Page 69 of The Best Parts of Him
Dabbs didn’t think Zanetti heard him, not with the earbuds in his ears, but he paused and looked back, doing a double-take when his gaze landed on Bennett.
His expression hardened before he blanked it into neutrality. Dabbs would’ve missed the former if he hadn’t been looking. Zanetti stared at Bennett for a long moment, fists clenching at his sides, then pulled out an earbud and transferred his gaze to Coach Madolora. “What’s he doing here?”
It was asked casually, but Dabbs caught the undercurrent of tension.
So did Coach, judging by the raised eyebrow. “Bennett Jackson is one of the producers of the documentary.”
“Him?” Zanetti raked Bennett up and down.
It wasn’t friendly.
“This is the guy you want to trust with that? Good luck.”
Bennett stepped forward. “Sandy?—”
“Don’t call me that,” Zanetti snapped. “You lost the privilege a long time ago.”
“Sandy—Sandro. I?—”
But Zanetti had already popped his earbud back in as he headed for his stall across the locker room, shoulders stiff.
Bennett swallowed hard, his gaze on Zanetti’s back. A muscle worked in his jaw.
“Guess you two know each other,” Dabbs commented.
Bennett’s closed-mouth smile was grim. “It’s a long story.”
Coach whisked Bennett away to continue the tour of the facilities, and Dabbs crept up to Zanetti. His posture didn’t invite conversation, but if he needed to talk . . .
“Zanetti—”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” Zanetti snapped without turning around.
Well. That was subtle.
“Okay. But if you ever do want to talk?—”
“Nope.” Zanetti kicked his running shoes into his stall, where they landed with a thump, thump. “There’s nothing to talk about. It was forever ago. So long ago that it doesn’t matter anymore.”
Hello, blatant lie, meet Pinocchio’s nose.
Dabbs nodded, unwilling to press the issue. “Okay.”
“Okay,” Zanetti echoed.
Dabbs left him alone since that was clearly what he wanted and went back to his stall to get ready. Coach would be back in the next half hour, and then it was game time.
Against Ryland’s team.
Against Ryland.
Dabbs tried not to think about him as he got ready, but not thinking about Ryland proved impossible at any time of the day, made doubly impossible when they shared the same ice rink.
He didn’t get a chance to talk to Ryland before the game, but he did catch Ryland’s gaze during the pre-game warm-up and sent him a wink. Ryland answered back with a grin and a wave and what was possibly the moonwalk on skates—show-off—and the crowd went wild.
Dabbs wasn’t sure if it was because of them or because the DJ started playing “Love Story” by Taylor Swift.
The game started off with a fight early in the first period that set the tone for the rest of the game. One of the Pilots players said something that had the usually affable Zanetti shoving him, and it was all downhill from there. Zanetti earned himself a penalty, and once he was out of the box, Billy Honeybun—a player who’d been with the Trailblazers as long as Zanetti—tripped the same Pilots player who’d provoked Zanetti in retribution.
