15 Nico
15
Meltdown – Niall Horan
‘I mean, what were you thinking?’ Jon’s face was almost the colour of a tomato as he grilled me.
‘Sarah was being inappropriate.’ I paced back-and-forth across his office. Just like Scottie had said he would, Jon was reeling my ass for what had happened on the beach. I didn’t care. Sarah had deserved it.
‘Then let me handle it. It’s my job,’ he stressed, but I couldn’t help but scoff. Anger fuelled every step I took.
‘It’s your job to protect us from situations like this in the first place,’ I argued. Scottie’s face when she saw the photo replayed in my memory. ‘She was unprofessional, the way she treated Scottie—’
‘I also heard you threatened to break her camera. Is that true?’ Jon asked, standing from behind his desk, one eyebrow raised in question.
I didn’t back down, not regretting it for a moment. ‘Only if she did it again.’
Jon buried his face in his hands before I had finished the sentence, his fingers massaging his temples as if trying to ease the stress I’d caused him. ‘Nico,’ his voice was muffled, ‘you put the entire contract at risk.’
‘I don’t care,’ I replied. Not if that’s how Sarah was going treat me.
‘You should care!’ he exclaimed, throwing his hands in the air. ‘ELITE is covering everything. Without them, you and Scottie will have to bear the financial burden.’
‘There are other sponsors.’
He shook his head. ‘Not like this one.’
I rolled my eyes, familiar with this attitude from coaches over the years. I’d always maintained strong partnerships with my sponsors, never allowing them to overstep boundaries we’d set. Somehow, I got the feeling that wasn’t how it had worked with Scottie. And now, I was struggling to remember why I’d agreed to this in the first place.
‘We gave them too much power.’
Jon groaned in frustration. ‘Trust me when I say it’s worth it. Yes, they demand a lot, but they’re also providing us a lot in return.’
What was a lot? What was the point of working for decades on end if I was still at the mercy of sponsors? If I was still having to sell my soul for a brand partnership?
‘She can’t talk to Scottie like that.’
Jon eyed me as I continued to pace, his attention clearly on my knee as the tension in the room grew thicker. It’s like he could tell it was beginning to ache after today’s activities, and the lack of relief physio brought.
‘Take a seat,’ he suggested, his voice calmer now.
I shook my head. ‘I need to move.’
‘You’re stressing me out. Sit down so we can talk instead of arguing because we are getting nowhere,’ he pressed, his head indicating to the chair opposite him. ‘And I don’t want you to wear that leg out.’
I considered being mad at him for bringing up my knee, but as a familiar twinge of pain began to niggle under my skin, I realized he was being a concerned friend. I sat down, immediately itching to get up and walk around some more. It had been hours since the beach and I still had the pent-up rage in my veins. Instead, I shifted, struggling to find comfort in the hard leather chair.
‘What exactly did Sarah say?’ he asked, eyes softening momentarily.
‘It was …’ I trailed off, searching for the right words. It was the look she’d given, the subtle hostility in her words that had made Scottie shrink in on herself. I hated seeing that. I knew the look; Scottie had given it to me before, when I’d still been calling Matteo her dad. I hated it then, and I hated it more now I’d seen somebody else do it to her.
‘It was the way she said it,’ I conceded, knowing he couldn’t grasp it without being there.
He let out a deep breath, as if counting down his exhale. ‘I’m not sure I can do anything about her tone.’
I huffed. ‘How do we know she won’t pull this stunt again?’
‘We don’t. But if she does, let me deal with it. We still get final say on any photos they publish.’
My tense body relaxed as I processed what that meant. Anything we didn’t like, anything like the yoga class, she was safe from.
‘And you’re sure they’ll listen?’
He cleared his throat as he shuffled some papers on his desk. ‘They could always ignore our request; they hold the photos. But without my written confirmation, we could sue them. It doesn’t stop anything, but it should make them think twice.’
I tried to remember why I’d agreed to this deal. Scottie had said she was used to this. Used to being used like this. And I’d allowed another person to come and take advantage of her again.
‘Nico, let me do my job. This is a standard contact, with a brand that is excited about the partnership. They want us as much as we want them,’ he explained, his hands pressing down into the desk. ‘But if something like this happens again, you need to keep a cool head, and let me handle it.’
Still unsure, I crossed my arms. Jon had never let me down, neither as my coach or my friend. Even when he was poached, he’d set me up with a choice of other coaches, making sure everything was in hand before he abandoned me for the dark side. I might not trust Sarah after today, but I had to trust his judgement.
With reluctance, I nodded once.
‘Good. Glad you’re back on board,’ Jon said, a little more pep in his tone than I would have liked, before his attention turned to his PC monitor. I’d fought the urge to slump down in my chair when he’d spoken again. ‘I can’t complain too much. It’s nice to see you and Scottie on the same side of something. I just wish it was something less problematic for me.’
I shrugged off his comment, pretending it meant nothing. ‘Guess all that team building is paying off.’
In truth, I wasn’t sure why I caused such a big deal. Off court, I usually had a more levelled head. While I wouldn’t have let Sarah talk to Scottie like that, I could admit to myself that threatening to take her camera was maybe a step too far. I didn’t dare allow myself to dig deeper, to wonder why out of everyone, I’d cross that line for her.
‘Now let’s talk about how you can make it up to Sarah.’
‘Make it up to her?’ I asked, confused and a little agitated. ‘I admit I overreacted, so I’d understand if you want me to apologize to her. But she should be apologizing to Scottie, too.’
He waved his hands as if to calm me down, but all it does is feed the reawakened rage monster living inside of me. ‘And she will, of course. But we also need to keep ELITE happy and since they aren’t exactly happy about how this photo situation has been handled …’
‘They want something in return?’
‘Exactly,’ he said with a nod.
Resigned, and out of fight, the pain in my knee growing and sapping my remaining energy, I asked, ‘What do they want?’
‘Oh, don’t look so sour. You might actually like this one.’
I looked at him with a blank expression, waiting for him to put me out of my misery.
‘You guys are going off campus.’