30. Booker
Booker
“Left, Drew! On your left!” Beau shouts a microsecond too late as Drew’s avatar gets taken out, losing their team the Battle Royale game they were in.
“Bro! Why didn’t you warn me sooner?” Drew criticizes, tossing his controller on the coffee table in Beau and Colt’s TV room.
“Why didn’t you look sooner?” Beau asks mockingly.
Their bickering ensues—a regular occurrence when it comes to these two—until Colt returns from answering the door with the food we ordered.
The four of us lounge around the couch to eat, having flipped the TV to ESPN, where the show hosts are throwing comments back and forth about the NFL playoffs and Superbowl predictions.
Beau and Drew start another argument about who gets to finish off the last of the queso, and Colt takes the opportunity to get my attention.
“Book, as Captain, did you ever get a say in who Coach picked for the team after tryouts?”
I nod, chewing my food slowly before responding. “Yeah, Coach had me meet with him and the assistant coaches after that week of open ice and tryouts, and I made a few comments and suggestions. Why?”
Colt crumples up the foil from his burrito, tossing it onto the table before leaning back on the sectional.
“I talked to Drake Kingston a few weeks ago, when we saw him at B the team had gone to Burgers spends more time in the box than anyone on the ice. He plays dirty and mean, but he’s efficient. He knows how to move the puck and he knows how to score.”
“Our whole team can do that, and none of them ever put anyone in the hospital,” Beau remarks cynically.
“True,” I agree, “but you have to take into account the bodies you’re losing, too.
Me, Simmons, Gally, Butcher, Adamson. You’re going to have to replenish a big chunk of the roster after graduation, and turning away one of the leading scorers in the league out of spite may not be the smartest move. ”
“So, you’re basically saying he’s in whether we like it or not?” Drew asks, annoyed but accepting of my logic.
“Like I said: it depends. Turnout at open ice could be fantastic, and you have enough talent show up to get by without him. But from a strategy standpoint, kicking him to the curb wouldn’t be my first instinct.
All that to say: fuck that guy, he’s a piece of shit, and having a guy like that on your team may hurt more than he helps. ”
Drew and Beau wear matching expressions of aggravation, hating that I’m right and that they may have to play alongside the guy who nearly ruined Colt’s career, his life.
Colt, coincidentally, looks like he’s accepted the fact that Kingston may be joining the team in a few months, and thanks me for the advice.
Sitting in my room, strumming on my guitar with my headphones on, I don’t hear Drew when he knocks and walks into my room. My head snaps up, startled, when he throws himself over the foot of my bed and kicks the gaming chair I’m in to get my attention.
“Fuck you,” I say, pulling the headphones from my ears. “You almost made me drop my guitar, dick.”
Drew rolls his eyes with a smirk. “Open the door when I knock and we wouldn’t have this problem.”
“What, all my spare time is supposed to revolve around you?” I mock.
“Duh. Thought you knew how this friendship worked by now,” he retorts with a laugh. “What were you playing?”
I look down at the electric guitar, running my hand over the frets. “Nothing, really. I was just messing around. Something Maya said…about creativity being relaxing.”
“You were writing something original?”
I shrug. “Not really writing. Lyrics aren’t my thing, I don’t think. I’m not poetic enough for all that. But I was just messing around with chords and stuff.”
“Did you record it? Can I hear?” he asks, and insecurity snakes into my stomach.
“I don’t know, man. It’s really not an actual song. It’s just…noise right now.”
Drew nods, backing off. “Alright. But when you finish, I want to hear,” he says, and I nod.
“Are you doing okay, though? For real?” he asks after a beat of silence.
Setting the guitar on the stand, I lean back in my chair and fold my hands behind my head. “Not really, but there’s not anything else I can do. It’s better this way; you know that.”
Drew nods in acknowledgment. “Yeah, I know. After everything you told me about Ross…I understand keeping her away from him. But I hate knowing what I know and not being able to do anything about it.”
