Chapter 9 - Ashton
The shot clock was counting down, and the arena was humming with anticipation and high energy. “Defense! Defense! Defense!” the crowd chanted.
I dribbled the ball as I was going to the hole, and Cougar’s shooting guard, Jerrol Miller, tried to check me. I faked to the right and went left around our point guard, Wade Glory, to set the pick. Cougar’s point guard, Ayden Stenhouse, peeled off to pick me up.
With three seconds left on the clock before halftime, I had to get the ball out of my hand. I saw Stenhouse trying to maneuver in front of me. I jumped up to make a quick shot in hopes that I would prevent a collision and get the bucket off. As I released the ball, Stenhouse and I collided.
The whistle pierced the air, and we turned to look at the ref. “Charge! Offensive foul. Seventeen!” The ref shouted and pointed at me.
“Come on, ref! Who payroll you on?” I shouted.
The referee teed me up and shouted, “Technical foul, seventeen, unsportsmanlike conduct!”
Grumbling, I headed to the locker room for our halftime break with the rest of the team.
Before he instructed us on our next play, Coach Jesse immediately ripped into me.
“Santoro, what was that all about? I can’t have you losing your head right now.
We can’t afford unnecessary techs. We’re already down by seven at the half. ”
Alex, who sat opposite me, looked up and muttered, “Still blaming other people for your mistakes.”
All I saw was black. I reacted before I could think.
My ass was off the bench, and my feet were in the air.
I went straight into his mouth and then clocked him in the side of the head as we flew over the bench.
Playing on a moving filmstrip in my mind were images of Zoe riding Alex, kissing him, and all the intimate situations they could have possibly derived.
Rage turned me into a beast, unable to feel the blows he was throwing back.
It was mere seconds before someone pulled me off him, and Coach and Marc Anderson jumped between the two of us.
“Get the fuck off me!” I shouted, pulling away from Owen Divine and Christian Bourne who grabbed me.
“In my office. Now!” Coach shouted and pointed at me. Glory and Falls pulled away from Curry, who they were holding, and waved me toward the office.
“Come on, man,” Glory stated as Coach shouted at Alex.
“Dress out. You’re out of here now, Curry!” Coach shouted at Alex.
“Coach, for real?” Alex asked.
“Shit like that will tear this whole team apart,” Coach declared to Alex as I grabbed my bags to head to the office.
“What about getting unnecessary technical fouls? That’s good for the team?” Alex asked.
“Oh, we know all about unnecessary technical fouls, don’t we?” Coach demanded. “Get out! Get out my locker room now!” he thundered.
I headed to Coach’s office with him hot on my heels.
“This is where we at? You just gon’ throw it all away? Last season. Four-time MVP. You supposed to be giving it all you got. You just gon’ throw it all away,” Coach repeated, walking and shaking his head at me.
“Coach, you know what this is.”
“Yeah, I know exactly what it is. I got an all-star player that can’t seem to control himself. I see my all-star player deciding to put his hands on a teammate. How you think that’s gon’ play out?”
“Coach, why is he even still here?”
“Santoro, you know I don’t got no control over that.
I’ve been talking to the people, and we’re trying to do everything we can to get through this season.
I’ve been talking to you about that. This is your last season.
He’s a up-and-coming. I don’t know what decision they’re gonna make over a personal issue between players, but this is your last season.
I need you to be focused on this last season, and if that’s too much for you, then it’s over.
It’s gonna be hard enough for me to try and explain this incident.
What we doing here? Is it over? What I need, Santoro, is at halftime, our all-star player to step on that floor and take us to the big game.
If you’re not that person, then don’t even leave out this locker room. Get out my office.”
I headed out of the office and back into the locker room. I sat away from the team for a few minutes to get my head together.
When the break was over, my teammates looked at me.
“You ready, man?” Song asked.
I looked at the team. A slow smile crept over my face, and I bumped fists with Song and the rest of them. “Y’all my dogs. Let’s whup their asses,” I declared.
My brothers chanted loudly as we headed out of the locker room. It was all about them, never about me. I could never let them down. I had that fire in me. We were one.
We finished the game off strong, fighting until the end. We won by three points. I was sitting in my parents’ kitchen as they moved around me. Although they attended most games, they never waited for me after a game. I always caught up with them whenever we had a home game.
Things were tense, but I wanted to finish the season as a winner because it wasn’t about the money for me; it was about the respect.
I knew that Coach kept telling me to hold on, but I prayed that things would change for the better.
I wasn’t sure how we could finish off the season with so much animosity between us.
Driving to my parents’ house, my thoughts returned to Muffin, who I had argued with earlier before the game.
No sooner than those photos of Chanel and me hit the internet, she had been blowing up my phone, accusing me of cheating on her all along.
She called me daily either cursing me out or crying, asking how I could do her that way.
