The coach nodded. “I do.”
“I’m sorry.”
Kurtzman stuck out his callused hand. “Apology accepted.”
Bash shook his hand. “Thanks, Coach.”
“Anything else on your mind?”
Bash thought about Adonis in the locker room, naked and surprised when he saw Bash. He thought about the stirring he had felt inside of him when he saw the other boy. He had tried not to stare before speaking. Adonis was beautiful, and it was hard not to stare.
“Nothing else, Coach. I am focused.”
“Good. You ready to know who you’re mentoring on the team this year?”
——
Cort Styleton was a piece of work. Bash would figure that out soon enough. The kid was a freshman from Rhode Island. His parents had an ungodly amount of money. Bash would know. His parentsalsohad an ungodly amount of money.
Bash’s parents had balanced their wealth with a healthy dose of Dutch thrift and entrepreneurial spirit. They never gave Bash or his sister Lotte money or things without the children earning it. Bash had grown up appreciating the value of money and hard work. He knew that things might be handed to him by other people because of his privilege, but his parents would never feed into that privilege.
He was lucky to be raised that way.
Studying at Bellford, Bash had met plenty of other students who grew up with money and no sense of what it was worth. They grew up thinking that everything they wanted should be theirs.
It didn’t take Bash long to realize Cort was one of those students. He had met Cort a week ago at the start of the school year when the first-year students were still new and learning the ropes. He’d disliked the kid immediately. He looked like he’d stepped out of a Vineyard Vines catalogue with his perfectly coiffed blonde hair and rosy cheeks. He played hockey well, though. He had talent, and he knew it.
He would also be taking Bash’s place on the starting lineup. This was unheard of for a freshman. Bash had expected Michael Zimmerman, a junior, to take his place on the line. Kurtzman informed them, though, that Cort’s skill on the ice had earned him this privilege.
“You’re gonna be my mentor, huh?” Cort said to Bash at the start of practice. Bash leaned on the boards, stretching his trap muscles.
He looked over at the freshman, who was on the other side of the boards. Cort had skated up to him and stopped in a spray of ice, hitting the boards unnecessarily. Bash refused to be startled.
“Yes.”
“Coach told you, then?”
Bash didn’t blink. “He did.” He usually intimidated the first-year students. Even when he was only a sophomore, they’d been a little afraid of him. The big Dutchman who’d earned the nickname Basher, and apparently for good reason.
“Looking forward to it, old man,” Cort said. “Fucking sucks that you’re not on the starting lineup.”
Bash shifted his position on the boards and stood to his full height. At last, Cort flinched a bit.
“You don’t mean that,” Bash said. “You want to start. That’s okay. I did, too, when I was a freshman.”
Cort recovered his bravado and clapped Bash on the shoulder. “I bet there’s still lots I can learn from you.” He skated away. The tone he’d said the words in left no room for doubt that he thought he had nothing to learn from Bash.
Asshole, Bash thought as the freshman started taking a lap around the ice.
——
Bash was walking out of the Rink after practice when his phone rang. It was midnight in Amsterdam, but it didn’t surprise Bash that his father, Gerard Koning, was calling. The man never slept.
“Hoi, papa,” he said, answering the phone in Dutch. He shouldered his gym bag and opened the Rink door, stepping out into the warm Massachusetts night.
“Sebastiaan,” Gerard said. Bash imagined where his father might be right now. He might be at their luxurious house in Oud-Zuid, drinking cognac while he reviewed stock portfolios. More likely, he was at his office in the Zuidas looking over the Amstel River. He probably still wore whatever custom-made 5,000-euro suit he’d worn for the day. “How are you?” Gerard continued, speaking Dutch.
“I’m well, Father. It’s late to call. Is everything all right?”
