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"Coach, I need to straighten up."
"Oh, here we go. Spare me the theatrics, Russell." Coach Lawson scanned over the paper, reading out loud. "Sixteen thousand dollars in plumbing damages after a party. How? How do you cause sixteen thousand dollars in plumbing damage?!" He scoffed. "And found handcuffed to your resident assistant…they had to call campus security to separate you two…goddammit, Russell."
"We weren’t handcuffed like that, coach. Also not my fault."
"Nothing ever is." Coach Lawson scratched his beard for a moment, shaking his head. "I’m trying to build a team here. We’re building an image. When I first arrived, they gave me a dumpster fire. Everyone hated you guys." He sucked in a breath. "Do you remember that?" He ran a hand over his bald head. "And now Roman Villa’s water is shut off for five days while they clean up your mess. How does that look?! I just got the student paper today, people are fucking furious. And they’re right to be!"
Adam raised his eyebrows. "Coach, we won the Birchwood Bowl."
"Because you stopped fucking around for three weeks!"
"Listen—"
Coach Lawson held up a hand. "I don’t want to talk to you. Move over to another chair. Stop talking. I want to find out what happened from a reliable source." He craned his neck, glancing back at the audience. "Where’s his RA?"
8
Piper
No Big Deal
There it was. The question I’d been waiting for and the one I dreaded the most.
Eyes swiveled from looking at Adam and landed right on me. I sat still for a moment, hoping it’d pass, before I wobbled to a standing position, reluctant in every sense of the word. I had to talk to Coach Lawson. Multimillionaire coach of the Romans. No big deal. We were two people who worked for the university. I was an adult, he was an adult. This would be fine.
If my knees stopped shaking.
I eased past Zariah and Kassie. The two of them gave me encouraging smiles.
Okay. I can do this. It’ll be fine.
The walk down the aisle took forever. With clammy hands, I found myself sitting in the same seat Adam had been. He watched from the other side, and when I glanced over, he had the nerve to grin.
Nope. I wouldn’t look at him.
"Ms—uh—" Coach Lawson checked his paperwork. "Ms. Fontaine?"
"Yes, sir," came out as the kind of squeak you get from a dog toy.
"Where do I know you from?"
"I—I used to go to KYU…sir."
"Oh, that’s nice." He smiled down at me, and suddenly, I felt a lot better. "Came over to the winners, huh?"
I gave a small nod, and the room chuckled.
Coach Lawson glanced at the pretty redhead. "Bennight, can you record this?"
"Already am, sir."
"Good. Ms. Fontaine. Can you tell me exactly what happened?"
In the span of nine minutes and forty-seven seconds, each of which I kept my eyes firmly trained on the clock in the corner, I recounted everything that had happened in the most sanitized way I could. I didn’t lie. It’s not my thing. But I figured there were some things Coach Lawson needed to know, things that were important to the line of events, and there were other things. Like me embarrassing myself fifty times over. That didn’t need to go on the official record.
It didn’t work.
"What I’m asking—specifically—Ms. Fontaine, is, during the argument you had with Russell, was he drinking?" Coach Lawson pressed.
