Golden Boy Gets a Little Tarnished

 

My father was a great hockey player. Back in the day, in the era of eighties’ big hair and synthesized music, Billy Oliver won not just one, but two Stanley Cups. He was awarded the Conn Smythe trophy both times and has received an assortment of other hardware throughout the years.

He’s retired now, but my dad was once a star.

To me, though, he’s always just been Dad.

But as his only child, I have a legacy to live up to. I pray I don’t disappoint him. I pray someday I’ll be as good as he once was. And damn it, I better win a freaking Stanley Cup like he did.

I have no choice, not really. Since the moment my father first laced up hockey skates on my three-year-old little feet, the look of pride on his face told me even then all I needed to know—anything short of being the best will never do.

And guess what?

In many ways, I’ve become the best at what I do, which is, like my dad, play professional hockey.

I’ve been good since the start, a natural some say. I don’t know about that, but I do know that even before I was drafted—in the first round by the Las Vegas Wolves, an expansion team at the time—I was being called “The Golden Boy” and “The Next One.”

These days, three years later, I’m pretty much the poster boy for the NHL. And I have a slew of endorsement deals to prove it.

Lately, though, I’ve been falling short.

And I really don’t know why.

Something is missing for me in the game. Or is it something that’s missing in me?

I blow out a breath and shake my head.

Things started out so great. Where’d it all go wrong?

I made a name for myself early on. Expansion teams usually struggle for years before posting a winning record. Not so for the Wolves. With me centering what was then a subpar line, I was still able to make us shine. We came out swinging that first season in the league.

 

Brent Oliver Scores the Game-Winning Goal in His and the Wolves’ First NHL Game, Sets Up Teammates for Two More

 

One month later, there was this:

 

The Wolves Off to a Completely Unexpected Stellar Start

 

Then things started to slide.

Those subpar players on my line weren’t enough to keep afloat a pretty much overall crappy team, even with me centering. The Wolves’ owners and management made the necessary moves—they don’t mess around when shit needs to get done.

We picked up a phenomenal winger, Nolan Solvenson. He started to play and things turned around.

 

Adding Skilled Right-Winger Nolan Solvenson to Rookie Brent Oliver’s First Line Proving to be a Masterful Move

 

On a Mid-Season Winning Streak, That Solvenson Trade is Paying Off for the Wolves!

 

Another trade made at the deadline gave us Benjamin Perry. A big, strong left-handed winger, he was the final piece to the puzzle. Even with far-from-elite second, third, and fourth lines, it didn’t matter. Not with me, Benjamin, and Nolan on the first line. We could not be stopped.

Benjamin—or Benny, as he’s known to the team—is adept at using his size and muscle to check the hell out of any sorry soul who happens to be matched up against him. He simply wears other players down…and then it’s a fucking scorefest. Thanks, in part, to his killer slapshot.

Together with Nolan, a sniper in his own right, we were—and in many ways still are—quite a force to be reckoned with. We destroy teams, though not as much lately. But back then, man, we were racking up so many points that the press branded us the OPS line, as in Special Forces.

 

The OPS Line’s Snipers of Oliver, Perry, and Solvenson Eliminate the Competition with Ease

 

There’s Nothing Covert about This Line’s Scoring Prowess

 

We worked our reputation to our advantage. Trash-talking on the ice and taunting players became our pastimes. We also happened to get a lot of pucks in the net.

Ah, the good old days.

We still trash-talk and taunt, but we aren’t as lethal as we once were.

“We just need to get back on track,” I murmur to myself. “The season doesn’t start for a few more weeks. I’ll have my shit together by then.”

I better, since I’m the captain of the team. If I go down, we all sink. And that’s not fair to anyone, especially not to my linemates, Nolan and Benny. Over the past couple of years they’ve become my best friends, which is a blessing and a curse. It’s a blessing that we play so well together, but it’s a curse that we also have a tendency to fuel each other’s vices.

God knows this off-season we’ve become far too focused on partying and women. Like me, my linemates are extremely popular. Hell, let’s not mince words—we’re gods. In the hockey world, it’s good to be a god. Guys want to be you and girls want to do you. Multiply that all by a hundred if you’re not an ogre in the looks department.

And none of us are.

