3. Jeff
JEFF
“ U h…” She looked around, chewing on her bottom lip a bit, and said, “Why?”
“Let me in, Amber. It’s freezing outside.”
“Sure, yeah.” She moved out of the way and closed the door behind me, her large brown eyes widening when I took off my coat.
“Well? This needs to be private.”
She gulped and pointed toward a white door with chipped paint. She led the way to the basement and while I would’ve enjoyed the way her shorts clung to her curves, my mind was on one thing—finding out the truth.
“Look,” I said, clearing my throat and rubbing my hand over the back of my neck. Start slow. “How the hell did you get into this school?”
She rubbed her lips together and the longer the silence went on, the redder the tips of her cheeks became. “Get into school?”
“Yes. How did you get into this college?” I asked again, my temper threatening to boil over. “It’s prestigious and quite difficult.”
“I, uh, applied to general studies and got a letter.”
“You just applied? You didn’t have to write an essay?”
She paced the small tiled foyer with a worried expression. “I think I did an essay, maybe an interview with some deans.” She pulled on the bottom of her shirt, fiddling with it as she added, “Why are you asking me this?”
I barked out something between a laugh and a cough and made a face of disgust before saying, “Honestly? I think you’re a part of a college scam of some sort with your enabling uncle, and that he paid someone something to get you into this school.
I looked you up, Amber, and from what I could find, you were not a quality applicant to get into this university.
I mean come on, the whole drug thing freshman year?
But don’t worry, you’re not the only one. ”
Amber Henderson had to be the world’s best actress.
The large brown eyes watering on the sides, the bottom lip trembling just enough for it to seem genuine, and the stubborn jaw sticking out in defiance.
I’d almost believe she had nothing to do with it if I hadn’t seen her with her uncle and found almost nothing about him online—suspicious in today’s society.
Martin Rhett and my coach…it was hard to believe, but something was going on and despite my reservations about Amber, she was the best place to start.
If only she would say something. It had been minutes of silence, three minutes of her wounded expression and three minutes for a trickle of remorse to ebb its way into my conscious.
My approach had been a little strong without any explanation and straight to a verbal accusation, but the mere thought of someone buying spots at a college over people who deserved it sent a wave of rage through me.
I’d spent all summer seeing kids so desperate for a chance at a future, that they sacrificed everything to make it.
And with Jaimie, one of my favorite players from back home, losing his offer? Nah. It filled me with rage.
The enabling and injustice of it all was hard to swallow. Kids who needed financial help through sports scholarships were missing opportunities for people like Amber, who didn’t deserve it.
Shit, is she crying? “Amber, look?—”
She blinked and within seconds, the moisture was gone and her petite face was scrunched in anger. “No, you look. How dare you come in here, accusing my uncle of doing such things? You don’t know anything about him or me.”
I mirrored her position, putting my hands on my hips, and narrowed my gaze at her. “You’re wrong. I do know about Martin Rhett and I want more answers. I want to know what he’s doing and how he gets away with it and I’m going to start with you.”
“Oh, you are? How do you envision that going, Jeff? Want me to spy on him without you showing me a single piece of proof?” she asked, shaking her head hard enough that little pieces of her dark hair escaped, giving her a bit of a wild look.
It fit her. Amber Henderson had always been a bit of a wild girl.
“What do you call this, then?” I got my phone out of my pocket and shoved the image in her face.
“What am I looking at?” she asked, not hiding the disdain and irritation in her voice.
“Those are three players who had mysterious injuries during fall practice and do you see that name next to theirs?” My voice shook with my anger.
“Yeah, I can read, Jeff. So what? This could be written by a fifth grader. It has seven names and my uncle’s name on it. What’s the big deal?”
“There’s a phone number, too.” I snatched the phone away from her.
“Those three guys were all given a spot on the baseball team their freshman year but they mysteriously went away after their injury. I did some digging and found one of them, Cooper Killian, and there was one picture with him and your dear uncle. Cooper is from Missouri—hours away—and he knows your uncle—who is listed as a businessman. Isn’t that odd? ”
Amber tilted her head just enough for me to find a weakness. She’s hooked. “He works with athletes sometimes. He was at the event last night. And how do you know these guys had a spot on the team? Or if that spot was taken away?”
“I can’t confirm it was taken away from them, but I can tell you they all claimed to be here because of baseball and never played a second.
Take Cooper. I remember him from fall ball.
He tore his ACL, which is a year of therapy, at least. So why is he snowboarding right now?
” I moved to the video I’d saved from his Instagram and hit play for her.
“Why is there fifteen written next to his name?”
“I don’t know,” she mumbled.
“Because something is going on and Martin Rhett has something to fucking do with it.”
She sucked in one side of her cheek and eyed me up and down in a bit of an intimidating gesture.
I was a big dude, five inches over six foot, but her dismissing glance knocked me back a step.
Then she brought her hand to her chest and dragged her fingers back and forth over her heart.
