He shakes his head, which he lowers again. “No, Maura. I didn’t. The instructions were to say, ‘No comment,’ every time we were asked about Busch. I blew it. You’ll see. I’m such an idiot.”
“Hey!” I scoot closer to him, nearly in his lap, and poke him in the chest. “You’re not an idiot. No matter what you said or how you said it or who’s pissed off about it or what it means for your job or your wallet. You’re a guy who’s been pushed to his limit, and you cracked a little. That doesn’t make you stupid; it makes you human.”
He shrugs, obviously still not convinced.
“And anyone who says you’re stupid has to answer to me. I’ll pull a Stacy Henderson and call into a radio show and rip everyone a new one,” I say, referencing the frequent PR nightmare that is the wife of the Eagles’ embattled QB.
The horrified look on his face when his head snaps up makes me laugh. “You wouldn’t, would you?”
I roll my eyes. “No. But I don’t want you saying or even thinking that about yourself. You’re funny and kind and sensitive and smart in ways that mean more to the people who love you than anything you could gain from a book or lose after a few too many knocks to the head. You have heart.”
He jabs his thumb and forefinger into his eyes while his head bobs up and down. “Thanks. I— I really needed to hear that.”
I pull him to me and rub his back while he rests his forehead against my shoulder and sucks in a shuddering breath. “I mean it. Now, do I need to go into the conference room and repeat it for those goons?”
Releasing a shaky laugh that indicates he’s uncertain about my seriousness, he says, “No. That’s okay. How they feel about me isn’t as important.”
I kiss his ear, then whisper into it, “That’s more like it.” When he shivers and straightens, I say, “Now go call your family and tell them everything’s going to be fine. Because it is. They need to hear that from you. They’re worried about you.”
Before we can make any phone calls, however, a union rep, the team’s general manager, Jet’s agent, and Coach Bauer call Jet into the conference room to speak to him privately about the decisions they’ve made. They aren’t in there long before everyone reemerges, smiling and clapping Jet on the back like they’re all best buddies and saying their goodbyes.
As soon as we’re alone again, I ask, “What happened?”
“Slap on the wrist from the team. The league will be in touch to discuss fines for speaking publicly after being ordered not to, and also for some of the choice words I used.”
“Are they still planning for the San Diego game to be your first one back?” I hold my breath.
He nods and raises his right hand. “Yep. Health permitting.”
Whew! That’s the away game I’ve chosen to attend this season. The plans have been set since the summer. San Diego in September the weekend after the job fair that’s kept me up nights all year? It was a no-brainer. I need that weekend.
Rather than make this all about me, though, I return to the issues at hand. “And you have to stay here until…?”
“Just tonight. But when I go to work in the morning, I can’t say anything to any members of the media. Not so much as a ‘good morning.’”
“That’s going to be hard for you.”
“Well, it’s rude!” he says with a wink. “But I’ll have to chance being seen as a jerk.”
“Let’s find something to eat. I’m starving,” I reply, hoping to distract him with food.
But we make the horrifying discovery that there’s nothing to eat in this place except dry cereal. Apparently Keaton, the house’s most recent “guest,” likes Lucky Charms. A lot. He also overestimated the length of his stay, because he left behind several boxes, all opened, but not much else.
Before the big-wigs left, they reminded us about the confidentiality agreement that prohibits us from telling anyone where we are. One of the Wises, himself, said if we needed anything to text him, and he’d have his assistant bring it to us. It’s late, though, and neither Jet nor I are the type of people to rouse someone from their home this late to cater to our whims. I’m kicking myself for not bringing the chili with me.
Trying to make the best of it, we take our two boxes of stale cereal upstairs to the bedroom to watch the ten o’clock news so I can see for myself how bad Jet’s slip-up was.
The first time through, Jet cringes at the sight of himself, his hair still wet from the shower, his shirt not quite buttoned all the way. I think it’s hot, but I’m too nervous about what’s still to come to make any crude comments.
He places his hand on his cheek, and throughout the viewing, his fingers creep closer to his eyes, but he never covers them completely.
And you know, what he said was... heated. But either this particular channel did a ton of editing (possible, since they played some video over his sound bite), or he filtered himself better than he thought. I’ve heard one bleep, and it was for a relatively minor curse word, not any of the “biggies.”
Next, they cut to their unsuccessful attempts to elicit reactions from teammates, but the most any of the players said was, “I’m trying to stay out of it and keep focused on Monday’s game.” The one variation on that theme was Jackson, who spouted the scripted line, but before they turned the camera away from him, shot it a double thumbs-up and winked.
Finally, they show some man-on-the-street interviews to measure public opinion. With the exception of a few gruff manly-men saying things like, “He should worry more about his pass percentage and how he’s gonna avoid the
