Page 2 of For the Boys
But all that had changed—well, mostly. He was a man, after all, a man who took great care of himself and was in the prime of his life. His self-control wasn’t Superman worthy; he had itches he had no qualms about scratching when the mood suited him.
These days, though, Brent was holding out for something,someone,special.
Tonight, he was seriously questioning whatever life choices had led him to this moment thanks to a tall, skinny bleached blonde who had draped herself across him in the hopes of free alcohol and a hookup at the end of the night. She wasn’t bad-looking; he simply wasn’t interested. But he didn’t want to be rude and shove her away.
Cole often told him he was too nice to fans, especially the female ones. Based on this interaction, Brent was starting to think he was right.
Unable to stand it any longer, he extricated himself from the woman and made a beeline for the bathroom, hoping to find a moment of peace. As he exited after taking care of business, wiping his wet hands on his jeans due to lack of paper towels, he caught a flash of blonde hair from across the room. The crowd parted, and there she was.
He didn’t know her name, but he’d seen her in that exact spot enough times to know he wanted to. She always looked so happy and carefree, always had a beer in her hand, and was always surrounded by people clamoring for her attention. Tonight, she and two of her friends were moving around the dance floor like they owned the place. Although she was the shortest of the trio, probably only a few inches over five feet, she stood out amidst the crowd. Her unbound hair bounced against her back, the bright blonde waves catching the flashing lights as she danced. There was something about her that made Brent desperate to know more.
She was the reason he was trying to shake his playboy reputation.
Maybe one day he would work up the courage to actually speak to her.
Until then, he would have to be satisfied with glimpses of her across a crowded room.
As much as he longed to study her, to glean any information he could, he refused to be the kind of guy that leered at women, so he made his way back to the bar in search of his teammates. The only one he found was Parker, but thankfully, the leggy blonde had disappeared.
Good riddance.
Brent sighed and ordered himself another drink.
It was several hours later when Brent finally decided he was leaving. He had beaten his teammates at pool, declined late-night invitations home from three women, and turned away a guy asking for an autograph. Generally speaking, he wasnothaving a good time. Mitch was right; he was too afraid to talk to the dancing blonde, and he was too sober to be social any longer.
Plus, the entire point of the night had apparently been to corrupt the rookies and new guys, but not a single one of them had come to the bar.
Not to mention the fact that Mitch had left nearly an hour earlier with one of the women Brent had turned down.
It would have been so easy to take one of them up on their offer, but he couldn’t. If it wasn’ther, he didn’t want it.
He signaled the bartender so he could settle his tab and turned to search the bar for Cole and Parker. As he scanned the room, his attention snagged on something. He turned sharply to his left, jostling the man next to him, who protested as beer slopped from his glass onto his hand.
Brent ignored him, watching in frozen horror as a man dumped a small amount of white powder into three shot glasses while the bartender stood with his back turned, filling a beer from a tap.
Brent pushed through the crowd, determined to reach the man and the shots before the bartender took them away, but he was too late. By the time Brent broke through the mass of people in front of him, the tray of shots was gone.
“Dude, what the fuck?” Brent said, walking up to the guy and crowding him against the bar. He wasn’t the tallest or biggest hockey player out there, but this guy was easily half a foot shorter than him, so his over-six-foot frame worked to his advantage at the moment.
“Wh-what?” the guy said.
“Don’t play dumb with me. I just watched you put something in that round of shots. Where were they going?”
The guy held up his hands. “Hey look, man. I didn’t do anything. I’m just here enjoying my Friday night.”
Brent grabbed the guy’s arm and twisted, turning it at an odd and uncomfortable angle. “I watched you do it! You dumped white powder in them. Now tell me who got the round of shots!”
The guy’s beady eyes, set in a long and narrow face currently pale with fear, darted around as if searching for a way out. Realizing there wasn’t one, he said to Brent, “I don’t know. I swear! I just ground up some roofies and dumped some in each. I was going to wait around and see what happened.”
“And then do what?” Brent cringed as several horrific images sped through his mind. “Never mind. I don’t want to know.”
The bartender returned and asked what the problem was. Brent filled him in on the details, and his only helpful insight was that the tray of drinks had been taken to a table in the corner near the dance floor.
Cole and Parker joined Brent just as the bartender called the cops. They waited around for them to show up, and twenty minutes later, police were escorting the creep from the premises.
As the oldest of three siblings, and an alternate captain for the Warriors, Brent easily settled into a role of authority. He had spent his life, and his career, taking care of people, and thus felt compelled to set things right. It wasn’t his job to clean up after the creep, but he wasn’t the kind of man that could walk away and pretend nothing had happened.
Brent turned to his teammates. “We have to find out who got those shots. We have to make sure they’re okay.”
