Total pages in book: 84
Estimated words: 81281 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 406(@200wpm)___ 325(@250wpm)___ 271(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 81281 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 406(@200wpm)___ 325(@250wpm)___ 271(@300wpm)
I field a few more questions and answer each one straight, no jargon, no oversell. By the time we’re wrapping up, I can tell I’ll have a few visitors this week.
Coach Monahan reminds everyone to be timely to the ice and then the meeting is adjourned. The players file out and I take my shot with Locke when he starts to walk by me. I step in front of him, offer a bright smile. “Good to see you again.”
His eyes roam over me dispassionately. “No offense, but I can’t say the same.”
“Ouch. Are you always this surly?”
“Yup.”
“Even more reason we need to get our first official session set up,” I say, pulling my phone out and accessing my calendar. “I know you’ve got a road trip, but the Tuesday or Wednesday after—”
“Doesn’t work for me.”
“Which one?”
“Either.”
I look at him and he stares back with the patience of a man who has decided to wait me out.
“You pick the day then,” I say with a syrupy smile.
“I’ll check my schedule,” he says and brushes past me.
We both know he won’t.
“I’ll follow up with you,” I say to his retreating back.
“That looked productive,” I hear Coach say from behind me.
Monahan is currently the youngest head coach in the league at just thirty-three years and the organization is taking a gamble on him. He’s striking with classic good looks but it’s the easy way he carries his authority that makes him attractive all the way around.
“He’s a pistol,” I quip with a smile.
Colter nods slowly. “I can get involved if you want. Make it clear to him that this isn’t optional, or I can have Van talk to him. Van’s the only one he actually”—he seems to search for the right word—“tolerates. They work out together before the sun rises sometimes. It’s about as close to a relationship as Locke has with anyone on this staff.”
I consider that. The image of Locke Donovan at five in the morning in an empty weight room speaks to a loneliness that he’s clearly comfortable with.
“Not yet,” I say. “Let me try to reach him first.”
Colter studies me for a second before nodding. “All right. My door’s open if you need help.”
“Appreciate it,” I say as he walks away.
I stand in the auditorium, considering my next move.
I have a feeling that Locke Donovan is going to be the most difficult person I’ll have tried to help in my young but successful career.
Good thing I don’t scare easily.
Chapter 5
Locke
I’m hard to impress. I was a second-round draft pick in the league when I was eighteen. I spent one year down in the minors before I was given my shot with the big boys, and I’ve never left. Nine years playing at a professional level and I thought I’d seen everything a team had to offer to a player.
Patrick Rowe has blown all those notions away. The ridiculous amenities he provides for his team will never be topped by another owner, and nothing says that more than the Boeing 737 he had refurbished for the Wildfire.
We’re five weeks into the regular season—eight road games so far—and this aircraft still registers as objectively excessive. It doesn’t have regular seats. It doesn’t even have sumptuous first-class recliners. No, that wasn’t good enough for Patrick Rowe, so he had specially designed pods—fifty of them staggered the length of the main cabin—to provide quiet luxury to his players.
Each one is a shell of curved leather and brushed metal with noise-dampening panels built into the walls and individual controls for light, air and temperature. The cushioned seat goes fully flat at the push of a button, converting into a bed long enough for our tallest guys. There’s a tiny cabinet that has sheets, feather pillows and blankets with higher thread counts than I even purchase for myself. Sleeping in what amounts to a private suite at thirty-five thousand feet is a perk I didn’t mind getting used to.
The rear cabin of the plane has a lounge that looks like someone’s very expensive living room with thick carpet, actual lamps on side tables, and leather couches and love seats to congregate. An area with polished wood tables seats groups of four with captain’s chairs, where you can set up your laptop to work or pull out a deck of cards for a rousing game of gin rummy.
Does Rowe do this all for show? Maybe, but he also does it to give us an edge. His logic makes sense though. I read an article in which he said, “Travel takes from the body and mind and the plane should give it back.”
I thought it was the kind of thing rich men say to justify spending obscene amounts of money but five weeks later, I sleep better on this plane than I do in most hotels, thus I can’t argue with results.