Sighing, Sandro stole what remained of the breadstick out of Roman’s hand and used it to mop up the sauce from the potatoes. Truth was, as the Trailblazers’ director of player engagement, Roman was in charge of the mentorship program. So if he told Sandro to mentor every rookie on their team and on their AHL affiliate, Sandro would do it, if only as a favor to his friend.
“Fine, but when he asks for a trade at the end of the season, don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
“Who’s asking for a trade?” Eli asked, bounding up to the table, having apparently given up on Cotton’s shirt.
“No one,” Roman replied. “Kas, take Cotton upstairs and grab a T-shirt out of the dresser in my room. His shirt looks like a hamburger died on him.”
Kas chuckled. “Now there’s an image.”
Eli winced. “Sorry, man. I tried to get the worst of it out.”
“Don’t worry about it.” Kas patted him on the shoulder on his way toward Cotton. “Nothing a little stain remover won’t fix.”
Grabbing a plate, Eli added a heaping spoonful of the vegetable puree to it.
Roman stole the plate out of his hand, making Eli squawk, and replaced it with a clean one. “Save your taste buds and eat the roasted vegetables instead,” he said, surprising Sandro into a laugh. “Hey, Eli, remember I mentioned I’d have to assign you a new mentor?”
“Sure.”
Roman jerked a thumb at Sandro. “Zanetti’s it.”
“Yeah? Dude. That’s awesome. When do you want to meet up for our first session? Maybe we could grab a coffee tomorrow after practice? I could pick your brain about how best to prepare for the interview.”
Sandro blinked at him. “What interview?”
“The one that filmmaker is going to conduct. You know, the one who’s filming us for a Trailblazers documentary this season? What’s his name? Ben something?”
“Bennett,” Sandro said through lips gone numb. “Bennett Jackson.”
“Yeah, him. He sent an email today with details about player interviews.”
The food turning sour in his stomach, Sandro set his plate down.
When he’d first learned about the documentary, he’d been thrilled. A chance to show the world how hard they worked and how dedicated they were to the sport? That could only be a good thing. And if they managed a historic third consecutive Stanley Cup win?
The documentary would be glorious.
Except it turned out that the producer or filmmaker or whatever-the-fuck he was calling himself was none other than Sandro’s college sweetheart who’d dumped him a year after graduation with no explanation. Sure, it had been fifteen years, but that didn’t mean the memory of it didn’t still throb like the echo of an old wound. Sandro had been planning a future with Bennett right down to the color they’d paint the primary bedroom in the house they’d share one day, and poof! Bennett dumped him, quit hockey after only a season in the NHL, and more or less disappeared off the face of the earth, taking all of Sandro’s hopes and dreams with him.
Why couldn’t he have stayed gone?
And these interviews . . . Sandro had been driving all day, so he hadn’t seen Bennett’s email. He’d figured someone else would be conducting the interviews, maybe an experienced journalist or a grunt working under Bennett. Bennett’s camera crew had been loitering around the arena since training camp, cameras at the ready, but Bennett had been noticeably absent.
But what if Bennett was the one behind the camera, picking at Sandro’s brain to get at the heart of who he was and what made him tick and why the game meant so much to him? Was Sandro supposed to make himself vulnerable for the guy who’d walked out on him?
Fat chance. He’d given everything to Bennett once before. He wasn’t doing it again.
He was suddenly thrust into the past, nineteen years old and ready for whatever the future brought.
“You know there are better ways of doing this, right?” an amused male voice said directly ahead of Sandro.
Sandro peered over the top of his mountain of groceries, held in his arms like an offering, and met blue eyes creased at the corners with laughter. Those eyes belonged to a guy in his late teens, like Sandro, with several-shades-of-blond hair that curled behind his ears and an easy grin that Sandro fell right into. An energetic zip of awareness flooded his system, and he smiled back. “In my defense, I only came in for one thing.”
“How’s that going for you?”
Sandro shifted the mountain slightly in his arms. “So far so good. But I saw the toilet paper’s on sale, and I fear that if I add that to my Leaning Tower of Pisa, I may regret it.”
“I can offer a hand,” the guy said, holding it out. The other held a bottle of hot sauce. “I really did come in for one thing.”
