Hardy swivels his chair away from me and looks out the window, lacing his fingers under his chin. “Erik Pacific is currently one of the most heavily scouted players in the country,” he says. “Everyone knows he’s playing for an inferior team. Everyone knows he’d do better in a bigger program. Maybe he’d start for USC, or maybe he wouldn’t. But playing for USC would be better than staying here, or at least that’s what people are saying.”
“I know all that.” I try not to stand up and pound my fists on the desk.
“Then why are you here?” he asks, not looking at me. “If we push Erik, the boy might leave. And we need him, David. You know that as well as I do.”
“So the fuck what?” I growl. “There will be other stars. We don’t need him to have a winning season.”
“We need him to win a bowl game.” Coach still doesn’t look at me, just keeps staring out the window. “Let this go, David.”
“He printed out other pages, just as insulting at that banner. Threw them all around campus. I wasn’t going to do anything about that, but then he pulled this little stunt. How can you possibly let this go? He’s harassing this poor girl.”
“Let it go,” he says, still not looking at me.
I sit there, leaning back in my chair, in a stunned silence.
I knew Hardy cared more about the team than anything else. But the goddamned man has daughters, for fuck’s fake. He should care about the well-being of Chloe, even if she’s not bringing in millions of dollars in ticket revenue to this school.
But that’s the truth of it in the end. Chloe is nothing, she’s just some nobody girl, and Erik Pacific is a star. He’s the money here, he’s the golden goose. Hardy will let that motherfucker do anything he wants, so long as he keeps winning games and getting good press. It doesn’t matter if he’s a piece of shit, if he’s hurting people.
He just needs to keep winning.
I stand up. “Keep the banner,” I say. “Maybe look at it sometimes and think about how much your integrity is worth.”
Hardy looks at me, his eyes narrowed, but I don’t wait for his reply. I leave his office and shut the door behind me. I linger in the hall for a long moment, my body vibrating with rage. I have to force myself to move, because if I run into Erik right now, I know I’ll do something stupid.
Hardy isn’t going to do shit. I know it now. I should’ve known it before, should’ve realized it sooner. But now I’m seeing what the man really is, and it’s just as disgusting as I feared.
This is going to be up to me. Erik’s going to run all over this campus doing whatever he wants, unless I do something to bring him down a peg. I don’t know what or how, not yet at least. But I’m going to figure it out.
I won’t let him hurt my Chloe again.* * *I lean my elbows on the damp bar top. The sound of country music swirls in the background from some cheap speakers hidden up in the ceiling. The place smells like tobacco and sweat, although it’s not legal to smoke inside anymore. The bottles behind the bar are all old and half-empty, and the bartender himself looks like he’s seen better days. The place is quiet and rundown, with tables scattered around the middle of the space, booths with ripped seats and chipped tables ringing the outside, and pictures of past CU football players hanging on the walls. The linoleum floor is sticky from decades of spilled drinks.
I sip my beer and glare down at the lacquered wooden bar top, trying not to lose my temper.
“There he is.” A tall guy with light brown skin, short black hair, and light brown eyes leans up against the bar next to me. He’s wearing the same team polo I have on, tucked into jeans, and his biceps are both covered in black tattoos, faded with age. “How’s it going, David?”
“Hey, Frank.” I nod at the stool next to me. “Join me.”
He grunts and pulls it out. Frank’s the linebacker coach and looks like it. He used to play back in the day, first for Notre Dame, then for the Canadian league before hurting his knee and retiring early. He’s been bouncing around from team to team for a while, but ended up here when I offered him a job at the start of last season.
“Man, you seemed pissed today,” Frank says, nodding at the bartender and ordering a whiskey neat. “And you didn’t hesitate to take it out on the kids.”
I grunt and shrug. “Hardy wanted to go easy. I disagreed.”
“I bet. Hardy didn’t look happy when you made them runs sprints.” He chuckled. “Not that I mind. My boys were getting soft. Needed a little breaking in.”