Page 190 of Scoring the Player
“Shit.” I pop the lids and slide him a bottle.
“Damn. What’s your gut telling you?”
I shrug. “I’m less concerned about external threats with him.” He was trained to protect himself at all costs. “It’s the internal stuff that worries me.”
“Why would he disappear?”
That’s the billion-dollar question.
I raise the beer to my lips and gulp it down.
Every now and then, he gets it into his head that our lives would be better if he disappears. Like he won’t be a burden on us or something. He never said it in as many words, but he feels guilty for all the years we spent concerned about him while he was in the service, and more guilt piled on when he got home and wasn’t the same man he was when he left. The guilt eats at him, no matter how hard we try to convince him otherwise. “I don’t know.”
He blows out a breath.
My phone buzzes. I flip it over and tense. “Yeah.” I send Blue to voicemail again.
“We gonna talk about the other thing?” he asks.
“What thing?”
He lowers the beer from his lips and side-eyes me.
“Listen, don’t come in here busting my balls. Someone had to put their feet on the gas. Plus, Coach commended me on my leadership efforts.”
“Leadership efforts.” He snorts. “Coach would sell her kidneys if it meant clinching a championship.”
I purse my lips, stifling a laugh.
“That doesn’t make it right.”
“Aight.” I take another swig of my beer. “I’ll lay off ’em a bit.”
“Cool. That’s not the thing I was talking about, though.”
I shoot him a warning glare.
“That Silencer shit doesn’t work on me. Chill. I only want to know our play. What kinda welcome are we giving them?”
My fist grips the bottle. “Whatever happened between me and Blue stays off the court.”
He nods and flashes a dark grin.
“I’m serious. It’s business as usual.”
“Business as usual? So, you didn’t tell Coach you plan to rain—what was it?—helldown on them?”
I open my mouth, then close it. “Coach snitched?”
“She caught the rest of us in the locker room after you left and practically told us to strap up, quoting you.”
I groan. That’s definitely not the energy I want to bring tomorrow night. I’m not even sure why I said it. “How many of the guys were left?”
“Damn near everyone except you, Zeke, and Onyx.”
“Fu-uck.” My head hangs forward.
“Blue?” he asks as my phone lights up again.
