incredibly sad. “I’m sorry, Zanetti. I didn’t know any of that.”
Of course he hadn’t. Sandro had never told anyone what his rookie season had been like. Not even Roman and Kas knew the extent of it.
“I don’t think it’s your fault, though,” Eli added. “You and your man were so far away from each other. Sometimes the distance just doesn’t work.”
That was nice of him to say, but Sandro could’ve done more.
He’d always blamed Bennett for the end of their relationship.
Truth was, as more and more time went on without Bennett confiding in him, Sandro had buried his head further and further into hockey.
With the advantage of fifteen years of distance behind him—and with the reappearance of Bennett in his life—he put himself in Bennett’s shoes and didn’t like what he saw.
A boyfriend who’d retreated.
Was it possible Bennett had felt like Sandro wasn’t there for him?
“Thanks for saying that,” he said to Eli. “But I’m pretty sure we’re both at fault.”
“You were just kids,” Eli said kindly. “Maybe you weren’t ready for what came next.”
Sandro couldn’t help but chuckle. “Kids, huh? We would’ve been only a couple of years younger than you are now.”
“Yeah,” Eli said, a duh in his voice. “And weren’t you the one who called me a baby recently?”
“That was Kas.”
“I’m sure it was you.”
“Nope,” Sandro said. “It was Kas.”
Eli waved a hand. “Eh. You old vets are all interchangeable.”
Jaw dropping at the audacity, Sandro threw his sandwich wrapper at him. “I’m telling Roman to find you a new mentor.”
“Liar,” Eli said, cackling.
Dabbs knocked on the kitchen doorjamb and tipped his head in the direction of the locker room. “You guys coming? Coach wants to say a few words before the start of the second period.”
“Come on,” Eli said. “Let’s go win this thing.”
“Yeah.” Feeling lighter than he had in a long time, Sandro followed him out. “Let’s.”
“Coach.” Sandro jogged down the hallway to catch up with his coach after his post-game shower. “Got a second?”
Coach paused in front of his office. “Come to apologize again for earlier?”
That gave Sandro pause. “Ah, no? Did you want another apology? Because—”
“No, Zanetti, I don’t want another apology,” Coach said long-sufferingly, leading him into his office. “What I want is for you to seriously consider if going home for every birthday, anniversary, baptism, school play, gender reveal party—”
“I don’t go home for everything,” Sandro interrupted, dropping into the visitor’s chair. “But I hear you. Today was a close call.”
Sitting in his office chair, Coach steepled his fingers on the desk. “You’re the oldest player on this team, Zanetti. The younger guys look up to you. How do you think it looks to them if you show up late because you didn’t put them first?”
Sandro winced. “Not great.” He didn’t love being put on a pedestal for the younger players, but he’d been in their shoes, starry-eyed and practically fanboying over older, more experienced players.
“Look,” Coach said. “I know the NHL asks for a lot—I’m not blind to that—but you’ve always adapted well. And you’re one of the lucky ones who doesn’t live across the country from their family. But while you’re on this team, it needs to come first.”
That wasn’t an unrealistic ask, not in this profession, so Sandro nodded. “I’ll do better, Coach.”
“Will you?” Coach asked on a sigh. “Because you said that last season. And the season before. Frankly, it’s a miracle you’re not burned out.”
“I won’t have to say it next season, though.”
“Pretty sure you said that last season too.”
Sandro snorted a laugh.
The sandwich and the Gatorade had done wonders, as had the few minutes late in the first intermission that he’d had to himself to shake off the day.
He’d gone back in for the second period with a clearer head, and when the same Undergrounder had insulted Eli again, Sandro had passed to Eli, who had sunk the puck into the net.
Payback was ever so sweet.
The Trailblazers had won 4–2, and after the day Sandro had had, it was proof that he could always turn it around.
Plus, he’d scored early in the third, so . . . there was that.
“Is there something you wanted to talk to me about?” Coach asked. “Or can I go home?”
Sandro nodded. “I wanted to talk to you about Eli.”
“What about him?”
“He mentioned that you used to coach him?”
Coach grunted and sat back in his chair. “That’s right. Bright kid. Wicked fast. Tons of talent. I’m glad we could give him a spot on the roster this year. I look forward to seeing what else he can do.”
Rubbing his hands together, Sandro debated with himself for a moment.
After barely making it on time for the game, he didn’t have any right to ask anything of his head coach.
But as Eli’s mentor and teammate and friend?
Maybe he was about to step on Eli’s toes, but he couldn’t sit by and do nothing while Eli slowly wilted the longer the season went on.
Sandro had sat back and done nothing during Bennett’s season in Chicago, and look how that had turned out.
“You might want to rein in the tough love with Eli,” he said.
“It works with some people, like Hughes, who’ll just get in your face and prove you wrong out of spite.
But with Eli, the tough-love approach is going to make him feel small.
Isn’t there an expression about catching more flies with honey than vinegar? ”
“Gotta admit,” Coach said, “I never quite understood what that meant.”
“Hughes is the vinegar and Eli is the honey,” Sandro explained. “Like, you could shit on Hughes and he’d just shit on you back. But if you shit on Eli . . .”
Coach raised an eyebrow. “He’ll get flushed down the toilet?”