Chapter 30 #2
He holds his finger up at me, bowing his head and blessing his food even though I’ve never seen him pray over any meal. I guess being in Texas makes him fall into the whole “football and Jesus” shtick he mused about when he’d tell me and AJ he was courting some “country-bumpkin ass athlete.”
He opens his eyes, glancing at me. “Well, thankfully, Kenny still has my number. He gave me a ring the other day and said he wanted me to drop by for a visit.”
I narrow my eyes at Uncle Kenny. “For…what?”
“Well, Ken shared with me that he was concerned about you and AJ,” Blake says.
Sour bile bubbles in the back of my throat.
I swallow it. “You…you did what, Uncle Kenny?”
“It was the right thing to do after that talk we had…”
I cock my head to the side. “Are you joking right now?”
I turn towards Aunt Faye. “He’s joking, right? Did you know this?”
“Lovie…I swear I didn’t know,” she replies.
Blake holds his hands up. “It’s okay. Really, Lovie. It’s okay.”
“It’s not,” I hiss.
“I just came to talk.”
I swallow that bubbling bile again and sit back in my seat, staring at the side of Blake’s perfect lineup.
I guess Rich was right. Stupid men like AJ don’t just let women like me get up and walk away.
Blake stabs his fork through a green bean. “I’m sure Lovie has shared with you all that her and AJ are having a moment. Hence her surprise visit earlier this month.”
“Uh-huh…” Aunt Faye nods. “And what does this ‘moment’ have to do with you?”
He sticks the lone green bean in his mouth, sighing. “Well, it has a lot to do with me. AJ is my client, and my job is to protect him.”
“Protect him from what?” she asks.
He looks over at me. Aunt Faye and Uncle Kenny follow his gaze, and it feels like all those other meetings me, him, and AJ used to have back in New York in our kitchen, except this time I’m not nursing any fresh wounds.
“Are you talking about protecting him from Lovie?” Aunt Faye asks.
He looks down at his plate. “You’ve been watching our boy play, right, Ken?”
“Yeah, I’ve…I’ve caught a game or two when I can.”
I scoff.
“Well, then you should know his performance hasn’t been so hot. Truth be told, that game in Buffalo really messed us up. His head isn’t on the field. It hasn’t been for the past month. The front office is talking.”
“And saying what?” Uncle Kenny asks.
Blake blows out a breath, looking up. “Anymore missed snaps and dropped balls and they might bring in the next man up and sit our boy down until he can move past this problem that’s got his head in the clouds.”
I choke out a bitter laugh, pushing back from the table. “This conversation has absolutely nothing to do with me—”
“Wait a minute,” Blake murmurs, holding his arm in front of me. “Let’s talk this out. We’re all adults here.”
“There’s nothing to talk about—especially with you,” I hiss.
“You know it took him all month to finally tell me what went down between you two? He even wanted to come here by himself tonight. It took the entire plane ride to get him to understand how bad an idea that was.”
“Am I supposed to feel flattered?”
He drops his fork. “Wait a minute. What happened to the sweet Lovie who was all in for protecting our boy as long as she got to take his black card to Fifth Avenue and buy whatever her heart pleased? Who is this combative hothead I’m getting acquainted with?
Being back home has really done a number on you, huh? Or has this always been you?”
My chest tightens. “Why don’t you tell them why I got that black card? It wasn’t given to me just because.”
“Are we throwing out more allegations here?”
“Allegations?” I laugh. “So this is why you came, huh?”
I look from Uncle Kenny to Aunt Faye. “This is why he was so happy to come here in case it hasn’t clicked in your heads yet. He’s doing damage control and Uncle Kenny ushered him right on in to do it.”
“I’m simply trying to talk about what you’ve been going around alleging to folks.”
“They’re not allegations. They’re my truth.” I stab a finger in my chest. “Mine.”
He angles his body toward Aunt Faye and Uncle Kenny. “Since we’re being so frank, I’ll just put it all out on the table so we can stop dancing around the elephant in the room—did Lovie ever show you all any evidence that AJ…abused her in any way?”
That bile creeps its way back up my throat.
I’m gonna throw up.
I’m gonna do it right here in the middle of our kitchen table because that word makes me as sick as that other word used to make me.
“Did she stroll up on your porch with a black eye, Kenny? Did she show you any evidence that he touched—”
“Hold the hell up,” Aunt Faye sputters. “See, this is what we ain’t gon’ do.”
Blake’s eyebrows shoot up, and he leans forward over the table. “It’s a valid question, Faye. Did she?”
