On this particularly trip home, Eric’s parents were taking a June cruise on the Danube and so the boys would often end up at the big empty Craftsman at the end of their lazy summer nights. They saw each other during college break. They’d been friends since elementary school and grew up in the same small neighborhood. When you were a little tipsy and making gambles on who would be the next player to do a celebratory dance move after a basket, you had clearly moved into shark jumping territory.īut then, that’s how they usually spent their time together. Neither of their teams were still in it-the matchup was simply a good one and they bet small amounts of money back and forth on stupid things as the game went along. The two 21-year olds had spent the evening together at Eric’s parent’s house watching the high-stakes game 7 on the large flat screen that spanned an entire wall of the family room. “Dude, do you wanna go sit in the jacuzzi?” Eric asked his best friend Jamie as the boys stood at the kitchen island finishing their fourth beer of the night.
