I’m quiet, seething, afraid to speak for fear I might take out my anger on her. I’m furious that she’s just rolling over. How can she just let them do this to her?
There’s a long pause.
“You’re right. I know who did it, or at least I’m pretty sure. He must have taken my phone when I stopped by the office. I left it on my desk for a few minutes and went to the bathroom. He probably poked around, found the picture, and sent it to himself. He posted it. He must have paid somebody to get it shown at the stadium…” She trails off.
I wonder if she’s crying. She sounds so small and broken. This isn’t Chloe. Not the Chloe I know. I’m used to her giving back as good as she gets.
“None of this means you have to just give up.”
I can’t bear hearing her sound like she does. I want to make everything better, but I’m not sure how. More than anything, I’d like to find that Roger idiot and smash his face into a pulp.
“It’s over, Austin. As far as my career is concerned, I came back from what Mason did, but this on top of that… There’s just no point. I’m done as a physical therapist.”
“There is a point—”
But she’s already hung up the phone.
I try to keep myself under control, I really do, but I can’t. The longer I sit there thinking about what’s just happened, I just get angrier and angrier. Finally I sit down at the computer, run a few things through a search engine, and go grab my coat. It’s not hard to track people down these days if you know where to look.
Dr. Roger Pendleton is going to pay for what he did.
There are reporters outside, because of course there are. They’re just lurking, waiting for me to stick my nose out so they can shove a recorder at me. I barely register the questions as they swirl around me. “Do you know the girl who was on the screen?” “Are you dating her?” “What can you tell us about the picture?” “Did you expect it?”
I keep walking. All I want is to get to my car. Then one of the peskier of the group—I’ve dealt with him before—stands right in front of me and sticks his iPhone right in my face.
“What do you know about—”
I slap the phone out of his hand. It hits the sidewalk and I see the screen shatter.
I don’t care. I get up in his face. “Get the fuck out of my way.”
There’s a ripple through the others.
“Just one question, Austin,” I hear. “What do you think you’re doing?” another one says, voice raised.
I wheel on them while the other man scrambles for his broken phone. “All of you. You fucking parasites. Get the fuck out of my way before I put my fist through one of you.”
There’s a dead silence suddenly. They’re all staring at me. They’re afraid. Good. I keep walking.
My PR rep is going to kill me. Slowly. Probably using the tweezers she occasionally whips out to adjust her eyebrows.
Fine. Whatever.
I head straight for the car. I know exactly where I’m going. The asshole who did this to Chloe is about to find out what it means to cross me.
It’s not until I pull up in front of Pendleton’s house that I realize half the reporters and paparazzi who ambushed me back at my house have followed me.
Goddammit. I don’t need that kind of complication. It’s not going to stop me, though. Nothing’s going to stop me.
I stalk up the sidewalk. It’s like something’s carrying me there and there’s nothing I can do to stop it. He has to pay. He has to answer for what he did to Chloe.
I pound on his door and it shakes under my fist like it’s going to collapse under the impact. Maybe it will. That’d be satisfying.
“What the hell?”
The voice comes from inside the house. I recognize it, so I’ve managed to get to the right house, at least. I clench my fist, preparing to strike the door again, but I don’t. I let him come. I can hear his footsteps on the tile on the other side of the door, and when he flings it open, I give myself a single second to register his face.
It’s definitely him. I tighten my fist. I’ll give him one chance. What he has to do to earn a reprieve, I don’t know, but I have to give him the chance.
He smirks. “Well, well. Austin Sherwood. I suppose you’re here to—”
Whatever he could have said to make me stand down, that’s not it. I cock my fist back and punch him in the mouth.
He staggers back. I grab his collar before he can fall and draw him back upright so I can hit him again. This time I hold tight to his collar and swing him around so he can’t retreat into the house.
I didn’t exactly forget about the paparazzi and reporters out in the yard, but I’m not exactly taking them into account, either. And as I put my fist into Roger’s face again, his body spins toward the photographers. There are clicks and flashes and people crying out. I get in three or four more good hits—and Roger manages to catch me a couple of times, as well. Then there are hands on my arms, my shoulders, and they’re dragging me off him. His face is bloody, his teeth bared, eyes wild. My knuckles are bloody, and there’s blood on my shirt.
And there are cameras everywhere.
“What the fuck were you thinking?”
Coach throws his iPad down on the table in front of me. There’s a picture of me on the front page of the sports section. I look…insane, one hand cocked back, the other twisted in the collar of Roger’s shirt.
“You know what happens now, right?” Coach is still yelling at the top of his lungs. I’m sure everybody in the stadium can hear him at this point. “You’re suspended. Indefinitely. Pending criminal charges. You hear me? Criminal charges. If this guy decides to press charges for assault, you’re fucked. You understand, Sherwood? Fucked. No playoffs, no championship—no fucking career. You’re gone. Over.”
I stare at the picture in front of me. It’s pretty damning. But of course it is. I went to the guy’s house and dragged him out by his throat and beat the shit out of him. I can’t deny it.
“It was him.” My voice sounds cold, dead. “He was the one who had that picture put up on the screen during the game. He was the one who put it up on the Internet.”
Coach isn’t having it. “So that gives you the right to drag him out of his own house and pound him in front of thirty people with cameras?”
“He stole the picture. He hurt her. He made her lose her job. He put her up in front of all those people.” The rage is rising again. I’m not sure I can do anything to keep it down.
“None of that matters, Sherwood. It’s not going to matter to the press, it’s not going to matter to the league, and it’s not going to matter to the cops. You’re in deep shit, Sherwood. About the deepest shit I’ve ever seen.”
“I didn’t—”
“Don’t even bother. There’s nothing for you to say. Somebody will call you if there’s any news.”
Any news. He means if Roger presses charges. I just nod. There’s no point.
“Get the fuck out of my sight,” Coach says, so I do.
I head for the locker room, where I know the rest of the team is getting ready for practice. The rage is still seething, but there’s some fear mixed into it now as well. Coach is right—my career could be over because of what I did. Chloe’s career in ruins, my own teetering on the brink.
All because what? You wanted to fuck her?
No. It’s more than that. So much more that I can’t even form the thought. I plow into the locker room, shoving past my teammates, most of who stare at me like I’ve gone nuts. Maybe I have. No, I definitely have. I feel like my skin is trying to crawl off, like my chest is going to explode.
Before I really realize what I’m doing, I’m in front of my locker pulling off my shirt, dragging on my pads and jersey.
“Dude,” Orrin says. “You’re not ready to practice yet. Doc said so this morning when we got here.”
“Just going to do some warm-ups,” I tell him, although it’s a lie. I want to pound this feeling out of me. If that takes barreling through a full practice, then so be it.
“You better be careful,” he chides. “You blow your knee out, Chloe’ll kill you.”
I bare my teeth at him with a growl. Yes, I’m growling. I’m like some goddamn pit bull. “Who do you think you are, Orrin? My fucking mother? Shut up.”
“Fine. But anybody asks me, I’m not backing you up.”
“Whatever.”
It doesn’t matter what he thinks. Doesn’t matter what I’m supposed to be avoiding or not avoiding. I have to do something or I’m going to lose my fucking mind. I jerk on all my football gear, grab my helmet, and head out to the field.
Chloe would completely, totally flip her shit if she knew I was out on the field in full gear, doing regular warm-ups so I can run. My knee still hurts, but it’s stiffer than anything else by now. It’s not a good thing to do, and it’s not a smart thing to do, but I need this. Need to pound the anger out into something that isn’t somebody else. Otherwise there’ll be more than one picture of me in that paper, and possibly more than one set of charges filed against me. I could actually end up in jail.