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Kim came running down the hall after me, the sides of her blazer flapping. “Brett! I didn’t know.”
I stormed past her, ignoring the looks from the team’s staff, and went into the locker room. A lot of the guys were still there, glued to their phones, but at seeing me, they snapped to attention. Most took off.
“Brett, I swear I didn’t know,” Kim called from behind me. “I never would’ve sent you in there if I had.”
I rounded on her. “You think I give a shit about you right now? This shit’s out. That was just a taste of what Billie’s gone through, and it’s only going to get worse. I ain’t giving you two fucking seconds of my attention right now, Kim.”
She stopped in front of me, her chest heaving, her hair coming loose from her bun. “I—”
“Move,” I snapped.
She jumped, darted backwards, and cursed before taking off. She went toward the elevator that went to administration.
Reeves, Bilson, Doubard, and Olvander were waiting for me near my locker. I skimmed the room. The guys who hadn’t taken off were watching, silent, waiting.
Olvander was the biggest of the guys, his bald head still gleaming from the game. “Hey, man. This is the chick, huh?”
Bilson glanced his way.
“Yeah, man.”
He held up his fist. “I’m real sorry about what she went through.”
Dipping my chin up toward him, I met his fist with mine before I began changing. The shower would need to be bypassed until I got to Billie and got her home.
Reeves was waiting for me to finish. He tilted his chin up as I shoved down my shirt and reached for a ballcap, yanking it down over my head. “What do you need from us?”
“From us specifically or from the whole team,” Bilson added. “Tell us, man. We’ll do whatever you need.”
Doubard ran a hand through his hair, flicking his eyes in the air. “Obviously we’ll all shut the fuck up about this situation because none of it is our business.”
“But …”
My eyes shifted to the back, to whoever had said that. Foreman, the running back who’d probably just seen it on his phone when I was leaving the locker room, hesitated before rolling his shoulders back, thrusting his chest out. “There’s a serial killer involved. This guy, whatever the fuck they’re saying about him, is sick. He’s connected to Broudou’s woman, and she’s connected to him. We’re connected to him. Could we be targets? Let’s be real here. We got families.”
“You engaged?” Colby snapped.
“No.” Foreman frowned.
“Anyone in your family engaged?”
“Not that I know of.”
Doubard turned all the way around to face Foreman. “If you’d read the full article, you’d see engaged couples are being targeted. Now you just look stupid.”
“Hey, man.”
“That’s uncalled for.”
Reeves raised his voice over some of the other guys. “Right now, as a team, we gotta support Brett. The rest of your worries go to fucking PR. That’s their job.” He turned back to me. “What do you need from us?” He raised his voice, purposively letting the team know he was also speaking for them.
While they’d been arguing, I’d grabbed my phone and checked the notifications. The world had gone mad. That’s how it looked on my phone.
I ignored all of them, finding Billie’s name and hitting call.
She answered after the first ring. “Hey.”
Goddammit. Her voice said it all.
