“I was paying about half what Kent paid, but you’re right, I will be able to save quite a bit,” he admitted.
“Why did my mom ask Fritz to pull Chuck?” I asked.
This was my real reason for starting the conversation. I had a feeling it involved Scarlet, Carol’s mom. I could tell that Paul was uncomfortable, but he had become more than just one of my security guys. We’d managed to become friends.
“I’m not sure it’s my place to say.”
“Does it have something to do with him and Scarlet?”
“Yes,” he admitted.
“Just tell me.”
He glanced over, and he could see I wasn’t going to leave him alone until he told me something.
“Okay, but I don’t have all the facts. I’ve just heard the rumors in the office.”
“Don’t worry, I’m not looking to cause Chuck any problems. I need to know if I have to do anything for Scarlet,” I said to assure him that I wouldn’t try to get Chuck fired.
That didn’t mean I wouldn’t kick his butt if he hurt her, though. Of course, I didn’t plan to tell Paul that.
“The story goes that at the New Year’s Eve party, they had a good time, so he asked her out on a couple more dates. When they progressed to … well …” he said.
“Sex,” I provided.
“That’s it,” he said as he gave me a sideways glance. “I guess Scarlet wanted him to do stuff.”
“Like …” I prodded.
“Honestly, I don’t know,” he said, and I nodded that I understood.
The night I’d been with Scarlet and Ashley, they’d done a fantasy role-playing bit with Scarlet tied to the stairs and blindfolded. At the time, I’d thought it was hot. From recent conversations with Cindy and my uncle, I strongly suspected that Scarlet liked some fantasy games in her sex life.
“Did it freak him out?” I asked.
“Apparently, he said some things, and your mom found out.”
That disappointed me greatly. Just because Scarlet liked to spice things up, it didn’t mean she should be verbally abused. I likened it to gay-bashing, which may have been at least tolerated a few decades ago, but which undoubtedly wasn’t now.
As an athlete, I knew that locker-room talk sometimes went off the rails. It reminded me that words mattered and that it was probably not right to call my half brother a slur word, even though he was a pain in the butt.
I vowed not to make the mistake some had made. During last year’s NFL draft, it came to light that one of the top picks had tweeted something homophobic when he was fourteen. That tweet had NFL teams hesitant to draft him for fear of the backlash. By most accounts, it was just a stupid kid saying something he thought was funny at the time. He’d recanted and admitted it was a mistake.
This was where I had a problem with the PC police. They failed to take anything in context, and they had no forgiveness in their hearts. That player’s tweet ended up costing him millions because he’d dropped way down in the draft order.
It just highlighted that there were real-world consequences for actions or words that often were harmless when seen in context. In this case, though, the cost had bounced right back onto Chuck. He’d made a ‘politically incorrect’ comment that was hurtful to the mother of one of my children, and my mom wouldn’t take that lying down.
At least my mom hadn’t gone nuclear and had him fired. I would guess that Chuck would like to take back what he’d said to Scarlet. I’d always had thought he was a good man. After all, even Duke loved him, and he was a pretty good judge of character.
“You know my mom,” I said to defend her.
I was glad she stood up for Scarlet and removed a potentially uncomfortable situation for her.
“No, I get it. I think Chuck might have gotten off easy. I’ve seen your mom when she gets on a roll.”
We all had.
“He made it out alive,” I said and smiled.
Paul shook his head with a smirk on his face.
“Someone said Brook is moving. Are you going to try the long-distance routine?” he asked.
“She left Friday. We’d talked about what would happen when I left to do my movies and she headed off to college. It just made the event happen sooner than we planned.”
“So, you broke up?”
“Yeah, we did.”
“I’m kind of surprised she didn’t stay. I mean, it seemed like her parents gave her a lot of latitude, and it is her last semester. It had to be hard for her to go.”
“Cassidy offered to let Brook live with her, but in the end, she was still in high school and had to move with her parents. I would probably do the same in her shoes. Mom reminds me that as long as I’m under her roof …” I left the rest unsaid.
Paul had heard her use that on me more than once. I expected Brook was capable of cutting the apron strings, as was I. It came down to her wanting to live with her parents. I suspected she would act as a buffer while they tried to save their marriage.
“She was good for you,” Paul said.
“That she was,” I said and became quiet.