Not to brag—though, I guess I kind of am—but I have the most women falling at my feet. Hell, I’ve had women who’ve wanted to lick my feet.

Like, literally.

There was this crazy bitch this one time…

Wait, I digress. Back to where our team is today—floundering in a sea of mediocrity.

After that first good regular season, we fell apart during the playoffs. A dirty hit that sent me flying into the boards also sidelined me with a concussion. It didn’t end there. More bad luck plagued our team. Nolan went into a scoring slump, and Benny took a punishing check against the boards that broke his foot. We were knocked out of the playoffs in the first round.

I went to Minneapolis, my hometown, to sulk.

“Next year will be different,” my always-positive father tried to reassure me.

He was wrong.

We missed the playoffs entirely the following year, for reasons still unknown.

Then there was the season that just ended this past spring—another disappointment.

 

Las Vegas Wolves Fold, Knocked Out Once Again in the First Round

 

Needing a break from all things desert-life, I said to Nolan and Benny, “Fuck this shit.”

That was over three months ago. We were in the middle of cleaning out our lockers for the summer. My linemates looked at me, confused.

And then Nolan finally asked, “Fuck what shit, Oliver? What are you going on about over there?”

“Everything,” I replied, gesturing around the empty locker room. “We’re done, finished. Let’s get the hell out of this place for a while.”

I meant Las Vegas the city—and I think Nolan was catching my drift—but Benny misunderstood.

“Dude,” Benny began, “we better get outta here soon.” He checked his watch. “We have a tee time at two.”

He meant the golf game we had planned, but I was having none of that.

“Fuck golfing,” I snapped. “I’m talking about really getting out of here. I think we deserve a much-needed break from this whole damn town.”

Nolan looked intrigued. “What’d you have in mind?”

I happily shared with him and Benny what I’d been thinking about for days. “Let’s head up to my house in Minnesota. We can spend the summer on the lake.” I grinned, bad intentions in mind. “You know I’m a fucking rock star up there. We can party every night. Hell, we can fuck and get fucked up till training camp starts up in September.”

Benny was in immediately, but Nolan had to think it over in his thoughtful kind of way.

At last, he said, “Okay, let’s do it.”

Since that day we’ve been partying like rock stars. Or, more accurately, like out-of-control hockey players.

We’re still on a roll, even though it’s August and we have to fly back to Vegas real soon. Until then, however, I’ve vowed my cool contemporary house by the lake will remain the place to party. It’s our OPS base for debauchery, after all.

In reality, though, this craziness can’t go on. We all know that.

Even wild and crazy Benny had the sense to ask me just last week, “Dude, what should we do?”

“About what?”

I was in the midst of texting a local puck bunny to see if she wanted to meet me for a quickie, so I was a bit distracted.

Benny sighed. “We gotta report to camp in a less than a month. Guess it’s time to start thinking about slowing down with the girls, the booze, the—”

I put down my phone and cut him off with a raucous, “Hell no, my friend. We just need to scale it back a little.”

“Scale it back in what way?” Nolan, who walked in the room just at that moment, wanted to know.

I shrugged. “Maybe have smaller parties? Maybe drink a little less?”

We all agreed to those things, but we haven’t followed through. In the past seven days we’ve abstained from partying for all of two.

This is so not going to play well with the team. My diet is crap, and I’m nowhere near peak playing shape. Sure, my body looks all lean and cut, meaning you’d never know I wasn’t ready to hit the ice rearing to go, but looks can be deceiving. I went out for a run just the other day and came back fucking winded as hell.

That was a first.

Still, I’m confident I can get back into playing shape in no time. It’s the inside of my head that’s kind of a mess. I just don’t fucking care about winning, not anymore. I mean, I do, but I don’t. Does that make sense?

Nah, it doesn’t to me, either. But I better figure it out, and fast.

Where’s my drive to get my shit together? Where’s my commitment to winning, my obligation to my players?

I ask myself these things every day now, but I guess the answers are clouded by my drinking copious amounts of alcohol and fucking way too many puck bunnies.

Dad would be so proud—not.

Well, he would be glad I diligently use protection. I haven’t gone that far off the rails. Still, wrapping my dick up isn’t enough to keep management off my ass. My agent already informed me—this morning, in fact—that the Wolves’ ownership group has a pretty good idea of what I’ve been up to, along with my teammates, here in Minneapolis.

