Page 37 of For the Boys
Brent sighed, sitting down to unlace his own skates. “There’s not a lot to tell. She showed up. Drank. Mingled. Danced with her friends. Gave Olsson shit about his face-off stats. Slow-danced with me. Then we left.”
“You left? Just like that? You didn’t even bother to set up a hangout?”
“I gave her my number. I threw her a damn birthday party, Mitch! What more do you want from me?”
“I don’t know, man. I’m just saying, asking her out seems like small potatoes compared to throwing her a surprise party when you barely know her.” He shrugged and walked away.
Brent looked at Chase, who said, “He’s not wrong.”
It seemed criminal to Brent that another trip to California was required again so soon after the last one. The powers that be typically scheduled games in the same week, but for some reason, the Warriors’ trips to Southern and Northern California were split, falling a month apart.
Travel was part of the job though, and Brent had known what he was signing on for when he had decided to pursue this crazy dream of being a professional hockey player. But college travel hadn’t come close to preparing him for professional travel. Jet-setting was exhausting, but it was also one of Brent’s favorite parts of the job.
Getting to travel wasn’t something he’d had the opportunity to do when he was younger. He played travel hockey through high school. Nate had played football, and Mackenzie had cheered and danced. His parents had both been incredibly busy with their day jobs when they weren’t shuffling their children off to one youth event or another. Until a few years ago, his father had been a lawyer, specializing in contracts; he had been responsible for a number of high profile government contracts in the late-nineties and early-2000s but had retired the second he turned fifty-five. That also happened to be the year Brent had signed his first major contract extension. Brent’s mom had been a dental hygienist for over twenty years before she retired soon after her husband. Ever since, they’d been enjoying their free time together, traveling overseas as well as across the country to watch Brent’s games.
Brent loved exploring new cities, something he inherited from his parents, but today, they were traveling to San Jose.
Brent hated San Jose.
They were arriving in the city a day early in order to acclimate to the time change. The Warriors had been there only a handful of times over the course of Brent’s career, the last time during the previous spring when they’d suffered a heartbreaking loss to the Wolves in game seven of the conference finals.
Despite his major dislike of the city, it was home to one attraction Brent had always wanted to experience but had never been able to. Today, it was finally happening. The weather was perfect, they had the rest of the day to themselves, and Brent was finally going to play Monopoly in the Park.
Monopoly in the Park had originally been designed for the 1992 San Francisco Garden and Landscape Show. It was a 930-square-foot custom granite game board, complete with 140-pound side properties and 236-pound corner properties. It had been installed in San Jose in 2002 and had set a Guinness World Record for being the largest permanent game board in the world.
Brent had booked the board for them months ago, when the Warriors’ schedule had first come out and he’d realized he would finally have the chance to enjoy it. He hadn’t told his teammates, choosing instead to surprise them.
He was certain they were going to give him endless amounts of shit for it.
On this bright, sunny Northern California Sunday afternoon, Brent, Chase, Cole, Parker, Mitch, Rat, Grey, and Jordan hijacked the team’s charter bus and drove into downtown San Jose.
“Where the hell are you taking us, Jean?” Parker asked, not taking his eyes off the street outside and the buildings rolling by.
“You’ll see!”
“This is going to be something incredibly stupid if you planned it. I already know.” Parker smirked at Brent, as if that would take the sting out of his comment.
Brent glared at him. “Shut the fuck up, Parker. You didn’t have to come.”
“Relax, Princess. I’m just fucking with you.”
Just then, the bus pulled up to the game board, and Brent smiled. “Welcome, boys, to Monopoly in the Park!”
“Oh my God,” Cole said. “You took us away from doing something actually fun to play a board game?”
“Okay first of all, board gamesarefun,” Brent said. “Especially when they hold a Guinness World Record.”
“I think it sounds awesome,” Jordan said. “Bella would love this. I can’t wait to tell her all about it.”
Bella was Jordan’s three-year-old daughter. She was dark-haired and feisty just like her mother Naomi, and she had her father wrapped around her tiny little fingers.
They exited the bus and spread out next to the game board, taking it all in. The area was large enough to fit a small house and was bordered by grass and trees.
“Maybe you can bring them out here in the off-season,” Brent said.
“Probably not for a few years,” Jordan said. “But at least then the numbers will be even.”
It took Brent a second to register what Jordan had said. “Naomi’s pregnant again?!”
