“Shit, fuck, sorry.” Eli braced the dishes, gripping the tower on both sides as they tiptoed toward the sink. Of course, the cat got underfoot, nearly sending them sprawling, and Cotton cursed again.
“Who said he was a smart baby?” Kas murmured.
Sandro couldn’t help but laugh. Smart but clumsy.
“Hey.” Roman Kinsey—the host of tonight’s birthday party—inserted himself between them. He set his beer on the table and grabbed a breadstick out of the bread basket, waving it in Cotton’s direction. “What happened over there?”
“Eli happened,” Sandro said.
“And your cat,” Kas added.
Roman bit off the end of the breadstick. “Why doesn’t either of those things surprise me?” He clapped Sandro on the shoulder. “Glad you could make it.”
“I said I’d be here,” Sandro said around a mouthful of food.
“We wouldn’t have blamed you if you’d skipped the party,” Kas said. “You look beat.”
“I am beat. It’s been a crazy forty-eight hours.”
The problem with being from Tobermory, Ontario, was that getting there from almost anywhere was a gigantic pain in the ass. It was on the very tip of the Bruce Peninsula, which separated Georgian Bay from Lake Huron, and the municipal airport was only open between May and October.
And the problem with living in Burlington, Vermont, was that you could only fly to a few major airports direct.
Getting from Burlington to Tobermory in November meant flying from Burlington to Toronto with at least one layover, a prospect that could take anywhere from four to fourteen hours, depending on the length of that layover, then driving three and a half hours from Toronto to Tobermory.
Or he could hop in his car and be there in eleven to thirteen hours, depending on how long he got caught at the border and how many times he stopped to stretch his legs.
The problem with that was that his sojourns home during the season were often incredibly short, and by the time he made it back to Burlington, he felt a little like the bumpy spot of ice the Zamboni driver missed after a game. Rough around the edges and barely holding it together.
“Have you slept at all?” Kas asked.
“A few hours last night,” Sandro replied. “It feels like I got there just in time for my niece’s party, then almost right away turned back around again.”
“Because you pretty much did.”
Grunting an agreement, he forked a bite of the vegetable puree and grimaced. Wow, that was . . . How could something that smelled so good taste like utter disappointment?
Over by the sink, the dishes were deposited onto the counter with a crash that had Sandro and his friends wincing.
“I wanted to talk to you about Eli,” Roman said as Eli attacked Cotton’s food-spattered shirt with a dishcloth.
Sandro pushed the vegetable puree to the side of his plate and started in on the potatoes. “What about him?”
“I need you to mentor him this season.”
“Why? I thought Prinnie was doing that.”
Roman passed a hand over his shaved head, his green eyes holding a hint of sympathy. “He’s . . . got some personal stuff going on that’s preventing him from giving Eli the attention he deserves. So I need you to take over.”
“But why me? The last rookie I mentored asked for a trade.”
“Because he wanted a warmer climate,” Roman pointed out with an air of are we seriously having this discussion again. “Not because of anything you did wrong.”
“Debatable. Get Cotton to do it. He likes Eli.”
Not that Sandro didn’t. The kid was a good guy and a good player. Just that being a mentor wasn’t exactly in Sandro’s wheelhouse. And mentoring rookies was tricky business—they were just so . . . young. Sandro wasn’t sure he’d ever felt twenty-five, even at twenty-five.
Roman raised an eyebrow. It was very judgy. “Cotton’s already mentoring DeShawn James. So you’re it, buddy. Don’t argue with me,” Roman snapped as Sandro opened his mouth to do just that. “You’re doing it.”