I listened half-heartedly when my agent woke me up to say, “Don’t blow this off, Brent. Management is not happy with you. There’s a certain image they expect you to uphold, and you’re not doing that.”

God forbid I’m not the team’s “Golden Boy.” I’m “The Next One,” remember?

Bullshit, it’s all crap.

Coach Townsend called me shortly after I got off the phone with my agent. He had the same warning.

“You don’t want the team to take action. You’re not going to like what they have in store for you, Brent, if you keep up with this bad behavior.”

“Oh, come on,” I replied, laughing. “The Wolves can’t fire me. And what could be worse than that?”

Coach T chuckled like he knew something.

Hmm…

“I can’t worry about that shit today,” I said to him. “I’ll start cleaning up my act tomorrow.”

“Brent…” Coach T sounded doubtful.

“Really, I will,” I insisted.

That was a few hours ago. And I plan to make some changes. But maybe not quite yet.

“Before tomorrow gets here,” I justify to myself, “we still have the rest of today. And that means there’s time for one more party.”

I stride into the second-floor living room of my house, a spacious and angled space overlooking the huge lake on my property. Peering out at the crystal blue water, I announce to Benny and Nolan, “Listen up, boys. We’re having one final blowout tonight, a party to end all parties.”

There’s a murmur from Nolan, but nothing from Benny.

“We’re going to do this one right,” I go on. “We party tonight. But then, when tomorrow arrives, we’re done with messing around. We start training full-on.”

Yeah, right, a little voice in my head coughs out.

I look around since no one besides my guilty conscience seems to be chiming in.

It’s early afternoon and the sun is bathing the room—my favorite, by the way, with the way it juts out over the lake showcasing the floor-to-ceiling windows on two sides and a massive deck with a mile-long view on the other—in a warm summer glow.

Nolan, who is lounging on an easy chair with a beer in his hand, raises his bottle. “I’m in,” he says.

His words aren’t the least bit slurred, even though he’s been drinking straight through since last night’s bash.

“And then, yeah,” he continues, agreeing with me, “we’ll start getting ready for camp.”

Despite his ability to suck down alcohol like a fish, Nolan hasn’t veered too far off course. Getting back on track won’t be hard for him. He’s like Mr. Discipline. And he’s not fooling anyone, anyway. I caught him working out in my basement gym a few days ago. With the way he was pumping iron I suspect he’s been training consistently for a few weeks now.

There’s still not been a response from Benny, which is unusual. Dude’s always up for a party. He’s probably the worst of us when it comes to out-of-control antics.

And that’s saying a lot.

“Hey, where’s Benny?” I ask Nolan as I scan the shadows of the room.

He nods to a sofa that’s been pushed way-ass off to a far corner.

“Oh, I should’ve known.” I chuckle as I take in an eyeful.

Benny is sprawled out on a sofa in the shadows, sleeping like a baby. His massive chest is rising and falling in perfect rhythm with the ticking clock on the stone mantel above his head. Some puck bunny he was fucking around with last night is with him, passed out on top of him.

The sheet covering their naked bodies is hiked up just enough to afford a view of the girl’s creamy thigh, which is casually slung over my linemate’s muscular, hairy-as-hell leg, and positioned under his semi-exposed junk.

Chuckling at Benny’s total lack of modesty, I pick up a throw pillow and lob it at his head—the one that clearly controls all his thinking.

And he scores!

As the pillow makes contact—and how could it not with a pole like that marking my target?—the sheet falls off completely. I get a quick flash of perky tits and tiny ass. And then, shit—a big honking piece of man-meat assaults my eyes.

“Dude,” I snort, mock-offended. “You need to cover that shit before you blind us all.”

Benny stirs to life. Sitting up, he barks, “What the fuck, Oliver? I was having the best dream ever. That is till you started tossing shit at my balls. ”

Nolan lets out a low chuckle. “Only you, Benny, could find a way of using ‘tossing’ and ‘balls’ in the same sentence. But really”—he tilts his bottle to Benny’s dick—“you need to do what Brent said and cover that shit up.”

Throughout this entire brain-draining exchange, the girl wakes up. And damn, she looks young. Letting out a little squeak, not unlike a hamster, she gathers the sheet around her naked self and scurries off to where she seems to think the bathroom is.

