“So.” Sandro tapped Bennett’s foot with his own, like he’d done earlier, but this time he left it there. “Tell me about LA.”
“What do you want to know?”
“How’d you end up there?”
“Arjun . . . You remember Arjun?”
Sandro toasted the absent Arjun with his beer. “Sure. From your study group. Liked my egg salad sandwiches best.”
“Right, well . . . No, wait, that was Meg. Arjun preferred the pulled chicken.”
“Nope. The egg salad. Ask him next time you talk to him.”
“I will,” Bennett muttered. “Even though I’m right.”
“Bet you a thousand bucks you aren’t.”
“A thou—Jesus fucking Christ. Only hockey players, I swear to god. I’ll bet you twelve dollars.”
Sandro laughed again, shoulders shaking, the skin crinkling around his eyes and somehow making him infinitely hotter.
Age looked good on him.
“Besides,” Bennett said to distract himself, “you already lost me a hundred bucks at Thanksgiving.”
“Yet I still ended up with Mr. Wiggles.”
“CC’s going to break into your place and steal that back, you know.”
Sandro let out a disbelieving tch sound. “No, he won’t.” He paused with his beer halfway to his lips and narrowed his eyes. “Wait, have you heard something? Spill.”
“I haven’t heard anything. He just seems like the type to do that.”
Cursing, Sandro pulled out his phone.
“What are you doing?”
“Making sure my house alarm is on.” Sandro tapped at his screen and put the phone away. “There. Done.”
“No one knows your code?”
“Just me.”
“Is it still 4-3-6-0?”
Sandro blinked at him. “And you, apparently.”
“Christ, Ro, you’re still using the same password you were using fifteen years ago? You’re just asking to be the victim of identity theft.”
“That is the literal least of my worries.”
“What’s the most of your worries?”
Had Bennett asked a decade and a half ago, Sandro would’ve given him an honest response. But this was a different Sandro, and even though Bennett was expecting the deflection, he was nevertheless disappointed when Sandro said, “Whether we’ll have enough crackers for all this cheese we’re about to get. What’s yours?”
Fuck, Bennett was tempted to give tit for tat, but if he wanted to get to know this version of Sandro, he had to be willing to let Sandro get to know this version of him.
Assuming Sandro wanted to.