“That doesn’t matter! How disgusting of you to insinuate that she would lie about something like that.”
He holds his hands up. “Hey…when there’s money on the table, I don’t put anything past anyone.”
“What do you want from me, Blake?” I croak. “I left. I didn’t take anything from AJ. I didn’t go to the media. I didn’t leak anything to any of the blogs. I didn’t get a lawyer to try to get any of his money or ruin his reputation. I left on my own—”
“No you didn’t.” He reaches into his jacket pocket, pulling out the AirTag I left in New York and tossing it in the middle of the table. “That was a ten thousand dollar vintage Chanel Flap with twenty-four karat gold hardware you left with that Bronx hoodrat in that dump, by the way.”
“Your client signed a four year twenty million dollar rookie contract. Tell him to consider it a donation to that so-called dump, but that would be too self-incriminating, wouldn’t it? Oh, and that Bronx hoodrat has more balls than he ever will.”
Aunt Faye grabs her forehead. “If this is really about money, we can pay AJ for the twenty-four karat gold Chanel-whatever.”
Blake lets out a hearty laugh, eyeing our kitchen from corner to corner and the old stained tile beneath his feet. “Let’s not promise the impossible right now.”
“Are you tryna say we ain’t got it—”
“I just don’t understand why the boy ain’t here and you are,” Uncle Kenny cuts in. “He should be here talking to us about this. He’s involved in this too.”
“The boy is safe in his hotel room where he needs to be. Your niece walked into a domestic violence agency in the middle of a city where her fiancé’s face is plastered on Foot Locker ads in the subway stations and featured in Jersey Mike’s commercials that play every hour and poke fun at him being the Jersey boy next door.
” He flicks the AirTag. “She pulled this out of her purse and said the Knights’ cornerstone wide receiver stalks her every move and beats her mercilessly.
These are some serious ass allegations she’s pinning on AJ, so you damn right I think it’s best if we keep them separate for now. ”
“There you go again!” Aunt Faye yelps. “I don’t like this language you’re using. These ain’t no damn allegations!”
“But they are, Faye! They’re just claims with no evidence to back them up. I asked that agency to show me proof! Show me some goddamn pictures of what she’s alleging, and they couldn’t show me a thing. So it’s just her word against his.”
The weight of his last sentence is so heavy it shuts everybody up.
He glances at Uncle Kenny. “I like Lovie for AJ, I really do, Ken. She’s good for his image. She’s his college sweetheart…”
He points out a finger.
“She’s successfully stayed away from the hot mess that is the Knights WAGs.”
He points out another finger.
“She hasn’t fucked half the NFL.”
My stomach turns as he points out a third finger.
“She’s black in a league full of white and exotic WAGs.
She’s the real deal, but she’s jeopardizing the money.
Do you know how much it’ll cost to clean this mess up if that little rinky-dink domestic violence agency talks all because your niece got mad and walked out on her fiancé?
Do you know how much AJ’s stock will plummet if he doesn’t get his head out of his ass and get it back in the game?
And don’t even get me started on if the league starts investigating and the public gets involved.
We’re in the middle of a winning season.
The Knights ain’t had a season like this in ten years.
I don’t have time to be cleaning up this alleged DV mess and playing relationship counselor.
I’m so close to making this boy a franchise player for the Knights. ”
He doesn’t talk about the things AJ harped on after our fights, like the cops taking him away from me or the possibility of his career ending. According to Blake Harvey, none of that will happen because all of it can be swept under the rug.
“Lovie has been okay with the nature of their relationship as far as I’ve known her.
She was very well taken care of in New York.
They have a beautiful home, a cleaner, a chef.
She has thousands of dollars worth of clothes and accessories in a closet the size of this house.
They have a state-of-the art security system that keeps her safe up on the penthouse floor.
She has everything a woman could ask for.
So, tell me exactly what she told you the problem was that has us having a family meeting during one of the most crucial bye weeks of your nephew’s career?
Tell me, Ken. I wanna hear it verbatim.”
Uncle Kenny scratches the back of his head. “She said AJ wasn’t nice to her.”
Blake belts out a hearty laugh. “That’s it? Ken, the boy is in the NFL. A man ain’t gon’ be jolly twenty-four seven when it’s millions on the line—”
“But she told me he put his hands on her too.”
Aunt Faye’s face crumples as my heart pounds. “She told you and you didn’t say anything to me, Kenny?”
“Faye…I…I didn’t wanna add to the drama and confusion.”
“But she told you and you didn’t do anything—didn’t say anything?” she chokes out. “You’re wrong, Kenny. You are dead wrong.”