Total pages in book: 25
Estimated words: 23971 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 120(@200wpm)___ 96(@250wpm)___ 80(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 23971 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 120(@200wpm)___ 96(@250wpm)___ 80(@300wpm)
Most people are coupled up, which makes me think I should have probably brought a date. But who could I have brought?
All of the women I’ve met since I moved to San Antonio are only interested in me because I’m a hockey player or because I’m loaded. They couldn’t care less about my personality. Slip another guy into my pads and give him my bank account and these girls wouldn’t even notice. They wouldn’t even care. They’d be interested in him and I’d be invisible.
The guys call these kinds of girls puck fuckers. I call them a waste of time.
I slip into the line behind a good-looking couple in their forties. It’s a beautiful night, cloudless and not too hot, which is a nice change from the sweltering San Antonio heat.
A pretty waitress in a short black dress walks along the pier and hands out champagne flutes. I take one with a thank you and sip it as the line moves.
The yacht looks even bigger from down here.
I guess I’m going to meet the owner—of the yacht and the team—Brantley VanMorgan. I mean, I’ve met him briefly and seen him around the building a couple of times, but I haven’t had a one-on-one conversation with the man.
But I’ve done my research. He’s incredible.
This man is into everything. He started a mining company with a shovel and sold it for 1.3 billion dollars. After that, he got into satellites and founded a company that launched them into space. That company sold for four billion. And since then, he’s been a philanthropist, a semi-celebrity, and an angel investor in a ton of start-ups, some that hit the mega jackpot. This man attracts money like a magnet.
He is currently worth twenty-six billion dollars. I heard that he reached into his jacket and wrote a check for the Hyenas like he was paying for lunch. It was pocket change to him at only nine hundred million dollars.
“Nolan!” a familiar voice rings out. I turn around and see Austin walking over with his new girlfriend Norah. He’s all cleaned up in a black suit, white shirt, and black tie. She’s looking great in a sparkly red dress with her brown hair tied up into a fancy bun.
We say our hellos and then start talking about the phenomenal yacht.
“Have you guys ever been on a yacht like this before?” Norah asks as she looks up at it in awe.
“I’ve been on my uncle Lou’s rowboat,” Austin says as he stares up. “I think it could fit in one of the bathrooms.”
“There are probably only about twelve yachts on the planet this big,” I say as we take a few steps forward.
“It looks bigger than the Titanic,” Norah says. She suddenly turns to Austin. “Oh! We’re going to have to do the King of the World thing, you know that, right?”
Austin is grinning. “I was hoping you’d say that.”
Norah hooks her arm around his and kisses him on the cheek. I’d hate them if they weren’t so damn cute together.
We walk up the steps onto the yacht as more than a dozen staff members greet us with big smiles. One takes my empty champagne glass and offers me a fresh one.
“Holy cannoli,” Norah says as we walk onto the main deck.
This is… I don’t even have words for this.
There’s a massive pool lit up in turquoise, three bars, a dance floor, and everything looks so damn luxurious, I can’t even.
A band is playing on the stage and I do a double-take when I recognize the singer.
“That’s Rotting Porch!” I say, staring at them in shock. They were huge in the ‘90s.
“Oh, yeah,” Norah says, whipping out her phone to take a picture.
People start filling up the space and more players from the team gather around with their girls. We claim the bar in the back as our own. The view of the city lights in the distance is just spectacular.
I truly feel like the king of the world now. I’ve come so far from the little town in Minnesota I grew up in. If the boys from home could see me now they wouldn’t believe their eyes.
Harris Sutton arrives with his new wife, Fiona, and then Sebastian Kemp shows up with Alina. I start to feel a bit more comfortable surrounded by my people.
“Has anyone seen Gemini-X?” Svensson immediately asks when he arrives. He keeps looking around for the pop singer.
“Do you know her?” Alina asks.
“He thinks he has a shot with her,” Harris says with a laugh.
“I do have a shot with her,” Svensson says, puffing his chest out. “You’ll see.”
He fixes his hair and then leaves to search the yacht for his dream girl who will most likely immediately reject him.
“Is that Tucker McKinstry?” Sebastian asks with a laugh as Tucker walks over with his girl, Jane. He looks so uncomfortable in his suit. He keeps pulling on the collar. “I didn’t know they made suits that big.”