Sandro straightened, only to brace his hands on the railing. He blew out a breath that fogged the air in front of his face. “Nothing’s wrong with me.”
“Hm. Can’t help but notice that you left with Bennett Jackson after our meeting yesterday.”
“How could you possibly know that? You left before us.”
“I told you.” Roman waggled his eyebrows. “Eyes and ears everywhere.”
“I slept with him,” Sandro blurted without thought, avoiding his friends’ gazes.
“Who’s Bennett Jackson?” Kas asked. “Oh wait, the guy who’s filming the series?”
“He’s also Zanetti’s ex,” Roman told him.
Sandro stared at him. “I never told you that.”
Scoffing, Roman tugged his toque lower. “Don’t act like I can’t read a room.”
“This him?” Kas thrust his phone in Sandro’s nose. On the screen was a photo of Bennett wearing a pinstriped suit with a white shirt and black tie, his hair tied back with little flyaways at his temples. He was looking directly at the camera as he fiddled with one cuff, as though the photographer had caught him leaving a party.
“Yeah,” Sandro said hoarsely, nerves and heat and regret jangling for attention in his chest. “That’s him.”
Kas nodded. “Okay. Just so we have our facts straight, you slept with a hot guy?—”
“His ex,” Roman oh-so-helpfully pointed out.
“You slept with your hot ex,” Kas amended. “Then left him in your bed to come jogging with us?”
“His bed,” Sandro corrected.
“That’s even worse.”
“How is that worse?”
“Because if it was your bed, at least he’d know you were coming back.” Roman leaned against the railing. “Since you live there and all. But leaving his bed . . .” He shook his head, like Sandro was a child who’d disappointed him.
“Are you going to tell him he’s an idiot or am I?” Kas asked Roman.
Pushing back from the railing, Sandro paced away. “How does that make me an idiot?”
“You left a hot piece of ass in bed to?—”
Sandro rounded on Kas. “Fuck you, asshole. He’s not a piece of ass. He’s—” At Kas’s smirk, Sandro broke off to swear under his breath, belatedly realizing he’d fallen into Kas’s trap. “Asshole,” he reiterated.
“What is he if not a piece of ass?”
“I don’t know, okay?”
“Picking up where you left off?” Roman said.
“God, no. It’s been fifteen years. It’s too late for that. We’re different people now.”
The truth of that statement hit him square in the chest and he gasped in a breath. They were the same but different in the way that every thirty-eight-year-old was different from their twenty-three-year-old self. They couldn’t go back; Sandro had known that from the beginning.
Kas leaned against the rail next to Roman and crossed his arms over his chest. Behind him, the sky had lightened, turning the world to gold. “You were together that long ago?”
Shoulders slumping, Sandro kicked at a pebble, sending it skittering across the bridge until it fell off the edge and landed in the creek below with a quiet plop. “We met in college,” he said quietly. “We were on the same hockey team. Started dating our sophomore year, and we were together right up until he dumped me without explanation four years later.”
“Says here he played a year for Chicago before retiring,” Kas said, gaze on his phone.
