Nick and his friends stepped out of the limo and let out a collective, primal scream. This is how they knew they had made it – vacationing in the Caribbean, limo rides from the airport, and the hotel manager greeting them at the door with glasses of champagne. The *white* hotel manager greeting them at the door with glasses of champagne.
Technically, Nick wasn’t a professional basketball player yet. He had been drafted, he had signed a contract, but he didn’t need to report to training camp for another month, so he took his friends on a celebratory trip. There was Raj, his best friend and college teammate. They had agreed to go to the same college after getting scouted in high school together. Raj busted his ankle and missed this year’s draft, but with a year of eligibility he would hopefully be joining Nick in the NBA next year. And then there was Antoine, a childhood friend who couldn’t even make free throws reliably, but they had been the only two black kids in their elementary school, so they stuck together through the years.