“You should’ve stayed a little longer,” Deeley added. “We had a pickleball tournament in Hughes’ basement.”
“Oh god.” Sandro laughed and removed his helmet. “Good thing I didn’t. I would’ve been utterly useless.” Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed Prinnie quickly strip out of his uniform as if he were angry with it, leaving him in his base layers, and quietly sneak out of the room in his socks.
“We were all utterly useless,” Deeley said. “Just ask CC.”
“How come you didn’t ask if I got home okay?” CC complained with a pout. “You stole Mr. Wiggles right out from under my nose—asking after my health and well-being is the literal least you can do.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Sandro said, removing his skates and leaving them by his stall. “And besides, you stayed with Hughes overnight. I don’t need to ask if you’re okay—Hughes always takes care of you.”
CC blinked at that, his gaze straying across the room to where the D-men’s stalls were located. Hughes was halfway out of his uniform, his back to them, hair matted to his head. CC let out a soft “Huh” that Sandro might’ve teased him about under different circumstances, but as it was, he wanted to check on Prinnie.
He found Prinnie in the workout room, sitting with his back against the mirrors, forearms resting on his bent knees. When Sandro entered the room, Prinnie’s eyes popped open, red-rimmed and echoing with pain.
“I don’t want to talk about it, Zanetti.” Prinnie’s voice sounded as red-rimmed as his eyes looked.
Sandro nodded and sat next to him, their shoulders touching. “Okay. I don’t want to talk about it either. But you stole my thinking spot, so you’ll just have to put up with my presence.”
That drew a short laugh from Prinnie. “Fucker.”
His amusement didn’t last long. He closed his eyes again and rested his head back against the mirror. Sandro eyed him for a moment, his heart hurting for his friend. He had a feeling whatever was going on had something to do with his marriage—he and his wife had been struggling for a while.
But if he didn’t want to talk about it, that was fine. Sandro could sit here as silent support until Prinnie got sick of him.
Extending his legs, Sandro crossed them at the ankles and let his mind drift. Everything hurt—no surprise there—but at this point in his life, it was background pain. He was hungry now that his stomach wasn’t threatening to rebel, but he had a meeting with Roman in half an hour to talk about the mentorship program and wellness initiative that he’d successfully managed not to think about ever since Roman had brought it up.
Him. Leading a mentorship program. Roman had lost his mind. The mere idea was laughable. It was absurd. It was?—
“Sarah and I have officially separated.”
“Ah, Prin.” He leaned his shoulder harder into Prinnie’s. “I’m sorry.”
“I guess it was inevitable.”
“What? Why would it be inevitable?”
Prinnie heaved a sigh and rubbed his thighs. “I was listening to a podcast recently, and a divorce lawyer was talking about divorce rates among professional athletes. Did you know the rate is super high? Almost seventy percent? And of that seventy percent, fifty percent of those marriages end within a year of the athlete retiring, so . . .” Prinnie shrugged, the movement jerky. “I guess it’s a good thing we’re getting it over with now, huh?”
“Hey.” Sandro leaned into him. “You guys are separating. That’s not a divorce.”
“Stats don’t lie, Zanetti.”
“No, but seventy percent isn’t a hundred percent. Things could still turn around.”
“They will or they won’t. I just . . .” Prinnie rubbed his thighs again. “I had to get out of the locker room. There was too much laughter, and the noise . . . it was stifling.”
Deeley and Sandbaker appeared in the doorway, probably so they could get a post-practice workout in, but Sandro shook his head and they retreated without a sound.
“I have a spare room,” he told Prinnie. “Why don’t you come stay with me for a bit until you find your footing?”
“Thank you, but no offense—I don’t really want to be around people right now.”
Sandro thought back to when Bennett had dumped him. About how he’d craved human connection afterward because being alone made his mind race. Made him remember all the times Bennett had visited from Chicago and forced him to confront the fact that he never would again.
But Prinnie wasn’t Sandro.
“No offense taken,” he said. “You smell really ripe, though, and that I take offense with.”
“Yes, because you smell like a dream yourself. Asshole.”
