“Uh . . . okay.” Drumming one corner of his phone on his thigh, Sandro thought back to the previous fifteen years. “Well, when we were dating, Darcy was engaged to Danielle. Remember? They broke up before the wedding, and he’s been seeing Olivia for . . . I don’t know. Ten years now, I think?”
“Cool.” Bennett nodded. “I didn’t ask about your brother, though. I asked about you.”
“Fuck, I don’t know, B.” Sandro dug the back of his head into the headrest. “I’ve traveled to Portugal, Iceland, Japan, and Brazil, sometimes with teammates, sometimes with my brothers. Six nieces have been born?—”
“Six? Man, your family’s prolific. Any nephews?”
“Nope. Six nieces ranging in age from three to eleven. Winning the Cup was like . . .” Sandro paused there, because there wasn’t any way to describe what that was like. “You know that feeling you get when you score a goal? It’s like that, but a thousand times bigger.”
“What’d you do with your days with the Cup?”
“The first two times I brought it home.” Sandro smiled at those memories, but it quickly slipped off his face as he recalled how brightly his dad had grinned when he’d looked at it for the first time. “The third time, I brought it to the hockey camp I coach at during the summer.”
“You coach at camp?” Bennett squeezed his hand again. “That’s a new thing. Tell me about that.”
“It’s the Vermont Trailblazers Youth Hockey Camp.” Sandro thought he felt his phone vibrate, but when he checked, there were no new messages. Maybe no news was good news? Or maybe everything had fallen apart and they were afraid to tell him. “I, uh . . .” He wiped the back of his hand over his forehead. “I volunteer for two weeks in the summer. One week with the younger kids, usually the nine- and ten-year-olds, and one week with the teenagers.” His heart began to pound, and he pulled his collar away from his throat. “Sorry, there was something else you asked about, but I can’t remember what it was.”
“Pets and memorable significant others,” Bennett said, though his voice sounded like it was coming through a tube. “But I don’t actually want to know about that last thing.”
“Oh no?” Sandro forced out, sweat dampening his hairline. “You don’t want to know about the actor I almost married in Vegas?”
“Ro? Hey. Baby, you’re panicking. Shit. Ro. Right now, tell me what thirteen times twenty-seven is. No, don’t use your phone. Thirteen times twenty-seven, Ro. I need you to tell me in the next thirty seconds.”
Sandro didn’t bother asking why—if Bennett needed it, Sandro would give it to him even though he was dizzy and it felt like his heart was going to pound out of his chest. “Uh . . . three times seven is twenty-one,” he muttered to himself, and the pounding in his ears abated. “Carry the two over. Seven times one is seven plus two is nine.” He opened his eyes—when had he closed them?—and found it was raining. “Two hundred and fifty-one? No, three fifty-one.” The world stopped spinning. “Is that right?”
“I’ll take your word for it.”
Laughing softly, Sandro rested his forehead on Bennett’s shoulder and inhaled a breath that smelled like whatever product Bennett used in his hair. “You didn’t actually need to know what thirteen times twenty-seven is, did you? How did you know that would help?”
“Because your brain can’t panic and do complicated tasks at the same time. I learned that on Bull.”
Sandro squinted at him. “The TV show?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Well.” Sandro swallowed hard. “Thank you. And thank you, Bull. Still want to know about the pets and the actor?”
Bennett’s smile stretched across his face. “Fuck you with the actor.”
Sandro’s phone rang, loudly, startling them both. “It’s Darcy,” he said, swiping to answer. “Darce? What’s going on? Is he okay?”
“He has a sprained wrist.”
Sandro let that settle for a moment, confusion overshadowing the panic. “He . . . sprained his wrist?”
“He was on a ladder without a spotter, fixing the Christmas lights on the house?—”
“The fuck was he doing on a ladder by himself?”
Next to him, Bennett made an aborted sound.
“Fixing the lights,” Darcy said slowly, very obviously annoyed. “Isn’t that what I just said? Anyway, he slipped and fell. Landed badly on his arm.”
“Jesus Christ, Darcy.” Reclaiming his hand from Bennett, Sandro punched his own thigh and pretended it was his brother’s face. “You made it sound like he was dying.”
“I’m sorry, okay? I panicked when Olivia called. I did think he was dying.”
“Is she there?”
