Bennett clenched his fingers around his beer. “That was different.”
“Why?”
“I thought you didn’t want to talk about it.”
“I don’t.”
“Then why’d you bring it up?”
Sandro let out an annoyed breath through his teeth. “I didn’t . . . Ugh. Never mind. Tell me about your favorite spots in LA.”
“Uh . . . why?”
“Because I need a distraction from the fact that I’m annoyed with you but still want to take you to bed.”
Bennett’s chest puffed out as a slow roll of desire and heat settled in his core.
“Don’t look so smug,” Sandro grumbled. “Tell me about LA.”
Bennett ate cheese and crackers and did.
“You turned it down?” Sitting in Sandro’s passenger seat as the sun began to set, Bennett forced himself not to sound judgmental when he said, “What the fuck for?” and failed miserably.
“Because team captain isn’t just a title,” Sandro said, smoothly navigating them out of downtown Burlington. “It comes with responsibilities I didn’t want. Dabbs is always in meetings with the GM and coaches, and they want his opinion on everything from the best day to throw the yearly holiday party to who to trade in exchange for a much-needed D-man. I don’t ever want to look at my teammates and have to decide which one of them to trade. I don’t want to lead, B—I just want to play. So I told them to give the captaincy to Dabbs instead. He’s got the head for it.”
“You guys don’t trade players all that often, though,” Bennett pointed out. “It’s what makes the Trailblazers the fairy tale of all teams.”
“We don’t,” Sandro acknowledged. “But that doesn’t mean they never happen. And trust me, we’re no fairy tale. We have our problems just like every other team.”
“Problems that will be solved by the new wellness initiative?”
Sandro side-eyed him. “Is this on the record or off?”
“There aren’t any cameras here, babe.”
A quick blink at the endearment, followed by an even quicker bewildered glance. “Right. Well, uh . . . no, to be honest. The wellness initiative isn’t going to solve anything. Will it help? Absolutely. But our problems aren’t going to magically disappear, and even if they did, new ones would crop up. No team is perfect. Maybe we look like a fairy tale to the outside world, but that’s not the reality.”
No, it wasn’t, and Bennett was beginning to see that. He saw it in how Eli Parker chafed at the restrictions that came with being an NHL player. At how Sandro would lend a shoulder to a teammate but wouldn’t let them do the same for him. Saw it, too, in how there was still a divide between the veterans and the rookies, despite Roman Kinsey’s best efforts at erasing it over the years.
Public perception versus reality was something Bennett would have to toe the line on with his docuseries. He needed to make everyone appear human in a way that didn’t shatter the illusion.
“This initiative was Roman’s idea?” he asked.
“Yeah.”
“Can’t help but notice that you didn’t say no to him either when he asked you to lead it.”
Sandro let out a disbelieving, “Ha!” before making a left turn. “I did say no. Repeatedly. Remember when I asked you to help me convince Roman I was the wrong person for the job? A task you failed spectacularly at, by the way.”
Ignoring that last part, Bennett said, “But you said yes in the end.”
“Technically, I didn’t.”
“It was non-verbal, and Roman and I both know it.”
Sandro mumbled something under his breath that Bennett didn’t catch.
“What’s the real reason you don’t want to lead this initiative?”