Staring at the ceiling in contemplation, I take a minute before replying.
“I think…I think if I can find a way to get proof about what he does—what he’s like—I can…
put it online. Live-stream it. I wouldn’t be able to get a lawyer or go to the police before he retaliated, but I think I could get evidence out online before he could stop me.
Then it would just be a matter of who’s story the judge believes: mine or his. ”
Drew sits up, eyes focused. “Okay…okay, so why haven’t you done that before?”
I shrug, meeting his gaze. “It’s too risky.
The original plan—waiting until I’m big enough in the NHL, getting a lawyer, doing things the right way—is safer than this.
Exposing him online, he potentially gets detained, but not before he releases what he has on me.
I’ll probably get arrested. We go back and forth in court, and hopefully enough evidence comes out that he gets put away and can’t buy his way out.
But my NHL career would be over. No matter what a court rules, they aren’t going to have a guy publicly accused and tried for rape on any roster. ”
“That’s bullshit, and you know it. You’re the victim here!” Drew’s angry words echo around the room. Victim. The word brings nausea rolling up my esophagus.
“It doesn’t matter what I know. All that matters is what the authorities believe when the time comes, and right now, I have nothing to make them believe me.”
“So get proof—video him or whatever—and then take it to the cops. Don’t post it for him to see, and he can’t retaliate.”
I shake my head. “I can’t. The parties themselves aren’t anything illegal enough to warrant recording.
I’d have to find a way to get a video from his room…
of the things he does to women…or I’d have to record him beating the shit out of me.
In both of those scenarios, it would be too obvious, and I’d have to be live-streaming, or he’d get to my phone before I could do anything with the footage. ”
Drew ponders my words, rage swirling in his eyes.
“He’s disgusting,” he whispers. “Don’t do it,” he says, voice louder now.
“Don’t do anything when you go during Spring break.
I think you’re right, it’s too risky. Getting arrested, and all of that, it’s not worth it.
Hell, your plan is banking on goading him into beating you, and when he finds out you’re recording, he may actually kill you.
” Drew’s earnest expression meets my own—one of the few occasion’s I’ve seen him so serious. “Don’t do it.”
“Okay,” I promise. “I won’t.”
“Also, I actually came in here to tell you I’m not calling you Booker anymore. Fuck that.”
His comment is so abrupt, it actually makes me laugh. “That’s what you came in here for?”
“Yeah, dude. I’m not calling you by that fuckhead’s last name.”
“Fuckhead?”
“Yeah, if the shoe fits,” he says, and I laugh again. “Glad this is what amuses you, asshole,” he snaps in faux annoyance, chuckling. “I’m trying to be a good friend, and you’re laughing.”
“I just never gave it a second thought, to be honest,” I say with a shrug.
“Well, Maya calls you Jamie. Is that what you want?”
I wrinkle my nose, grimacing. “I don’t know about that. Having you and the boys start calling me by the name only she uses right after we just…broke up? Feels weird, I guess.”
“Yeah, you’re right. Feels too intimate. I’m not calling you the name she uses when you fuck,” he deadpans.
I scoff, throwing my guitar pick at his head. “Dick.”
“Come on, you know you two aren’t over for good. We’ll find a way around the Ross shit and you’ll get her back.”
“I appreciate the optimism, but figuring out the Ross shit will probably take a lot longer than she’s willing to wait around for me.”
Rolling from the bed and standing up, Drew just shrugs. “Semantics. Anyway, I think I’m going to steal from Claire and use ‘Jay.’ It’s simple, one syllable, rolls off the tongue.” He emphasizes the last part by holding up a hand like an Italian chef.
Rolling my eyes, I laugh again. “You’re so fucking stupid. Whatever. Jay’s fine. But the boys are going to wonder why you switched up all of a sudden.”
“The boys can suck my dick,” Drew tosses back, walking out the door.