Chapter 38
38
Jack
I ntermissions in the away team’s locker room were tense. Isaac still refused to talk to me as he patched his face up, placing ointment over the cut on his lip. He wouldn’t be smirking for a while. Judah, man-bun askew, and Levi, glasses fogged, exchanged glances and did that annoying twin thing they did when they communicated without saying a word. Coach glared at all of us. Dave smiled to himself. The players I wasn’t close to whispered to each other.
By the second intermission, the Kings were down by two, and I knew they all blamed me for it. Guilt swamped me. My team looked up to me, needed me, and I was fucking it up for them. But the guilt for letting down my team was nothing compared to the guilt I felt for what I’d done to Aviva. My brothers were right: I’d expected her loyalty without giving her mine.
I needed to talk to Coach. To get real answers this time. I’d ignored my gut, which usually detected lies, because if I’d caught him in a lie, what would that mean about my life? What would being loyal to someone who potentially did something so fucking heinous mean about me? And yeah, I’d done some heinous shit to Aviva, too. I’d fucked her multiple times, forced her to fuck me. She hadn’t consented, not at first. I hadn’t cared. And if I were honest, I still didn’t—not if it had gotten me her. I did care, however, that I’d hurt her, that I’d put that broken look in her eyes more than once. I wanted to roar at myself for what I’d done.
I wasn’t pretending I was a good man, wasn’t making excuses for myself. I’d wanted her, so I’d made an excuse to make sure I had her—any and every way I wanted. But as I’d once said to Mason Calloway, it was different if you gave a shit. Otherwise you were just a pathetic predator taking advantage of your power.
Had Coach cared about Asher? Or was he a weak man who’d wanted to feel powerful by subjugating someone he should’ve protected?
I needed answers.
The second intermission ended.
The team filed out.
“Coach,” I called as he began to exit the locker room.
His shoulders looked tight. He glanced back at me, face impassive. “I’ll talk to you later, Jack.”
I shook my head. “I need to talk to you now.”
He sighed, but waited. When the last player—Isaac—walked out, finally looking at me with a questioning glance, he shut the door and turned to me, hands in his pockets.
“I’m disappointed in you,” he began. “I told you not to let that girl get in the way?—”
“Why did you really kick Asher off the team?” I interrupted.
This time, his sigh was filled with annoyance. “This again? Jack, I told you. The young man was troubled. Jealous. Of you. Wanted to take it out on me. That girl has gotten in your head.”
I cleared my throat, an idea coming to me. “She finally admitted to me he was into some bad shit.”
Was that a smirk on his face? Like Aviva had said?
He quickly hid it. “Yeah, some really bad shit.”
“Like Vice and Vixen,” I prompted.
Relief this time.
“Exactly, Jack.”
Lie.
I felt it this time. If I were honest, it had always been there. Like Aviva said, I’d been willfully blind.
I hid my thoughts, nodding, and Coach continued.
“I didn’t want you to know about it. No reason to ruin his reputation more than it was already ruined. I know you don’t know much about those drugs—at least I hope you don’t—but they are bad, truly bad. Make people go out of their minds with…lust.”
That tiny, almost invisible smirk was back.
I nodded again. Coach had no idea just how much I knew about Vice and Vixen.
“You know, Aviva told me he was dealing it. It makes sense, he was a scholarship student?—”
Coach cleared his throat. “Unfortunately, that’s the truth. Asher was dealing Vice and Vixen to students at Reina and other schools, namely Tabb. We tried to keep it quiet because, as I said, there was no reason to destroy his future. But yes, he was a dealer. From what I learned, a very successful one.”
Lie.
Even if my gut hadn’t told me so, his words confirmed it. Although I didn’t deal Vice and Vixen, I was the liaison between the people in charge of Vice and Vixen and the low level dealers on campus. Asher Gold had never had anything to do with Vice and Vixen, and he hadn’t dealt it. I would know.
Lie.
Liar.
Coach had absolutely no reason to lie, to make up Asher being a dealer—unless he was hiding something. And what else was there to hide, other than the fact that he’d sexually abused Asher Gold? And who knew how many other of my teammates?
Rage—and regret—were so powerful inside me, I almost choked on them. Aviva had been right. She’d never once lied, and neither had her brother. Coach had groomed him, abused him, hurt him. And then when Asher threatened to tell, he’d flipped the script and ruined Asher’s life in the process.
In order to protect his own ass.
Who else on the team had he abused? Who else knew?
The room spun around me, lockers and benches going blurry. I stumbled backward, dizzy.
“Jack?” Concerned, Coach moved toward me. “Are you okay?”
“Sick,” I told him. I wasn’t lying. I wanted to hurl.
He moved toward me, put his hand on my shoulder. I wanted to rip his hand away—rip it off his body—but I forced myself not to recoil and instead accept his “comforting” touch.
“Maybe you should head back early. You certainly aren’t playing tonight. Go rest, think through what went wrong. And I’ll see you at practice tomorrow morning.”
I nodded. “Thanks, Coach,” I said. “You always have our best interests at heart, don’t you? ”
He smiled. “I try to, at least. Now, I better get back to that game.” He grimaced. “They don’t play the same without you. Your team needs you, Jack. Don’t forget that.”
And then he was gone, leaving me alone with my thoughts. I grabbed my phone, checked the app to see where Aviva was, and then ordered a car to her apartment.
I’d fucked up, big time. Let my demons run the show.
I’d lost her because of my own stubborn idiocy.
I felt nausea roll through me, a burning stab in my gut, my heart, at the prospect of never being inside her again, having her in my arms, getting that rare soft smile and laugh from her.
No.
I wouldn’t believe that. Couldn’t. I’d meant what I’d said to her. I loved her, and she loved me, and I wasn’t letting her go.
No matter what.
And Coach would pay. Not only for what he’d done to Asher, but for coming between me and the person who truly mattered most to me in the world. The person I couldn’t—refused to—breathe without.
Oh, he’d pay.
I’d make sure of it.