He was technically supposed to be rooming with Fowler, but since Sandro got his own room whenever the team was on the road, Bennett had grabbed his bag from his shared room and snuck into Sandro’s.
It was a bit like sneaking into each other’s rooms during away games when they’d been in college, only made possible thanks to one of their roommates being willing to swap with him or Sandro. Except instead of tiptoeing past rooms full of fellow players, Bennett was now sneaking past rooms full of Sandro’s fellow players.
He wasn’t sure what would happen if he got caught. Which only reminded him that he needed to tell David about his and Sandro’s relationship at some point since he was, technically, compromised.
Assuming this was a relationship and not a temporary while-in-Vermont type of thing. They still needed to talk about that.
Today was not the day he’d be telling David about it, though. He had other fish to fry.
“Look, Ben, I know you’re trying to make up for Chain of Command, but?—”
Bennett pinched the bridge of his nose. “That’s not it.” Not entirely, at least. “I know you don’t trust me anymore, not after Command tanked?—”
David coughed once. “The fuck are you on about? Bennett, if I didn’t trust you, you wouldn’t be doing this series.”
Lowering his arm, Bennett stared sightlessly at the curtains pulled over the window. “But . . . we have a contract.”
“Oh, you cute little muffin. There’s always a loophole.”
A what now? Well, shit. Bennett would need to get his lawyer to review the contract again.
“I do trust you,” David said. “I know it doesn’t seem like it sometimes, but those daily highlight videos you send me aren’t meant for me to keep an eye on what you’re doing—they’re so that I can steer you back on course if you start to stray, which is part of my job description.”
Bennett didn’t know if he should be relieved that David trusted him or annoyed that David thought he’d need to be steered back on course.
He could be both, right?
“Speaking of those videos,” Bennett said, allowing himself to veer off topic for a moment. “I can’t keep sending them, okay? Going through my own content plus the content of the camera operators takes hours out of my day, and that’s not even counting the editing to splice it all together.”
“Yeah, I figured you’d push back against them at some point. I’m surprised it took you this long, honestly.”
Jesus fucking Christ.
“Back to the story?—”
“Ben—”
“David. Listen.” His focus momentarily drifted to Sandro, who’d risen from the bed. He pulled his T-shirt off over his head, revealing all of those sinuous muscles, and unbuttoned his jeans, giving Bennett a peek at blue underwear. “This is the angle we need to take,” Bennett said, somewhat hoarsely.
Sandro must’ve heard the shift in his voice because his gaze snapped up to Bennett’s, and he smiled as he slowly lowered his zipper.
Bennett swallowed thickly. “You might not believe me now, but once we conclude filming at the end of the season and we start editing, you’ll see.”
Sandro lowered the jeans to his thighs. Sat on the side of the bed. Slowly pulled one leg of his pants off, then the other.
“I still think we need to focus on them being defending champions.”
“Yes,” Bennett managed as Sandro’s underwear joined his jeans on the floor. “But it can’t be six episodes of that. It’ll get stale and boring real fast.”
Speaking of not stale and boring, Sandro propped an ankle over the opposite knee and pulled the sock off so vigorously that it snapped back and thwacked him in the chin. He fell over onto the bed, laughing into the pillow, no doubt so his guffaws didn’t reach David. Bennett had to mute the phone to hide his own wheezed laughter.
“Hello? Ben? Did I lose you?”
He unmuted the phone. “Sorry.” He cleared the laughter from his throat. “I’m still here, but it’s getting late and I’ve got an early morning tomorrow.”
And a man to fuck, but he left that part out.
“I’ll be moving forward with the legacy theme. I know you’re not fully on board?—”
