Finally, Jet sets down his fork and speaks. “The investigation is still pending.”
“Seems pretty clear to me,” Rae says. “If the woman was able to give everyone access to a video of him talking all about it, and a spreadsheet with names and other details, what more is there to investigate?”
“I dunno. I’m not a lawyer. But I don’t think the team can release him from his contract—”
“Yes, they can!” Rae practically shouts. “Due to other recent indiscretions by similar jerks, the league purposely left the updated personal conduct policy vague to cover all manner of sins, including stuff like this, that they surely couldn’t have predicted. Because this is stupidity on a grand scale.”
Jet’s lips tighten to a whiteness that almost matches his teeth, but he angles himself more toward me and addresses me directly. “I don’t know the details of Keaton’s contract. But I have a feeling we’re about to see some second-stringers all across the league getting their big breaks.”
“How many guys were involved?”
“Too many. A couple dozen.” He rattles off some of the bigger names listed in the preliminary report.
“Wow.”
“Yeah. I can’t believe it,” he says. “What the hell were they thinking?”
“Uh…” Rae raises her hand, like a student with the answer. “The correct question is, ‘What were they thinking with?’”
Again, he ignores her. “And Keaton! I knew he was a man-whore, but this? Why would he feel the need to do something so, so…” He collapses against the back of his chair. “I’m too mad to think of the right words. We’re less than a week away from our first game of the season. We don’t need this distraction.”
Rae sneers across the table. “What’s wrong, Knox? Misogyny’s okay in the off-season, but when it starts to affect your win-loss record, you have a problem with it?”
His face reddens. “What? No! That’s not—”
“You watch.” She stabs her forefinger into the table. “We’ll find out this has been going on a lot longer than three years, that he took over organizing it from someone else. He’s not nearly smart enough to come up with the concept himself. I bet this is pervasive and has been widely known about and kept hush-hush.”
Jet slaps his hand on the table. “By who? I know you’re not saying what I think you’re saying.”
“Maybe you didn’t know, but I guarantee a bunch of people did. People high up, even. They turned a blind eye to it, because ‘boys will be boys.’”
“That’s bullshit.”
“Is it? We all knew he was trouble. We all knew he was drilling every willing vagina he encountered, and nobody said anything.”
“That was his business.”
“Why? Because he still showed up every Sunday and caught your passes?”
“Because being promiscuous isn’t against the law.” Jet plunks his elbows on the table and, resting his head in his hands, massages his scalp.
Rae scoffs. “In other words, because he brought shame to the team and the league, that’s what makes him a bigger creep than you already thought he was? If he’d had a kid with a different woman in every city, like so many guys do, it would have been business as usual?”
Jet drops his hands and looks incredulously at her. “What do you want from me, Rae? Step off my balls a little, huh?”
I raise my voice to drown out the beginning of my friend’s heated response. “Guys! We’ve witnessed a billion of these scandals.”
“Exactly,” Rae points out. “Stupidity is an epidemic with these pro athletes.”
“But it’s not the responsibility of the entire team to defend or support the person at the center of the scandal,” I remind her. “The team has to keep doing what they’re paid to do: win games.”
“Thank you,” Jet directs at me. “This is already a big enough headache and distraction; if we all chime in with our personal beliefs about what’s going on, not only will there be a ton of conflict in the locker room between teammates who don’t agree with each other, but nobody will be focused on winning.”
“There are more important things than winning games,” Rae says.
“You think I don’t get that? They don’t pay me to preach, though. Let’s not forget, all of these acts were consensual.”
Eyes locked on his, she replies, “That we know of. I bet there’ll be more than one person who steps forward and says some over-sexed asshole forced himself on her in a desperate attempt to get his weekly points.”
“And if that’s the case, I hope they throw the book at that guy. And Keaton. But I’ll have to keep that to myself, won’t I?”
“Why? You guys better not close ranks and refuse to say anything against these animals.”
Seeing Jet’s fists clench and unclench, I laugh nervously. “You two! Stop it. We’re all on the same side here, okay?” I toss a warning look at Rae. “Chill out.”
Jet breaks the face-off by taking his empty bowl into the kitchen. A few seconds later, he returns to the doorway, his expression stormy. “I’ve had a long day, and I’m tired. I don’t feel like defending myself in my own damn house to some feminazi who wants to paint everyone with a dick with the same nasty paint brush. Screw that. I’m going downstairs to work out, since I sat on my ass all day in meetings and debriefings.”
After he leaves, I say, “Thanks a lot,” to Rae, who looks anything but contrite.
“Are you kidding me? He’s being an asshole. He’s laying the groundwork for every time he says ‘No comment’ or ‘Keaton Busch is a good friend of mine and a great teammate.’”
I sigh at her deep-voiced imitation. “He’s in a ridiculously difficult spot, though. Surely, you see that. The people who pay him tell him what he can and can’t say.”
“The same people tell me what to do, too.”
“But you’re never going to be tested. Because nobody gives a crap what your opinion of the situation is. No offense.”
She scoffs. “No offense.”
“I care,” I quickly amend.
