Chapter 11 #2
Eddie blinked. “I’m sorry, did you just say that Weaver willingly took care of a dirty diaper?”
“No,” Boone scoffed. “I took care of it. She was just naked afterward, so he took her back.”
Eddie snickered.
Nettie looked embarrassed. “That kid has an ass like her daddy.”
“Hey, I’ll have you know I haven’t had a blowout in years.”
“Bullshit,” Eddie called back. “Didn’t I just hear that you shit yourself in the middle of Dick’s last month?”
Boone turned an accusing glare toward his wife. “I swear to God, is nothing sacred?”
Nettie shrugged. “It was funny. And this is my twin sister after all. She knows all.”
“Jesus.” Boone shook his head. “I’ll have you know that I was fasting, goddammit. I didn’t know I couldn’t trust a fart.”
“Goddammit is a bad word,” Iris called out.
The adults in the group turned to her.
They’d heard her talk before, but it was so rare that no one ever expected it to happen.
“It is, you’re right,” Boone agreed. “I shouldn’t have said it with a child around.”
“No.” Magnolia snuck up on us. “You shouldn’t.”
Boone winced. “I’m sorry, Maggie.”
Magnolia moved around the group until she was standing next to Iris and me.
She came to a stop next to me and said, “Did you have a chat with the head ref yet?”
“Nope,” I said. “That’s next on the agenda. I’m gonna send y’all back to the airport on the bus. Then I’ll hitch a ride with this hellion in an Uber. That okay?”
That was what I’d had to do on the way here.
No bus, not even a nice chartered one, would be giving Iris Baker a ride anytime soon.
“That’s fine,” she said. “You’ll beat us there.”
We would.
The bus was slow.
Plus, the women were socializing.
I had no idea how much they could talk.
“I’m staying, too,” Court grumbled.
Talk went back to the game, and the line ref who’d called that outrageous offside call.
By the time we were finished, and I was set to meet with the head ref, my blood was once again boiling.
It was, of course, hard to see everything that had happened in the game from the stands. However, after hearing all the hair-pulling and kidney punches that’d gone on throughout the game, and seeing some of the battle wounds, I was furious.
I knew this was a professional game, and with it came some physicality.
However, when Nettie pulled up her shirt and showed an eight-inch gash from four fingernails raking down her back that were bleeding and bruised, followed by Magnolia showing me a bruise on her back the size of a grapefruit, purpling and growing by the second…
“Get on the bus,” Iris ordered as I said that I was headed to talk to the official.
Magnolia flashed her a sweet smile and blew her a kiss.
Iris caught it and placed it against her tiny little chest, right over her heart.
This kid…
With the booster in hand, we walked through the maze of hallways to the official locker room.
When we got there, it was to find the line ref bursting out of the door and nearly flattening us.
He didn’t look up as he pushed around me and stormed off.
It was as I was watching him go that I looked up to find my sister standing there with my father, as well as the head official.
They were having a chat, and it pissed me off because they weren’t even supposed to fucking be here.
“Excuse me,” Court said, interrupting their talk. “I believe that if we’re going to discuss my team, we better do it with the majority owner.”
My lips quirked when the head official’s eyebrows went up. “I’m sorry, what?”
“I’m the official owner as of yesterday,” Court said.
My dad’s and sister’s faces flushed when Court said, “You can leave.”
“This is my team, young man,” Dad signed.
And since my sister, Seraphina, didn’t know enough sign language to be able to translate what he said, it literally fell on deaf ears.
I chose to lean my back against the door and watch the show.
“You are?” the official asked.
“Courtland Navarro,” he answered.
The official shook his head. “I’m sorry, I wasn’t aware.”
“It was a recent event,” he said. “Can you tell me what happened? What was decided?”
“The official was let go, as you probably saw,” he answered.
“Now we’re discussing the future. I was assuring Mr. Vanderbilt and Ms. Vanderbilt that I planned on personally vetting the next set of officials so that this wouldn’t happen again.
These games are very high profile, and I want the league to have the utmost confidence in my people. ”
Good luck with that, I thought.
“Did the official tell you why he made that call?” Court asked.
“He did,” he answered. “His daughter is dying of cancer, and he has a ton of medical bills. I’m not saying it’s right, but he was desperate. He needed money, and when the bribe to throw the game was given, he took it. He wouldn’t share who initiated the bribe, however.”
Of course he didn’t.
But you need not look any farther than the woman standing right in front of you.
The one that was fucking fuming.
She was very pissed off that Court had taken control of the meeting and wasn’t hiding it very well.
“From now on, I expect full transparency on this issue. This is the second game,” Court said.
“I know, just as well as you do, that the last game that this happened at was very, very important to our playoff bid. If we’d have won that, then this one, we’d be in the semi-finals right now.
And you can’t tell me that you don’t agree with us on how horrific that call was last game.
I’m not trying to be a problem owner here, but I know the game better than anyone in this room right now.
I’ve coached. I’ve reffed. And I’ve played.
Soccer has literally been my life for as long as… ”
“You mean, when you weren’t in prison for killing people, right?” Seraphina snorted.
Court turned to her and leveled her with a look that would’ve unnerved me had I not known him as well as I did.
“Are you lecturing me on killing people?” Court asked bluntly.
“You, who killed your own baby sister, then saw no prison time for it? You, who broke up her parents’ marriage?
You, who has yet to show regret for your actions?
I literally watched you walk out of a bar and get picked up by your driver yesterday.
Good on you getting in the car. But correct me if I’m wrong.
Didn’t the bartender have to take your keys away? You were going to try to drive home.”
My sister’s lips pinched.
I turned to her, angry as hell.
Then Iris placed her hand on my cheek, and I remembered where I was and who I was with.
Dad started signing again, but I ignored him in favor of tuning everything out.
By the time Court was done with his discussion, I was fuming mad and ready to lose my shit.
Good thing I had Iris here.
If she hadn’t been, I might very well be seeing the inside of a jail cell.
And that wasn’t something I could allow if I wanted to go back to my teaching career.