Page 1 of Wingmen

CHAPTER ONE

Dustin

Elliot Rodriguez looked up from his phone. “Excuse me?”

“I said you’re in my seat.” Dustin pointed at the folded card next to Rodriguez’s water glass:

Dustin Bennet - Denver Avalanche

Rodriguez’s eyes passed over the card and went back to the phone. “Oh. Weird.”

Dustin watched his thumbs moving. “So are you gonna move?”

Rodriguez’s shoulder lifted, eyes on the phone. He snapped his gum. “Just take my seat. It’s probably better.”

Dick.

Dustin took a deep breath, counted to three, and let it go. It wasn’t worth getting into an argument at a swanky off-season charity event. This kid was only twenty-one, andalltwenty-one-year-olds were shitheads. He scanned the table for Rodriguez’s name card.

It was right next to his.

Sighing, he pulled out the chair beside Rodriguez and sat. Rodriguez glanced up with a questioning look, and Dustin gestured at the card. “Weird that they putyounext tome.”

“Huh.” Rodriguez took in the two name cards and snapped his gum. “Yeah.”

He returned to the phone. Dustin poured himself a water from the sweating carafe between them and took stock of the room. The charity gala occupied the entire third floor of the hotel: white tablecloths, ambient jazz, a stage where someone would eventually make a speech. The event was for a program calledPortland’s Rising Stars,and Dustin’s agent had called it a ‘visibility opportunity’, which was agent-speak for, “Gosmile at people who might give you money later.” Dustin had put on a jacket. He’d drawn the line at a tie.

The room was full of off-season players wondering how long they had to stay to make it look like they cared. Some guys were better at this than others. The air conditioning was up so high it was like attending a buffet in the arctic circle, but Portland in early July was already hot, so it was better than the alternative.

He turned his attention back to Rodriguez.

The last time Dustin had seen Elliot Rodriguez, he was watching from the press box as the kid skated away from his teammate with the puck. Ten seconds later, the regular season was over. Sudden death. A steal so fast Dustin barely saw it happen. He was three months post-op and could do nothing but watch helplessly as thischildundressed his team in front of the world. The headline that ran the next day?

Elliot Rodriguez is the New Dustin Bennet

Which made sense. The kid was fast as hell and had Dustin’s same number on his jersey. And now he was sitting there in a flashy suit that fit too well for someone his age, scrolling through his phone like The Great Dustin Bennet’s arrival was approximatelyas interesting as wet paint. He smelled like a cologne ad, and had a tattoo below his ear of the Puerto Rican flag in the shape of a rooster. His black curls, which Dustin had only ever seen soaked in sweat, were crispy with gel. Up close, he was smaller than Dustin remembered. Wide across the shoulders, though. Probably why the suit fit so well.

Dustin sipped his water. “You here for the cause or the optics?” he asked.

“The cause.”

Dustin chuckled. The kid may have been fast as hell and dressed to the nines, but he was still too young to realize he didn’t have to lie about that kind of thing. “Yeah. Right,” he said.

Rodriguez looked up. “I came up through a program like this in Tampa. Joined my first inner-city charity league when I was eight. So yeah. Right.”

That was unexpected. And it left Dustin without a comeback, which almost never happened. He set down the glass. “Fair enough.”

“What about you? Here for cause or optics?”

“Optics.”

Rodriguez grinned, which was equally unexpected, and went back to his phone. “At least you’re honest,” he said, as he swiped open the camera and took a selfie with Dustin behind him.

The table filled up. Two Kraken defensemen, a Sharks goalie, and Reef Okafor, who arrived like a hurricane and dropped into the seat next to Rodriguez like he believed everyone there had been waiting for him. Dustin wasn’t friendly with Reef – he played for the Tampa Lightning with Rodriguez – but he’d heard enough stories to know that an off-season night with him tended to end in a dumpster, or jail, or, on one occasion, Spain.

“Gentlemen!” Reef spread his arms. His smile was very whitein his dark brown face, and he held a shot glass in one hand and a bottle of whatever was in the glass in the other. “Y’all ready to raise some money for the kids?”

“You look more like you’re ready to raise hell,” said Dustin.