Chapter 32
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Lucas
The stadium corridors shouldn’t be this lively, considering it’s not even seven a.m.
The smell of coffee hits me, and I realize I didn’t get to send Scottie her morning cup.
As upset as I am about everything, that might bug me most of all.
A few staffers are staring at me with knowing looks that don’t actually know a thing as I walk toward Doug’s office. No one has a phone out, thankfully. Everyone here has signed NDAs … not that that mattered when it came to Jake sharing that picture.
I knock on Doug’s door.
“Come in,” he barks.
I open the door, and that’s when I see her, frozen in place, her shoulders pulled tight toward her ears, arms folded so rigidly she looks cut from marble.
I want to touch her, but I don’t dare.
That’s what got us into this mess in the first place.
Doug’s office overlooks the stadium, sunlight pouring through the wide glass panes onto the empty diamond below.
The grass looks impossibly green, the chalk lines clean and precise.
It’s wrong that something so orderly can exist when this room feels wired with landmines.
One wrong word from me could set everything off.
Doug sits down at his desk and rolls forward. In joggers and a team T-shirt, he clearly didn’t have any more time to get ready this morning than I did. He turns his computer screen to face us. It’s a different version of the same hit piece.
“Explain.”
I’m silent. I look at Scottie, not sure what I’m supposed to say or do. Do I expose Jake and tell him the truth? Do I take the fall? She wouldn’t answer any of my calls or texts on the way over here, so I have no idea what she wants me to do, no clue what will hurt her the least.
“Well?” Doug asks.
“I’m sorry, sir,” I say, because she’s not saying anything.
Doug shakes his head, looking less furious than frustrated. “I don’t understand. Ms. Quinn, you of all people have shown how adept you are at managing situations and personalities. How could this have happened?”
“I’m not cut out for this job,” she says simply.
My face flies to hers. “What? Yes, you are.”
She ignores me. “I should step back.”
“Step back?” Doug asks.
“I blurred lines—”
“No, you didn’t!” I say, angry that she’s still protecting Jake, but even angrier that she’s protecting me. “Sir, it was my fault, not hers. Scottie doesn’t know how to let people take the fall for their own actions.”
“What actions are those?” Doug asks. Scottie’s gaze sharpens, but there’s no other emotion on her face.
“Nothing actually happened. I begged her to break up with Jake and give me a shot. She said no. This isn’t what it looks like.”
“Son, I don’t care what it looks like. I care about what’s really happening here. Did you pursue Ms. Quinn while she was dating Jake?”
“No—” she starts.
“Yes,” I blurt over her.
Doug exhales. Leans back in his chair and shakes his head. “This changes everything.” He looks at us both in turn, shaking his head more and more. “You’re both liabilities right now.”
Scottie’s still looking at Doug. Her jaw is set, her hands are still, and she hasn’t glanced at me once since I came in. Not in anger. Not in relief. Not in anything.
I would give anything for her to look at me.
She doesn’t.
“I’ll step back,” Scottie says, her spine stiff. “Lucas can have a different coordinator—”
“Different coordinator?” Doug interrupts.
“I’m not sure what Lucas’s future is with this organization right now.
I told you both that I need team players.
I need a clubhouse that clicks, not clashes.
” His eyes jump between us. “I really hoped you had it in you, Fischer. I like your sister. I like your dad. I thought I liked you.”
“I understand,” I say, feeling so much worse than sick. I’ve disappointed everyone I love. Hurt everything I care about. “I’ll start packing.”
“Not today, you won’t. That’ll cause a stir of its own.
” He spins in his chair and looks out at the stadium.
“Go back to the hotel—separate rooms—and don’t talk to anyone.
Not players, not staff, not media. Fischer, I don’t want you even looking at your own twin.
Stay out of the spotlight, stay off social media, and wait for me to call you. ”
“Yes, sir,” I say.
Scottie just nods.
Doug opens the door for us and closes it behind him. We step out of the office, turn a corner, and nearly run into Jake standing there, hands shoved in his pockets, jaw tight.
We all stop.
“You set us up!” I yell, stalking toward him as he backs up.
“It wasn’t me,” Jake says weakly. And it’s that weak refusal to take responsibility that sets me off.
I rush him, grabbing his collar and pushing him hard against the painted cinder block wall, where he hits with a thud. But Scottie’s soft “don’t,” stops me before I drive my fist into his face.
“You’re the only person who had that picture, Jake,” I say. “You lied to the entire world to save face, you pathetic piece—”
“I didn’t leak it! I sent it to Agent,” Jake blurts. “I sent it to Agent because I was angry. I thought he’d send it to Scot! Maybe … pressure her to keep things going,” he admits.
