Page 3 of Breaking the Rules
“Noble,” Coach Jones spoke up, observing the state he was in. “The cops are on the way. What do you want to do?”
“You know what I want to do,” Noble stated. “Tell me your friend sleeps with your wife, what would you do?”
“I’m not saying you were wrong. I’m trying to save your career from imploding. Tell us what you want to do. We can let them come in here and drag you off. Make a mockery of everything you’ve worked for. Or we can stop them and drive you to the precinct.”
The assistant trainer, Maggie, spoke up, her voice stern and sure. “I won’t let them ruin your good name for a bad moment.”
Noble rolled his lips over one another. “Alec, call my manager, tell him to meet me downtown.”
Noble dug into his knickers and handed Alec his keys.
Alec nodded. “I got you.”
Maggie spoke again. “Come on. We’ll leave out the back.”
Noble sat in jail for three days. On the fourth day, a Monday, the judge released him on his own recognizance. He was a fan. That small blessing didn’t soothe the coming storm. He sat in his living room watching his manager pace back and forth.
“The Mavericks promised him forty-seven million. Cut the check and I’ll get him on the first thing smoking out of here. If you bench him, his contract is as good as gone…I know he assaulted his teammate. In his defense, Frank, the man was sleeping with his fiancée. A deal is a deal. This man took y’all to the World Series three times! Any team would be happy to have him…then let another team have him…that’s rich, Frank. Fuckin’ rich. You know what, I’ll take you up on that offer.” Carl, his manager and agent, hung up the phone and looked at Noble, who sat stoically on the couch. “You know he can blackball you from ever playing again?”
“That wouldn’t be in his best interest.”
“What are you going to do? Beat him up too?” Carl quizzed.
Noble barely swayed his head. “Nah, we hang niggas like that over the balcony.”
“For God’s sake, we’re not in Los Oceania anymore.”
“You’re right, we aren’t but we could be. Here’s what you’re going to do. You’re going to get me on the Royals. I promised my niece I would be home to take her to the beach after my birthday and that’s what I’m going to do.”
“You don’t make shit easy for me do you, Deuce?”
“Nigga, you wanted the job. Do the job.”
“At least tell me where you’re staying when you get back to L.O., your pop’s place?”
“Nah, my sister is there and I’m not havin’ this energy around babygirl. I’ll be at Sincere’s. You get me a spot on the Royals with my money in hand, and we can move on from this.”
Carl huffed and shook his head. “What are you doing with this?”
“Sell it and everything in it. I don’t want none of this shit.” Noble hiked the stairs and wandered into the bedroom that wrecked this chapter of his life. The engagement ring still on the dresser. “Rule number one: never let another woman into your heart. That shit is for suckers.”
TWO
“I know you’re fuckin’ lying!” Savanhi’s voice came in a roar.
Her eyes and brain both trying to make sense of what she was seeing. The disbelief of the action still not settling into her nervous system – yet. What she knew was that the sounds of music blasting drowning out noises she should’ve heard from the front door was still blasting through the small apartment, the clothes strung from the front door to her bedroom should’ve been indicators that some bullshit was taking place, and that the car that should’ve been used to pick her up from the dance studio was still parked outside.
Neither Janiyah, her best friend, nor her boyfriend, Brixx, could hear her roar over the music. They were still fuckin in her bed like they owned this apartment. Savanhi, having been raised right around the corner, was L.O. through and through, but she avoided fighting at every possible turn. But today – today they were bringing it out of her.
She spun on the balls of her delicate dancer feet, grabbed the speaker to the stereo, and launched it right at them. The speaker slammed her so-called best friend in the back of the head and knocked her off of Brixx.
“What the fuck?” Brixx shouted, watching Janiyah fall off of the bed. The moment he spotted Savanhi, he jumped up and covered himself as if she wasn’t familiar with what he looked like naked. “Why the fuck are you here?”
It was the audacity of him to question her as if she were the one that was caught red-handed riding his best friend. There was no evidence of pain in Savanhi’s eyes yet, only rage. She picked up the other speaker and with all her might, threw it at him. Brixx ducked as it barely missed his head.
Savanhi zipped across the room, grabbed Janiyah by her hair and began punching her. Yes, Brixx was her man, but Janiyah was her best friend and had been so since the fourth grade. That was betrayal she couldn’t stomach.
Janiyah, still dizzy from the speaker knocking her across the head, tried to cover her face and guard her body but there was no amount of self-preservation that could go up against Savanhi and the way she fought. She was raised by her brother and male cousins – all Crimson Kings. She was from 74thand Huey, fighting was her rite of passage, and Janiyah knew that.
