2. Liam
LIAM
“Iwouldn’t worry about it too much,” Mark said, pouring more whiskey out of the bottle and into the glass in front of Liam. “Coach is trying to make sure the new kid doesn’t feel like he’s out of place on the team, that’s all. He’s just trying to show Sandusky that he has his back.”
Liam downed the whiskey in one swallow. He stared out at the dance floor—women in sparkling minidresses were writhing to the latest club beat, but today Liam had no interest in joining them.
He wanted to stay here in the VIP area, to remind himself of the lifestyle he had earned through years of dedication to his sport.
“I don’t know,” he said. “Do you think Sandusky’s right about being able to start in the first game of the season? ”
“I wouldn’t worry,” Mark said again. “He’s just a kid. You know that. He probably has no idea what to expect now that he’s on a pro team. Remember what it was like when we started?”
Liam did. He and Mark had joined the Stingers the same year and had been close friends ever since. He remembered well what it had felt like to know that he had finally made it to the big leagues, only to realize that he still had a lot of proving himself left to do.
“We were never like Sandusky,” he said. “We didn’t come in and immediately disrespect established members of the team.”
“Well, no,” Mark agreed, chuckling. “He is a bit high on himself, isn’t he? Oh, lord, look at that.”
Liam followed his friend’s gaze and let out a groan.
Garrett Sandusky had just entered the club. He was accompanied by a couple of the other newcomers to the team, all of whom were looking around with interest.
“We’re the new star players on the Miami Stingers,” Sandusky was saying in a voice that carried up to the VIP section. The DJ was unfortunately between sets at the moment, so Liam was forced to hear every word out of the kid’s mouth.
“Let me escort you to our VIP section,” the hostess purred.
“Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me,” Liam hissed.
“It’s not very crowded tonight,” Mark said.
“That’s probably why.” But he was frowning too.
Liam hoped his friend was recalling the same thing he was—that it had been a whole year before the two of them had gained access to the VIP lounge.
They’d had to become established names in the media first. There had been no moment when they could have just walked in here, informed someone that they were on the team, and received special treatment.
Sandusky is really just having everything handed to him, the little weasel.
The newcomers to the team disappeared for a moment, but then Sandusky’s head appeared at the top of the stairs. He was followed by his three friends. As they reached the VIP section, they stopped and took in Liam and Mark.
Sandusky’s face split into a wide grin. “Making the most of this place while you still can, Sims?” he asked.
“I heard this was where the stars of the team came for a little fun, but I have to admit, I assumed that meant I wouldn’t be seeing you tonight.
I would have thought this was more a place for rising talent than falling talent. ”
Mark reached over and put a hand on Liam’s arm as if to hold him back.
Liam picked up the bottle of whiskey and poured some into his glass to distract himself from what he really wanted to do, which was to find the sharpest words he could to fling at Garrett Sandusky. He did his best to ignore the kid.
“You two have some room at your table, I see,” Sandusky said.
He walked over to the table Mark and Liam were sharing, sat down, and picked up the bottle of whiskey.
“And plenty to drink as well.” He flagged a hostess.
“Bring us a few more glasses, please. We’re going to share with our friends here. ”
“Now, hold on,” Liam argued. “We didn’t invite you to sit down with us.”
“Oh, don’t be so uptight. We’re all on the same team now,” Sandusky said.
“I know it’s hard for an old dog to accept new things, but you heard Coach today.
He wanted me to be the one to go on practicing receiving touchdown passes while you ran laps, and that’s because he knows which one of us has a future with the team.
You’ll be happier if you can just accept that your time is over. ”
Liam leaned forward, bracing his elbows on the table.
“All right, Sandusky,” he said. “Let’s get one thing straight.
You might have been the star of your college team, but things don’t work like that in the pros.
You don’t get to just waltz in and think of yourself as the only player that matters.
That’s not how things are. I may be older than you, but that makes me a whole lot more experienced, and if you know what’s good for you, you’ll pay attention to what your elders have to teach you. ”
Sandusky smirked. “I guess that’s the only way you have to feel important now that there’s some young blood on the team. Don’t worry too much, Sims. I’m sure people will remember your glory days, now that you’re being put out to pasture.”
The hostess arrived with more glasses. Without taking his eyes off of Liam, Sandusky reached out, picked up the bottle of whiskey, poured himself a generous measure, and took a long swallow.
It was, suddenly, more than Liam could take.
He lunged across the table, smacked the glass out of Sandusky’s hand, and sent it shattering to the ground.
In the background, he could hear the hostess shriek with surprise, and ordinarily that might have stopped him, but his temper was flared.
He grabbed Sandusky by the collar of his shirt and hauled him to his feet, stepping away from the table so that he could slam Sandusky’s back against the wall.
“Liam!” Mark yelled.
Liam wasn’t listening. “You better learn some respect,” he growled. “You’re not going to last five minutes on this team if you don’t get that attitude of yours under control. Not everyone is going to be as patient as I’ve been.”
