I hadn’t heard from Dad since our first preseason game.
“I’m fine. Just got home and I'm not really sure what’s going on.”
“News is saying you’ll have to be suspended.”
“Probably.”
“Shit, Dawson. Why?” He cussed and then muttered something I didn’t quite catch. “Crystal,” he finally guessed. “She’s there.”
Awesome and smart.
“Yeah.” I shoved my hair back off my forehead and flinched. It was greasy and smelled, for some reason, like cigarette smoke. I was in desperate need of a shower. “Listen, I need to shower and call my agent and probably my coach. Hell, maybe our GM. Can I call you back once I know more?”
“Cut her loose, son. She won’t learn if you’re always there to pick her back up. Hate to say it, she’s my daughter, but just like you had to fight for your future, she has to learn someday. All these handouts you give her…”
I quit listening and turned on the shower.
“Gotta go. Bye, Dad.”
He might have been able to turn his back on her, but I had never been able to break that damn promise he had me make. He didn’t know the pain we went through. The fighting over us. Our mom telling Crystal she didn’t want her. That shit had to hit a teenage girl right in the prefrontal cortex. Imagine not having your brain fully developed and being reminded how unwanted and unlovable you were.
Back when Crystal and I were twelve and fourteen, we thought we had the perfect life. Not nearly as rich as I lived now, but it’d been perfect for us. That all changed the day Dad came home from work and caught our mom fucking the neighbor. His best friend. Who made twice as much money as Dad did.
Trent and his wife got divorced, and Mom moved us in with him before the ink was dry.
Dad sold the home and moved across town. We lived with Trent for a year before he kicked us out because he caught Mom cheating on him. That started the rest of the hell my mom put us through, and my dad avoided.
Crystal was never the same after that. Neither was I. I learned early on that love didn’t mean shit when those who were supposed to love you the most abandoned you as soon as shit got hard.
So yeah, I didn’t really like my sister, but for years, she was all I had.
She was my sister. The only one who understood what we went through. If I turned my back on her, she’d have no one.
But that was before her choices and shitty decisions threatened to ruin everything I’d built for myself.
My phone rang again. Looked like my shower might have to wait.
An hour later, I left Crystal pouting on my couch. Showered and shaved, I was dressed in dress pants and a gray T-shirt as I walked into Rick Marchand’s office.
Our general manager was a decent guy, a kind one, but we weren’t his friends or his buddies. We were his employees, and it was his job to bring in as much money to keep lining not only his pockets, but those of the owners and everyone who worked for the entire Steel organization. From the owner to the custodians, the team’s success determined the success of everyone else.
And right now? Right now, I was the walking red flag. The blemish.
I was the problem he had to fix. If it hadn’t been clear enough from the tone in his voice when he demanded I get my ass into management’s offices as soon as possible, it was definitely obvious in the way he glared at me as I entered.
“It was an accident,” I told him immediately.
I’d take my hits where I earned them, and last night might have started out as Crystal’s fault, but the shit that happened after wasn’t intentional.
“Reports say you assaulted a man inside the bar on Broadway, slammed his face into the bar. Unprovoked by him, you attacked him without cause and smashed not only his nose but his right cheekbone.”
“The floor was wet, and he slipped.”
“Is this funny to you, Dawson?”
Not a damn thing about this was funny.
“No sir.” I shook my head and took a seat I hadn’t been invited to take across from him at his desk. “I’m not trying to be funny. My sister told me he wasn’t leaving her alone. She screamed. I went to protect her. Guy said he hadn’t done anything, but by then, he and his friends were worked up, and I was pissed. Shoving happened, and I grabbed his shirt, but I didn’t throw him into the bar or slam his face into it. We were both shoved. He slipped. I was yanked back, and his head slammed into the bar, but I didn’t do it. Not on purpose.”
“So our press statement should just read, ‘Oops. My bad. Didn’t mean it?’”
I hated politics. Hated the marketing and the promotion, and I was shit at it. I was paid to do a job, and I did it well. Yeah, we were public figures. I knew that, too, but the focus on players should be on their job, not their lives. Every damn secret or mistake shouldn’t be swept across the internet for keyboard warriors to dissect when they knew jack shit, and the media should keep their mouths shut until the entire story was out. Before that, it was gossip and conjecture, and I hated that bullshit.
I’d leave the press release to him. If I had it my way, it’d say fuck off, and that’d only make things worse.
“How much trouble am I in?”
“Owners want you gone. You know that last year an online poll was done and you’re one of the top five most disliked players in the entire professional football organization?”
I’d seen that BuzzFeed poll that moved to Instagram and Twitter and all across social platforms. Cole had given me shit for it, too. We’d laughed it off.
Marchand was not laughing.
“I also score more touchdowns than any other tight end and some wide receivers.” Perhaps pointing out my usefulness doing the actual job would help.
“That’s why they’re not demanding you’re immediately let go. But there will be changes.”
“Like what? Smile for a toothpaste ad?” I gave him a fake, winning smile.
Had to hand it to the guy, he cracked a little. A barely there hint of a chuckle came before he went all serious again.
Then he laid out my future.
I was fucked in the worst ways.
Stay with the team. Settle down or ship out after next season.
How in the hell was I going to do that when I’d sworn a vow to myself at the age of fifteen I would never let a woman get close enough to my heart to destroy it like Mom had done to Dad?
By the time I returned home, Crystal had given up her need to go shopping. She was napping.
I took the time to pack up her shit. Given that she didn’t wake up or so much as twitch while I did it, I figured she wasn’t napping but passed out from too many mimosas. A peek at my kitchen counter told me she’d also switched to wine at some point.
She was a disaster. I should probably haul her ass off to a treatment facility. Somewhere in the Bahamas or some shit. Maybe that’d keep her out of my hair.
It was hours later that she woke up. I’d had to miss practice to deal with Marchand, but since I was suspended for a game during playoffs, for fuck’s sake, it wasn’t like I had to be there. I should have been. Definitely. Coach Bowles had already called and yelled at me, but Crystal took precedence.
Instead, while she slammed cabinets and doors in the guest bedroom, looking for her shit, I called her an Uber.