“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.