I only know this ’cause she’s muttering something about having to pee. But the poor girl has no idea where to go. Hamster-girl flies past me, heading down the wrong hallway, the one that leads to my bedroom.

As I rush to retrieve her, I can’t help but grumble, “Why in the hell do they always think the damn bathroom’s down my hall?”

I catch up to and redirect the girl, pointing her in the correct direction. “It’s that way, sweetheart,” I say in my kindest tone.

No need to be an asshole; the poor thing already looks shell-shocked. Though whether that’s due to waking up in a strange house or waking up next to that monstrous thing Benny calls a cock, I have no clue.

“Thanks, Mr. Oliver,” she replies.

And then she runs off.

“Mr. Oliver?” I shake my head. “What the fuck is up with that? If she thinks I’m old and I’m only twenty-two, then…”

Whoa, wait.

Hurrying back out to the living room and pointing an accusatory finger at Benny, I say, “That chick better be over eighteen, dude. We’re in enough trouble already with the team.”

Benjamin Perry is twenty-eight, but he likes younger girls. Nothing illegal, so don’t get your panties in a bunch. He just happens to favor babes who either look young, or are just old enough.

“She’s twenty-three,” he replies, sounding hurt by my accusation.

“What? Five years past eighteen?” Nolan peers over at me and smirks. “Hey, Oliver, you think Benny is working up to go cougar on us?”

Laughing, I reply, “Seeing as he’s on his way to fucking the full spectrum of girls in their twenties, I do indeed think he’s secretly working his way up to thirty.”

“Small steps,” Nolan says.

“Fuck you,” Benny interjects. “You’re both dickheads.”

I put up my hands. “Hey, don’t be pissed at me. Take it up with Nolan. He started with the jokes. I only brought up the chick’s age for your own protection. I’m always looking out for you, buddy.”

“Yeah, you usually are,” he concedes. “And thanks for that.” He shoots me an apologetic grin. “You really are a good kid at heart.”

I shrug, feeling a little self-conscious at being called a kid. But then I see what Benny is up to, preparing to bust my balls.

Sure enough, the next words out of his mouth are “You do know I mean kid in a good kind of way. Like maybe”—he smirks—“a golden boy sort of style.”

“Ha. Ha,” I retort. And since he’s enjoying yanking my chain far too much, I shoot him the bird. “Shut the fuck up, man.”

Benny may give me a hard time, but his underlying sentiment is genuine. What he said about me being a good guy, like a decent person, is true. Despite all the craziness of late, I want nothing but the best for my friends. And just because I’ve been fucking up my own life lately doesn’t mean Benny’s and Nolan’s lives have to go down the shitter too.

Really, I probably should’ve never invited them to Minnesota. I should have come up to the lake house by myself. That would’ve been the smart thing to do, especially if my intention all along has been to piss away my career.

I don’t really want that, though, do I?

No.

I just need some help in getting back on track.

But where would I find something like that?

Ah, fuck it.

“So what do you say, Benny?” I ask, back to focusing on the party. “You in?”

He stretches, covering his dick with the pillow I threw at him. I make a mental note to have all my furniture and their decorative accents, especially the pillows, steam cleaned.

Running his hand through his shaggy, dark blond hair, he says, “Am I in for what?”

“Party tonight,” Nolan interjects in his usual no-nonsense tone. “One last blowout, and then Brent here says we’re stopping with the bad behavior.”

I have to laugh. Nolan is only three years older than me, but it’s like he’s twenty-five going on forty. He’s the voice of reason in our crew.

Well, most of the time.

Not today, though. No, today he agrees to go all-out.

With the party plans full steam ahead, we get on our phones, texting and calling everyone we know.

“Tonight we party hard,” I declare when we reconvene in the living room.

“Yeah,” Nolan says, holding up a freshly opened bottle of beer.

“You mean hell, yeah,” Benny corrects, raising the full shot glass in his hand.

“Hell, yeah,” I echo, a beer and a shot on the table in front of me. “And just so we’re clear,” I add. “Tomorrow we give up the booze and the women. Tomorrow we start training for real.”

The boys agree, and we drink to our plan.

Yeah, tomorrow we’ll do all those things…