Sandusky was just grinning. Was he too much of an idiot to realize he was about to get socked in the face?
Liam drew back his fist, seeing red.
Mark caught his arm, but Liam gave it a shake and sent his friend stumbling off him. He checked his own punch before he threw it, but he kept his arm cocked. “Apologize,” he growled.
The smile had begun to fade from Sandusky’s face, but it was clear that no apology was forthcoming. “Hit me if you have to,” Sandusky grumbled. “We’ll see what Coach Reeves has to say about that.”
“Don’t you fool yourself into thinking that my position is in jeopardy,” Liam snapped. “You can walk around calling yourself a star all you want, but everyone knows that I’m the real headliner of the Stingers. I’m the one people pay to see. And I’m not going anywhere.”
“We’ll just see about that. Hit me. Go on. Do it.”
“Don’t do it.” Mark’s hands were on Liam’s shoulders now. “He wants you to, Liam. He wants a scene. Let’s just go, all right?”
His friend’s words penetrated the fog of rage around Liam’s mind.
Mark was right. He would be giving Sandusky exactly what he wanted if he allowed this to escalate.
He wasn’t sure why the younger man was so desperate to provoke him, but it was clear that Sandusky wasn’t going to be satisfied until he’d made Liam lose control.
Liam wasn’t going to give him that.
“Come on,” he said to Mark. “This place is full of upstarts. We’ll take our business elsewhere.”
He knew Sandusky was smirking at him as he left, and his blood boiled knowing that the kid thought he had won. But even so, it was best to get away before things blew up any more than they already had.
Liam woke up the next morning to the sound of the phone ringing.
He pulled his pillow over his head. He had gone a bit too heavy on the whiskey the night before—letting Sandusky get under his skin, he supposed—and now he felt ill and headachey. A glass of tomato juice would be the cure he needed, but first he’d need to get on his feet and to the kitchen.
He wished that phone would stop ringing.
As if it had heard his thoughts, it did stop—but then it started up again. Liam groaned and reached for it. Whatever this was, there was only one way to be sure of making it stop. “Hello?”
“Sims?”
Liam recognized the voice of his agent, Gregory Finster. He forced himself to sit upright. “Greg. What’s going on?” He’d been hoping to get a marketing partnership with his favorite energy drink—maybe that had come through.
“Do you want to explain these pictures?” Greg demanded.
Liam frowned. “What pictures?”
“They’re all over social media. Pictures of you roughing up some kid in a nightclub. This looks pretty bad, Sims. We’re going to have to get a statement out there fast if we’re going to salvage it.”
Liam’s heart dropped. He grabbed his computer and pulled it into his lap, running a quick search for his own name.
Greg was right. The first thing that came up was a photo from last night.
And there it was again from another angle.
Liam lunging across the table to slap the glass out of Sandusky’s hand.
Liam pulling Sandusky to his feet and backing him into the wall.
By the angles of the shots—and there were many shots—he knew that Sandusky’s friends had taken them.
This was a setup. This was why he was trying to piss me off. This is why he wanted me to hit him at the club. He knew his friends were going to be taking pictures, and he was trying to make me look bad!
“It’s this new kid on the team,” he explained to Greg. “He’s been giving me a hard time.”
“So you thought you’d fight him in public?
Sims, you should know better than this! You know the kind of heat players face for getting violent, and this guy is obviously younger than you.
You’ve been the face of Miami football for years.
People are not taking this well. You should see some of the comments on these pictures. ”
Liam had a feeling he shouldn’t see those comments. “Well, what are we going to do about it?” he asked. “Release a statement? Because I was completely provoked. It’s all his fault.”
Greg was quiet.
Liam’s stomach turned. “I know how I sound right now,” he said. “But if you’d been around this guy for the past day, Greg, you would understand. He’s insufferable. Anyone would have lost their temper. I’ll say what I have to say for the media, but he did start it.”
“Sims,” Greg said quietly.
“What?”
“I have an email from the Stingers management staff here.”
“What do they want me to do?” Surely they weren’t going to bench him.
There was a long, drawn-out pause.
“Just say it,” Liam said. “Whatever it is, I’ll do it. Just say it.”
Greg sighed. “They’re terminating your contract.”
“What?” Liam felt hollow. It was as if he was floating up and out of his body. “They can’t do that. It’s a contract.”
“Apparently they’ve already been in contact with their lawyers.
The fallout from this has been bad. People have started to cancel their tickets for the upcoming season in response, and the team can’t absorb the financial losses.
They’re making it clear that they’re going to stand behind Garrett Sandusky, and there’s going to be a statement about how bullying isn’t something they tolerate from anyone. ”
“I wasn’t bullying him! For God’s sake. They can’t do this to me!”
“They can,” Greg said. “They are. I suggest you take some time to think about your next move and give me a call tonight so that we can try to figure out what we’re going to do to clean this up. But Sims, I have to tell you. Right now, we’re looking at a PR disaster.”