I notice someone leaning up against my car from a distance, but it takes me a few steps to recognize the figure. My stomach coils tightly when I realize it’s Kingston Adair.
This isn’t going to be fun.
I’ve done a good job of biting my tongue when he’s around; however, the urge to knock his head in for everything he did to Qiang is never zero. The fact that we don’t get along is well-known throughout the team. But they mostly brush it off because they don’t get along with Kingston either. He’s an arrogant prick who gets under most people’s skin.
Cade has been slowly sniffing around the Adairs, and after Qiang’s bombshell, he wasn’t even surprised when I told him. He said he hadn’t gotten explicit proof of it, but he’d been following a couple of rabbit holes that seemed headed in that very direction. However, absolutely nothing could be found on Kingston outside of evident abuse and neglect from father to son.
While that doesn’t absolve Kingston of being a first-class asshole, it might actually mean he isn’t nearly the villain his father is. Coupling that in with my suspicion that Qiang’s trauma is more deeply rooted in knowing what Kingston’s father is, more than anything Kingston ever did to them, makes me feel like Kingston may be nothing more than a distraction to the real problem.
However, none of that changes the fact that the guy is a disdainful, arrogant jerk who hurt Qiang–and who knows how many others–and seriously needs to get knocked down several pegs. And the sneer on his face when I get close to him tells me this isn’t gonna be a pleasant conversation at all.
“Whose dick did you suck?” he challenges me as a way of greeting, his body rocking forward from leaning on my car to hovering in my space.
I roll my eyes at the alpha vibes he’s trying to send. I’m not about to back down from this idiot.
“We both know I earned the spot fair and square.”
The snort that comes from him is so viscerally disdainful, I honestly don’t know how that shit didn’t get stuck in his throat on the way out.
“It’s not possible, Marcus. There’s no way someone likemecould lose out against someone likeyou,” he says, shoving his finger into my chest and crowding in close enough to bump me.
I’m not the most violent person ever, but this fucker is testing my patience already. I don’t know where the hell he’s going with this whole ‘he’s better than me bullshit’, but it better not be coming from where I think it’s coming from.
“You’re gonna have to take a serious step back and explain to me what the fuck you mean by that before I fuck your shit up, man,” I tell him, lightly shoving him a step out of my space.
He stares at where my hands just were, and I can see the flash of irritation, the slow mull in his eyes as to whether he’s gonna explain his ire, or just throw a punch. Luckily, I know for a fact there are cameras out here, so if he throws the first punch, I can rock his shit afterward.
His eyes flicker to the camera above us and back to me. He must have the same revelation because while the sneer doesn’t drop from his face at all, he does take an extra step back to put space between us.
“You don’t deserve the spot, I do. You think I didn’t do my fucking homework on you. You didn’t step on a football field until you were ten, and it was for some program designed to keep poor kids off the streets; it wasn’t even a real fucking team. You played on a middle school team, but didn’t go to a legit training program until you were thirteen. Your family comes from the fucking ghetto and couldn’t afford the time, the training, or the equipment to properly train you until I’d already been out there for fucking years,” he says, gesturing wildly with his hands to express his ire.
“I was on a field at five years old, being sent to training camps before I was ten. I already had championships under my belt before you ever stepped on the fucking field. I have the training, the education, the fucking equipment, and your poor ass waltzes in and takeswhat should have been mine right out from under my feet with half the fucking training. It’s not yours. You didn’t fucking earn it,” he screams, spit flying from his mouth as he screams with rage.
I would roll my eyes if it weren’t for the reality that he is this delusional, that he truly thinks how much money someone spends has anything to do with talent and heart. It’s fucking obnoxious.
“I’m so sick of privileged assholes always putting color before integrity. Football doesn’t give a fuck what color I am, or what color you are, and it takes a lot more than just training. It takes training, talent, and heart. You can’t be the best without all three. You have the training, and we all know you have the talent, but you’ve lost the heart, Kingston. You bought your way onto the team, bully half the team members, and clash heads with the other half. You aren’t a team player; you aren’t even giving yourself a chance. You’re trying so hard to stand out that you’re sabotaging yourself. There’s no love of the game there. There's no heart. There’s just you and your delusions of greatness,” I point out.
Kingston’s face turns red, and he steps back into my space, not touching me, but still using his presence to challenge me.
“I don’t have heart? I’ve shed my blood, sweat, and tears for more than half my life on this game. That position ismine. Don’t tell me I haven’t got heart. What would you even know about me or what I have in this game? You don’t know shit about me, Bauer!”
“Declaring a position is yours is possession; it’s not heart. It’s believing the training and the money that’s been put in owes you a place. You forget to remember what the game gives you. You think you’re owed, but you take for granted what’s been given. That’s why you lack the heart. You’ve lost sight of what’s important. It’s not about positions, stats, or scores. It’s about the game, about the team, about the freedom of nothing existing outside of the ball in your hands and your cleats pounding in the turf. You’re good, great even, but you’ll never be the best so long as you let the possessiveness of what’s owed to you hold you back,” I let the frustration go, because really, he does have the talent, but he’s relying on stupid shit to propel him forward when it’s only holding him back.
He sneers at me. “You’re so fucking smug because you think you’ve won, but this isn’t over, Bauer,” he growls, only proving that he didn’t hear a damn word I said.
“Good! Prove it and put your heart on the field where it belongs!” I shout back, frustrated and trying to get through his thick fucking skull.
He takes another step in my face and starts yelling.
“Don’t talk to me like you think you’re better than me, Bauer. You’re fuckingnothingcompared to me. I don’t know who the fuck you paid off to get the position, but don’t stand there all high and mighty when everyone knows you fucking cheated!”
“Cheated?I’mthe one who cheated? I didn’t have to buy my way on the team! If anyone cheated, it’s you! Why didn’t you make sure ‘Daddy’ didn’t secure your position on the field while he secured your position on the team? Huh? Or would Coach not allow it? You couldn’t cheat, so now you’re pissed off because you got outplayed!” I yell back, my ire building fast because I hate this fucking clown to begin with.
Despite the intel I’m getting on the guy that says he may not be as terrible as his father, after what he’s done to Qiang, he’s at the very least still a raging asshole, and right now he’s fucking proving it through and through.
“You have no idea what you’re talking about! You think you know me, but you don’t know jack shit. You’re just a thug from the ghetto who made a buck and figured out who to bribe the right way to get what you wanted. Everyone knows it, Marcus,” he growls at me.
There isn’t even any reasoning in his eyes, just fucking anger. It crosses my mind again that I have no clue how Qiang could have ever fallen for this douche canoe.
