Page 86 of The Sound of Us

He let out a breath that almost seemed like relief. “That’s what I’m talking about. I’m a good guy. I was going through some stuff that year, but I got myself sorted out.”

“I’m glad to hear it, Ethan.” I picked up another set of weights, hoping that he’d take the hint that I wanted to focus on my workout.

“Maybe we could go out for a drink sometime,” he said. “You’ll see I really have changed.”

“I’m seeing someone.” My heart gave a happy little jump. “But there are two soccer players on the mats who I’m pretty sure would be interested in a drink with the great Ethan Williams.”

His gaze flicked to the stretching area and he smiled. “Thanks, Skye. And thanks for understanding. Friends?” He held out his fist and I bumped him.

“Of course. Friends.”

Ethan made his way over to chat up his admirers. I finished my workout and quickly changed. Dante was meeting me after his class, and we were going to pick up some burgers and head back to his place to join Noah and Bella for dinner.

I had just left the locker room when Michael Sunderland, the men’s head basketball coach, flagged me down. He’d been head coach of Havenhurst’s men’s basketball team for fifteen years and had five national titles under his belt. “Skye. I was waiting for you. Do you have a few minutes to chat in private?”

I’d never had a conversation with Michael. He was college basketball royalty. I couldn’t imagine what he wanted to chat about unless my plan to flush out the cover-up story had worked too well.

“Um… sure.” I sent a quick message to Dante to let him know I might be late, and then followed Michael down the hallway.

“We can talk in here.” Michael opened the door to one of the sports meeting rooms, where five men in dark suits sat around a large table.

“Am I in some kind of trouble?” I gave a wary laugh, standing half in and half out of the open door.

“No. Not at all.” Michael gestured to an empty seat. “We just want to talk about an amazing opportunity for you.”

I was getting a bad vibe about the meeting, mainly because of the number of people in suits and that fact that no one was smiling about the “amazing opportunity.”

“Is this going to take long?” I asked. “I was supposed to meet a friend after my workout and if I’m going to be late, I need to let him know.”

Michael shrugged. “We need about half an hour of your time.”

I sent a quick text to Dante to update him, and then turned on the app I used to record my lectures. Although it was illegal to record a conversation in Illinois without the consent of both parties, my gut was telling me to do it, even if the only person who heard it was me. By the time I was seated at the table, another suit had joined the meeting.

Michael introduced the people in the room: two lawyers plus representatives from the university president’s office, public relations team, and conduct board.

Smiles. Waves. “Nice to meet yous,”s and a casual, “Dev from legal has an NDA we need you to sign.”

Uh-uh. Nope. I’d learned in my journalism classes that we should be wary of signing NDAs. “I can give you a pinky promise,” I said, crossing my fingers behind my back, “but I’m not signing any legal documents without a lawyer.” I was pretty sure it wasn’t easy to juggle schedules to get so many suits around a table at once, so I moved to stand, calling their bluff.

The lawyers huddled. Nodded. Dev took back his NDA. I called it a win for Journalism Law 201.

“So, what is the amazing opportunity?” I decided to take charge since I was already tired of being in the dark.

“We’d like to offer you a guaranteed place on the women’s basketball team for next season,” Michael said. “We’ll send you to a training camp over the summer to get your skills back upto where they were when you first joined the Warriors, private coaching during the season, guaranteed playtime during games, and you’ll have our focused efforts to get you picked in the draft. This isn’t an offer without teeth.”

Whoa.I felt like the floor had dropped out from under me. Everything I had ever wanted handed to me on a silver platter. It was almost too good to be true.

“We have a contract prepared.” Dev slid another document across the table, along with a pen. “You can sign it now, but I do have to recommend you get independent legal advice.”

One of the suits glared at Dev and then shifted his gaze to Michael, making some kind of silent entreaty.

“We’ve never made this kind of offer before,” Michael said quickly. “But we’ve seen you training here every day and we don’t want to lose someone with your skills and that kind of dedication. I had to do a lot of convincing to get everyone to sign off. If I were you, I’d lock that down before someone changes their mind.”

There was a curious, almost desperate, vibe in the room that made my skin tingle. I studied all the people at the table, trying to figure out what was really going on. First the lawyer talking to Dante, then Ethan acting odd, and now Michael and his amazing opportunity…

Blake tells someone I’ve got the evidence to run a story and that person tells someone else and soon the people who are the most worried will crawl out of the woodwork…

It had gone exactly as I’d planned.

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