How could I make her feel guilty about what she was doing when, all along, I had been doing the same thing.
No matter what I said, she chose to believe that I had broken our vows first.
“It’s not right, Michael,” Mama complained.
“It may not be right, Cass, but it’s real. Besides, Leale knows what he needs to do to stay out of trouble,” my father replied, calling me by my middle name, which was Italian for loyal.
I had told my parents about what went down in the locker room, because they noticed that Alex had not returned to the game.
“Real or not real, someone needed to whup that boy’s ass. We’ve always talked about how spoiled he is and throwing tantrums on the court. It’s no surprise that happened. She got with him strictly to piss my baby off. She knew how we all felt about him.”
“Yeah, we have been very vocal about our dislike of Alex, even when Leale was taking up for him.”
“If I’ve told these boys once, I’ve told them a thousand times, everyone is not your friend, and you can’t trust no man where your woman is concerned,” Mama fussed.
“Would you two please quit talking about me as if I’m not here?” I piped up before shoving another piece of my mother’s homemade pineapple upside down cake into my mouth.
After leaving the stadium, I hadn’t wanted to attend any parties or go home alone. I wanted to be with my parents. My mother was my comfort and peace, and my father would rake my ass over the coals and hold me accountable as a man. It was the perfect balance to my fucked-up mentality at the time.
“What are you going to do, Leale?”
“I don’t know, Papà. I have to wait to see what they decide. It’s fucked up—”
“Language!” my mother chided in a harsh tone.
“Sorry, Ma. We’re determined not only to make it to the playoffs again this year but win the championship too. I can’t not play in the finals if we make it.”
“You can’t let your temper get the best of you.”
“Papà, you don’t get it. Looking in his face, knowing what he stole from me—”
“He stole nothing, Figlio. Your wife gave herself to him. She chose to be with that man.”
“And he knew we were married.”
“That may be true, but he did not steal anything from you. Clearly, they did not mean anything to each other because they both went on with their lives. After those few days you told us about, he ended up being with someone else. I know that it hurts, but what she’s done to you is not worth risking your future, your career, or your freedom.
You two are almost over now. What are you fighting for?
Surely not for her, because you chose to let her go.
Surely not for her reputation, because she doesn’t care about it. ”
“She may have screwed up, but she wasn’t the only one,” I muttered, pushing the dessert plate away with a few crumbs.
“What’s that mean?” Mama asked.
I glanced guiltily at her, trying to decide if I should share the full truth or not. I didn’t want my mother to carry that guilt with her, but she needed to know. So, I shared my conversation with Muffin with them.
“She’s using that to justify why she treated you that way?” Mama balked.
“Yes.”
She rolled her eyes. “I’m not saying that she isn’t hurting, but I am saying that’s a sorry excuse.
I don’t regret my decision. You both were too young to be having a baby.
She would use that baby to lock you down, and I didn’t want her using a kid to do that.
I always saw Zoe for who she was, even when she played the sweet, innocent role all those years ago.
“I knew it was only a matter of time before her true colors were revealed. I’m sorry that the procedure left her with scar tissue, but that’s not a reason to start cheating on your husband. I’m sorry, I just don’t buy it. I’ll call her and—”
“Mama, don’t.”
“No. I owe her an explanation and an apology. Not because of the decision that I made for you both, but because of how I handled it and the result.”
Mama huffed and walked out of the kitchen. My father shrugged and followed behind her. I pulled out my phone and shot a text off to Chanel, whom I labeled as Coco in my phone in honor of her namesake, Coco Chanel.
ME:
Are you good? Just wanted to check on you.
COCO:
I’m fine. I’m worried about you and your actions lately on and off the court.”
ME:
Why off?
COCO:
A little scuffle that landed you at county to cool off.
ME:
The past is all behind me now.
COCO:
What are they going to do?
ME:
Automatic suspension of the next game.
COCO:
Next time you want to blow off some steam, phone a friend. LOL!
I fingered my phone, thinking that it might be safer not to respond to that comment. It could be interpreted in many ways, and I didn’t want to say anything that might land my ass in hot water, nor did I want to make her feel some type of way about my response. In the end, I kept it simple.
ME:
A’ight. Stay chill and have a good night.
COCO:
I will. You stay out of trouble.
I found my parents in the living room and spent another hour with them before I headed home. All I wanted was a shower and my bed, but another mystery lay waiting for me: a pair of women’s panties on my bathroom floor and the familiar scent of a woman’s perfume in my bedroom.
I would have to ask my housekeeper about them when she arrived tomorrow.
Since I didn’t have practice, I would be home all day.
The only thing that made any sense was that she must have been cleaning up and come across an old pair of Muffin’s panties and dropped them.
It had to be that, because Muffin had denied doing it the first time, surely she wouldn’t be the culprit this time, too, would she?