The rehash finally happened at breakfast. Phil had managed to hide what happened from his parents for a day, but last night, his mother had finally seen his bruised face and split lip. This was followed shortly thereafter by a call to my dad, who wanted to know what had happened. Even though Phil wasn’t Mom’s child, she seemed almost as concerned as Dad.
I told them how Phil had been beaten up and what I’d done to rescue Phil’s date. Then I explained that I’d made sure that both Mike and Luke had taken the first swings. I was telling them that I’d sent the recordings to Frank when, speak of the devil, he called.
“I got a call from someone at Hollywood Central last night, asking me for videos and a comment about David’s fight. Luckily, I smelled a rat and said I couldn’t possibly comment without seeing what they had. It turns out the video doesn’t show David doing anything other than walking up to Luke. And later, it shows David walking to the door of an apartment. Everything else is blocked by a bunch of other guys crowding around.”
“I called Hollywood Central back. I said that David was just getting his little brother and his brother’s date away from a college party where they’d gotten in a bit over their heads. He agreed it didn’t make for much of a story, but said that I owed him for not running it. I promised them an exclusive when you come to town for the Oscars,” Frank said.
His tone said he was pleased with both turning this into a nonstory and roping me into an interview. Frank also knew that I wasn’t about to fight him because when your PR guy is relaxed about something, it’s good—trust me. I hoped this would put an end to it, at least as far as the media and my parents were concerned. How I felt about Mike being a teammate at Michigan was another matter entirely.
◊◊◊
Chapter 17 – That Makes My Head Hurt Friday February 17
By Friday morning, I’d given the events a lot of thought and had decided that I didn’t want to play ball with someone like Mike. I’d gotten a chance to talk to Phil, and he told me how Luke and Mike had gotten Jill drunk. The way he described it, I still suspected that they’d slipped her something like ecstasy.
Phil said that he’d stayed close to her, and they were having a good time. The next thing he knew, she’d gone to the bathroom and didn’t come back. When he’d gone to look for her, Luke and Mike had jumped him.
The long and short of it was that Phil had had enough and decided to break up with Jill. She’d made a comment over the phone to him about him abandoning her and that I’d had to save her. When Jill had come to school and seen his condition, she’d regretted saying that.
Before I did something drastic, I wanted to talk to Wolf, Tim, and Ty about Mike. I’d arranged to meet them at Granny’s West for breakfast before school. When Cassidy learned about my plans, she insisted that she had to be my security today. I suspected she just wanted a cinnamon roll.
We were the last to arrive, and the other three already had their drinks and a starter roll each. Our server came right over when she saw me and took our order. Cassidy was happy when they brought us our rolls.
“I’ve had a couple of days to cool off over what Mike pulled. But even having calmed down, I’m still having a problem envisioning him as a teammate,” I said to kick our meeting off.
“You’re not planning to back out of your commitment, are you?” Ty asked.
“Ideally, they would pull Mike’s,” I said.
“Do you really believe they would? He’s already signed a National Letter of Intent. I think they’re bound to take him,” Tim said.
“But we already said that it didn’t really matter if he went to the same school because he was one of 85 players,” Ty reminded me.
“Mike was given multiple chances to straighten out and ended up quitting the team and going to Wesleyan,” Wolf said. “I thought that his BS was over with. What he and his brother did to Phil was a step too far, and I really detest that he’s hurting people you care about, trying to get at you. If he’d do it to you, I’m sure he’ll do it to all of us. Heck, he messed with Jim last year. That’s just asking for trouble. I don’t need to be around someone like that.”
“What are you saying, exactly?” Ty asked.
I thought it was pretty clear, but apparently, Ty needed to hear the words.
“I’m not talking for Tim or Wolf. They need to decide for themselves,” I qualified. “But if Mike is at Michigan next year, I’ll go somewhere else.”
“Even though you gave your word?” Ty asked to dig at my core values.
“Ty, I realize this doesn’t make you happy, but I respect you too much not to talk to you first. If Mike hadn’t said what he did to me in that apartment, on top of what he did to my little brother, I might let it go,” I said.
Ty threw a face.
“Hold on, Ty,” Tim said. “What would you do if Luke held your little brother and Mike beat the crap out of him? Would you want to forgive and forget?”
Ty let out an exasperated breath.
