Page 142 of Dirty Pucker

“Come in.”

I open the door and walk in, surprised to see Alanna, the head of Bashers PR there, standing with Coach by his desk.

She gives me a tight smile. I try not to think too much about what it means that she’s here too.

“Have a seat,” Coach says.

I take one of the two chairs in front of his desk. Alanna sits in the other.

Coach Porter folds his hands on the desk and looks at me. “Del, I wanna say how sorry I am for what you’ve been through.”

I blink at him, surprised. I wasn’t expecting him to say that. I glance over and see Alanna giving me a pitying stare.

“I didn’t know that you, your mom, and your sister had experienced domestic violence at the hands of your dad.” Coach Porter’s eyes are shiny. He blinks quickly.

Emotion swells inside of me. I clear my throat. “Yeah, um, it was hard.”

Maybe I should say more, but I don’t. I don’t want to relive that pain. And hopefully he understands why I don’t want to say more about it.

He exhales sharply. “Look, I don’t want to beat around the bush here. Our team policy when it comes to any member of the Bashers organization breaking the law is suspension. And depending on the severity of the crime, sometimes termination is possible.”

My stomach drops.

“That’s not going to happen though,” he says.

I let out a breath. “Really?”

He nods. “I don’t condone violence. But what you did wasn’t violence in my book, Del. You defended your mother from an attacker. That’s the most honorable thing you could do.”

Alanna nods along. “The entire Bashers organization supports you, Del.”

I look at her, surprised.

“Management, coaches, ownership, we all got together this morning and discussed it,” Coach Porter says. “It was unanimous. You won’t be facing any punishment for what you did. You’ll be able to play for the rest of the playoffs without issue. And your arrest won’t affect your standing on the team.”

I sit there, looking between the two of them, my mouth agape in shock and relief.

“Thank you,” I finally say.

Coach Porter nods. Alanna turns to me. “I know social media and sports news have been going wild talking about your arrest.I want to assure you that the team’s PR department is doing their best to respond.”

She tells me they put out multiple statements and have been contacting the sports news outlets that have been circulating false information about me and my arrest.

“It will take a bit for this to move through the news cycle, but I assure you that it will,” Alanna says. “I know it’s hard right now, but give it some time. Someone will do something crazy or stupid and they’ll forget all about this.”

I tell her thank you and we wrap up the meeting.

I stand up and shake hands with Alanna and Coach Porter.

“Practice is in a half-hour. See you there, Richards.”

Excitement and relief crash through me. I leave the office and grab my phone to text the guys the good news, then I call Ingrid. She answers right away.

“Hey.” Her voice is soft and gentle and it makes me ache in the best way. “How did it go?”

“The team is standing by me. No suspension, no punishment. I still get to play in the playoffs. Everything is okay.”

She lets out the most adorable happy squeal. I’m grinning so wide, my cheeks hurt.

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