Page 14 of Break Points and Face Offs

Iget a notification from the group chat.

Priestley: First meeting to take place at 6pm, Oak Hill Golf Club. Please contact me if you don’t have a membership.

What the fuck kind of shit is this?

I Google Oak Hill Golf Club. As expected, it’s a fancy ass, private country club where you have to either be a member, or be the guest of a member to even enter. Priestley, or his family, must be so important to this fancy club that he’s allowed to bring multiple guests. There’s probably a dress code. He’s going to give poor Peter hell.

I send Priestley a private message outside of the group chat.

Don’t you think we should meet somewhere easier for everyone to get to? Like the library?

I stare at my phone, waiting for a reply.

If you don’t have a membership, William, I’d be happy to sponsor you as a guest. There’s just a short questionnaire I’d need you to fill out. A few personal details. Nothing major.

I can imagine the sorts of things this questionnaire might ask. I wouldn’t be surprised if Priestley wrote it himself just to get some dirt.

My blood boils. I didn’t work this fucking hard to get excluded from group meetings.

I message everyone else in the group individually. No one seems to have a problem with the setting. Peter Chow tells me his dad is a member and he’s been there a few times. They have good ice cream, apparently. Either Emily and Scott don’t have a problem with Priestley’s questionnaire bullshit, or he saved that just for me.

Well, fuck me. I’m the only one who has a problem with this.

I think about going to Professor Moreno, but I’m not a snitch. I can deal with Priestley myself. As she said, this group project is all about preparing us for difficult personalities. The world of finance is going to be full of Priestleys. If I learn how to deal with him now, it’ll be a whole lot easier later.

I’m still trying to figure out how to get into this stupid country club without Priestley when I head over to the rink for my shift.

A few of the guys are out on the ice, doing precision practice shots on net. I recognize a few of them from games we played against these guys last year. But one of them—Spencer—is especially familiar because we played juniors together on the same team for years.

He skates over to the bench and shakes my hand, giving me a pat on the back. He’s from one of those wealthy Boston families with a big house up on Beacon Hill.

“What are you doing here? I heard you graduated.”

“I’m just helping the equipment manager out while I get my grad degree.”

“Grad degree.” He whistles. “Forgot you’re smart as shit. It’s different here from BC, right?”

“You could say that.”

He laughs. “Any of those legacies giving you shit, man?”

“Nah.” I think about Priestley. It must show on my face because he probes.

“You sure?”

“There’s this one guy—Priestley Rosenthal.”

Spencer looks like he’s remembering something. “Wait a minute, Rosenthal? His dad’s a real prick, owns half of … well, everything.”

“You know him?”

“My dad does.”

That sounds about right. Spencer’s dad’s a big shot, too. A lot of kids I played with in juniors came from wealthy families. Hockey’s expensive to get into. You’ve got to shell out for a lot of equipment, then coaching, camps, travel expenses.

“He’s got us meeting at some fancy ass country club,” I say. “It’s so obvious he’s trying to push me out, but he knows I won’t snitch on him.”

“You don’t have a membership?”