“I’m sure there’s a reason this Cooper kid knows my uncle. A perfectly rational explanation.”
An idea struck, mainly to piss her off to get her to spill information, and I said, “I guarantee if I ask around other teams, they’ll find similar situations. Freshmen being recruited and offered spots on the team—taking real opportunities away from people who actually deserve it.”
“It’s interesting, sure, but I’m not understanding what your goal was coming here and insinuating I’m a piece of shit and a part of this all.”
The hurt in her voice had me pause—I wasn’t a total asshole.
“Never said those words, so quit the act. I want to hear in detail how you got into school because I think it could provide some key insight to all this. Nothing I’ve found so far dates back before our freshman year, so I’d like you to get information from your uncle, and I’d like you to write about it on your socials.
Use your annoying followers for good, for once. ”
“Is that all?” she mocked. “Why would I want to do any of those things?”
I studied the way she intertwined her fingers and had an eager look on her face. Amber was intrigued, but she was offended and was letting that stand in the way. “Prove me wrong.”
“What?”
“Prove me wrong about you and your uncle. If I’m wrong, I’ll leave you and your uncle alone.
Hell, I’ll send you invites to every sporting event the rest of the year.
But if I’m right, you write the story and I can focus on my final season, because, trust me, Amber, I do not want to be worrying about this shit right now. This is not fun.”
She blew out a long breath and tucked some of that wild hair behind her ears. “Fine. I’ll clear my own damn name, and my uncle’s, and we can then part ways forever?”
That made me smile. “Or we break open a huge scandal and you write something on your page that is actually newsworthy and helpful.”
“Fine, whatever.” She played with the loose strings on her shorts and it briefly brought my attention to her legs. They weren’t long or toned but her goofy socks amused me. The splattering of colors clashed with my initial impression of her and I lost a little bit of the edge to my voice.
“We need to talk about some ground rules.”
She didn’t respond, but she made an odd face that I interrupted as well?
“First thing—no one knows about this. Not your roommate, not my teammates, not your uncle. No one. Understood?” I spoke with a little too much aggression and I forced my face to relax so I wouldn’t startle her.
It was a character flaw, getting too into things.
My teammates loved my intensity but with my size, I had to tone it down not to scare people.
“Then what the hell am I supposed to tell my roommates when they ask why you wanted to talk to me in private?” she asked, cackling at the end. It wasn’t an attractive laugh but when she did it, her smile stretched across her face in a pleasing way.
Shit. I didn’t think about this part. What would people believe? “We’re hooking up?”
“Ha, no.” She snorted and adjusted her shorts string again, letting the fabric hang a half an inch lower and flashing a hint of her skin. “No goddamn way we’re saying that.”
I was annoyed at the disgust in her voice.
“Project for a class?”
She shook her head and ran her teeth over her bottom lip for a couple of seconds.
“We could say I’m doing a featured piece on you with it being your senior year and me needing to build an online portfolio of work.
My friends have heard me bitching about it all year, plus, your teammates will buy it after I did that piece on Hilly and Greta. ”
“Okay, yeah.”
“Great. I’ll have to do this and figure out a real senior project,” she mumbled, and a little bit of the light in her eyes dimmed. “Any other ground rules or can you go?”
I ignored her blatant dislike of the situation and shook my head. “We need to set times to meet, preferably that aren’t suspect to my teammates. They are nosy as hell and already sensing something is off with me. Give me your number.”
“ Please give me your number,” she replied, tight-lipped.
“Sorry, I’m used to barking out commands on the field. It carries over into life and it’s not meant to be rude. Please give me your number so we can work out logistics.” She rattled off the digits and I quickly sent her a text so she had mine. “You know…you could use this as your senior piece.”
“My uncle and I are innocent, so I don’t think so.”
“Even if you think that, something weird is going on and if we figure it out, that would be a hell of a project. Now, I need to head out, but we’ll talk soon.”
I didn’t wait before taking a step upstairs, but she put her hand on my arm, stopping me.
“Wait!” She jerked her hand back when I turned around and red splotches appeared on the tops of her round cheeks. “How much time do you envision spending on this? What do I need to be doing now?”
“See what you can find out about how you got into college. Any documentation, forms with signature, that sort of thing. In order for us to go forward, we’ll need evidence. Let me check my practice schedule and get back to you with some times I have free.”
She nodded and jutted her chin out just a little. “I want that picture of names. I’m pretty decent at digging up some information on people and I want to see what I can find on those players you mentioned.”
Her determination was clear in the set jaw, the intensity in her dark brown eyes and the slight rise in her voice.
Amber was hooked, but I needed to make one more point clear for this to work.
“You have to swear you will not hide any information that comes up. If I find out you’re protecting your uncle, I will do everything I can to ruin you.
And trust me, there is a lot of ammunition there. ”
She recoiled and a fire entered her eyes. “That won’t be a problem because you’re wrong, Jeff. And I cannot wait to see the look on your face when I prove it to you.”