Sandro:
Keys are under the mat out front.
As a morning-after text, it was seriously lacking in . . . anything. But Sandro’s thoughts were zigzagging through his head, and the adrenaline pumping through his veins was akin to how he felt after his team won a game.
He drove home on dark and empty streets, trying not to think about the man he’d left behind. Once there, he changed into jogging clothes and drove to Roman’s.
Roman and Kas were waiting in Roman’s driveway when he arrived.
“What are we waiting around for?” Sandro asked as he exited his vehicle. He took a pair of fleece running gloves out of his pocket and began to jog backward. “Let’s get a move on.”
“What’s the rush?” Kas asked even as he tugged his toque lower and followed.
As his friends fell into step with him, Sandro faced forward. “It’s cold. We’ve got to get the blood moving.”
“Why are you being weird?” Roman asked.
“How am I being weird?”
“You hate jogging,” Roman pointed out. “You only do it because you have to.”
“Yeah, you usually spend ten minutes trying to convince us to go out for coffee instead,” Kas said. “So what are you trying to run away from?”
Sandro clenched his teeth. Kas was now the second person who’d recently accused him of running away from something. “I’m not running from anything.” He picked up the pace, some sense of self-preservation giving him a boost of energy.
Roman’s neighborhood was a ghost town, the houses still dark with only the odd light on in a window here and there. Sandro, Roman, and Kas followed the same route they always took, hanging a left at the top of Roman’s street onto the trail that hugged Lake Champlain. Their footsteps crunched gravel and the water lapped peacefully at the shoreline. The path was unlit, but as the sun began to rise, it illuminated the trail in soft shades of blue. Tree leaves had browned and fallen to the ground over the past couple of months, and parts of the trail were still wet from a recent rainfall.
Sandro concentrated on his breathing, on putting one foot in front of the other, on dodging the occasional bare branch that had fallen onto the path. It was cold, but he warmed quickly. Was Bennett warm in his bed?
No. Nope. He wasn’t thinking about Bennett.
He was thinking about what time he had to leave for morning skate later and what kind of smoothie he’d make to drink on his drive to the arena and what it would be like to see Bennett there after last night.
Goddamn it.
Cursing under his breath, he came to a stop on a short wooden bridge that arched gently over a tiny creek and looked back at his friends.
Who were waaaaay behind him. Had he sprinted ahead without noticing?
Fuck.
Bracing his forearms on the bridge’s railing, he hung his head between his arms and panted.
Roman and Kas caught up, and Sandro braced himself for an inquisition.
“Nice sunrise,” Roman said inanely from his right.
Kas grunted his assent. “I think the most beautiful sunrise I’ve ever seen was from Cape Spear in Newfoundland. Owen and I drove out there from St. John’s at four in the morning to see it when we were there a few years ago.”
“That’s the easternmost point in North America, right?”
“Mm-hmm.”
Still bent in half, Sandro looked first at Kas, then at Roman. “What’s wrong with you guys?”
“We’re just enjoying the sunrise,” Roman said amiably. “What’s wrong with you?”
Of course. They’d been giving him time to catch his breath and get his shit together before they started the inquisition. Except his shit was scattered to the four winds, so no amount of time in the world would help.
