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“He’s right. He’ll make it about us being petulant, ungrateful children. It’ll go one cycle in the media, and we’ll be lucky if people remember it right. They could just remember ‘Westfield bad’ and not anything more nuanced than that.” I sigh in frustration.
“I think we could also just let it go. I mean you three do what you feel you need to. I’ll support you however I can, but I don’t need you to take a stand for me.” Quentin rubs a circle on my lower back, and I offer up a half smile.
“It’s about more than that. He has to be stopped. I think he might even have told his own offensive line to play like shit yesterday. I think he wanted to threaten A.J. too.”
“I mean our defense has been on fire this year. Cooper and the other pass rushers have just been fast as fuck.” East throws his hands wide.
“Yes, but they got to the championship game last year inpart because of their O-line. A.J.’s the kind of quarterback who needs an extra second. They were giving him none yesterday,” I counter.
“Okay, we’re getting off topic. Let’s stay on the subject. I haven’t watched the game from yesterday, obviously. I’ll try to find some tape. But you guys think he wasn’t just headhunting but that the refs were blatantly ignoring it?”
“They were ignoring it or they fucking can’t see. It’s one or the other,” East growls.
“I know at least one of the times, the ref was standing right by me when I took a late hit. Not a little late, a full two seconds late. The stadium booed when they saw the replay, and nothing. No flag.”
“They really need to make no-calls challengeable,” I huff.
“Do you know what the game would look like if they did that?” East raises a brow at me. “Everyone would have a grievance.”
“Okay. Okay. So we get the tape, and we stitch together the evidence and send it to the commissioner.” Tobias starts to formulate a plan.
“And we drop it online. I think we give it to the fans. Let them blow it up. Have them tagging the commissioner and anyone else who will listen. Stir the pot as fast as we can,” I suggest.
“It still might take more than that. Especially with the refs. To prove they purposefully looked the other way…”
“Someone will have to go through a lot more tape. This would have to be a pattern for anyone to take it seriously.”
“Bea and I can watch the tape.”
“That’s going to take dozens of hours,” East notes.
“Well, it takes what it takes.”
“And your job in the meantime?” Wren pipes in.
“It can be the first thing you hire us to do.” I look to Quentin and he nods.
“Okay. So that’s for starters. I’m going to talk with A.J. too.”
“About what?” Tobias asks.
“To see if he thinks anything untoward was going on yesterday too. If any of his guys might corroborate.”
“That’s a big ask, and an awkward position to put him in.”
“He owes me a favor.”
“He wouldn’t even be in that position if it wasn’t for me.” Quentin looks remorseful.
“It’s water under the bridge. He’s a friend. And he’s an honest person. He’ll tell me if he thinks there’s something rotten going on.”
“Let’s hope so.” Tobias sounds unconvinced.
“It’s better than nothing, Tobias. We have to start somewhere.” I can hear the conviction in East’s tone. He was furious yesterday and the anger has stayed with him. I’m not sure if he already felt protective over Quentin or if it’s just that he’s as tired of our father’s bullshit as I am at this point. It’s probably a bit of both.
“You’re right. I just could have lived without having to hear his name or talk about him again. I was enjoying my Coach-Westfield media blackout.”
“It’s just temporary. Hopefully, with a good ending that lets us all go back to what we actually want to be able to do with our time.” I try to put a positive spin on our situation.