“You what?” I push him harder against the wall.
“I didn’t think about what it would mean! I just … I wanted her to feel it. Agent kept saying there was too much at stake for me to lose. He told me he’d handle it,” Jake says. “I didn’t know he’d sell it. I swear, I didn’t know he’d spin it like that.”
“That’s convenient,” I say, squeezing his cotton shirt in my fists.
“You never seem to know. Meanwhile, Scottie keeps taking the fall for you again and again. How dare you? She scheduled it for three in the morning, Jake! Three in the morning, and your agent was immediately making calls. Had you already sent him the picture, or did you wait till she posted this?”
“I sent it last night, after the parking lot.” He shrinks. “But it was before she posted! I didn’t know she was going to. I didn’t mean for this to happen!”
Scottie stares at him blankly. Not speaking. Not moving.
Then she looks away.
“Scot, please,” he cries, and I drop him. He slumps against the wall, his chin quivering. “I had no idea this would happen!”
“That’s enough,” Doug says, and Jake and I whip around to see the GM angry but controlled. The few staffers hovering in the periphery scatter like roaches. “Quinn, Fischer, go back to the hotel. I have separate cars waiting for you in the lot. Jake, come with me.”
Jake gives Scottie a backward look as he follows Doug, not that she sees it. She’s a shell.
I try to talk to her on the way to the parking lot, but she doesn’t say a word until we spot the two cars.
“I’m going back to Mullet Ridge. All of this drama will end when I’m gone,” she says.
“No way!” I say. “You think you’re alone in this?”
“There’s no reason to tie you to me.”
“Don’t say that.” I step closer, lowering my voice. “I am tied to you, and I’m not untying anything. I know what Doug thinks right now. I know what my roster spot looks like from his office this morning.”
Her eyes finally meet mine. Just for a second.
“I don’t care,” I say. “I don’t care about any of it. I care that you’re about to get in that car and disappear and tell yourself it’s the right thing to do.”
Something moves across her face—pain, guilt, recognition. I can’t tell.
“Don’t,” she says.
“Don’t what?”
“Don’t make this harder.”
“I’m trying to make it easier.”
“You can’t.” Her voice breaks on the last word, just barely. “Nothing can. You can’t fix this, Lucas.”
“I’m not trying to fix it! I don’t care how broken it is. I care about you.”
I move toward her, but she throws her arms up and steps toward the car.
And then she stops.
Not because I stopped her. She just … stops.
For a second she stands there with her back to me, one hand on the door, and I watch something move through her shoulders. Not resolve. Something more like recognition.
She knows what she’s doing.
She’s choosing it anyway.
“Don’t run away from me, Quinn.”
She turns just enough that I can see the side of her face.
“Stay in your hotel room, Lucas.”
“No way.”
“You have to,” she says, opening the car door.
“I’m not letting you take the fall on this!” I say, but she’s already closing the door. And I swear, I see her mouth two words:
Watch me.
***
When I get back to the hotel, media is already circling.
Fans are waiting in the lobby. I keep my sunglasses on, pull up my hood, and don’t answer anyone on the way up to my room.
I open the door to find the light still on and Logan and Coop sitting at the table still in their early-morning lift gear—mesh shorts, team hoodies, protein shakes sweating onto the wood.
“What are you guys doing here?” I ask. “Shouldn’t you be at breakfast?”
“We thought you could use some support,” Logan says.
“You’re definitely not getting it online,” Coop adds.
“Was that necessary?” Logan asks as I drop onto my bed.
I bury my face in my hands while Coop defends himself.
“Fans are already going through his videos where he mentioned the girl he liked and tying each one directly to something Jake posted with Scottie. They’re going nuts.”
“Not helpful,” Logan says. “How does my sister put up with you?”
“You two gave her a lot of practice.”
“Can you guys shut up?” I ask. “I can’t think.”
“Now you know how I feel,” Coop says.
Logan and I both look at him. He shrugs.
“So what happened?” Logan asks.
“Doug’s furious. He doesn’t know she and Jake were faking—Scottie wouldn’t tell him.
I said the picture was taken out of context.
I was pursuing her while she was dating Jake, she turned me down, someone caught us at the exact moment.
He doesn’t know what to believe, but he thinks we’re a liability.
Scottie’s trying to quit to protect Jake and me.
She’s worried Doug’s going to cut me.” I squeeze my temples. “She won’t tell me what she needs.”