Page 80 of The Comeback Pact

The door to my room opens, and I slide my gaze to find Aidan walking in. “You aren’t answering your phone,” he offers, before shutting the door behind him.

“I talked on the phone enough today.”

I can still hear the fake sympathy in my reps’ voice. Or, who knows, maybe it was real sympathy, but it didn’t extend too far because bad publicity is bad publicity. They don’t care if it’s not true. I actually have to take a stand. If I can figure out a way to discredit my father, I’ll be okay. If I can’t, some of my NIL partners want to jump ship. I don’t “adhere to their brand.”

“Listen, the guys are pissed. We’re meeting in twenty minutes to talk about retaliation.”

Peering over, my stomach squeezes. “Retaliation?”

“Yeah. Hamilton douchebags,” Aidan grinds out. “Aren’t you mad?”

I heft myself to a seated position, stretching out my limbs and piercing him with a look. “Fucking furious, but not with them. They’re just dumb. We’ll kick their asses tomorrow. That’s the only thing that will put them in their place.”

“Then they’ll do it to someone else next year, West. This was a personal attack, and we’re not taking this shit lightly.”

I don’t often see Aidan agitated. He has such a gentle, carefree spirit that his uneasiness makes me sit straighter. “This is my father’s fault, dude.”

“They’re playing him.”

“And he’s letting them,” I grind out, my hands turning to fists. “But you’re not going to let them play you.”

Aidan shakes his head, and I can tell I haven’t convinced him yet. He wears a hole in the floor between our two beds. “I hate to see you like this. Look at what’s happening.”

My muscles tense. I’m in the same downward spiral as I was earlier when a lot of my representatives said they’d love to help but they weren’t sure what they could do. They were very apologetic. “So saddened” to hear that I was on ESPN for this reason. “It isn’t right,” another had said. “However…”

I’m only good for what I can do for them. Other than that, most of them don’t care.

In the back of my head, I guess I always thought this might happen. When I rose to the top, my father would be there asking for a handout. It’s why I decided that any NIL money I get goes right into a bank account I don’t touch. Honestly, I don’t know what to do with money. I’ve never had it. I just want to play football.

None of this is fucking football.

I glance over at Aidan, who’s now sitting on his own bed, his leg jumping up and down. “Keep it cool, QB.”

He clutches his hands in front of him. “It’s hard.”

“You’re the heartbeat of the team,” I remind him. “People will mold to the way you react.”

“Right now, I want to find those Hamilton players and kick their asses.”

“Which we’re not going to do,” I tell him softly. “I…appreciate it. But we can’t let things get out of hand. Look at what happened to Kenna.”

His jaw ticks. He takes a short peek at me and then continues rubbing one hand against the other.

“Plus, if you actually go there to fight, Coach will pull you from tomorrow’s game. You and whoever else decides to partake in this nonsense.”

“So, what are we going to do?” Aidan asks.

I’ve been lying here all day, asking myself the same question. My mind at war. My future at odds. “Do you think I should pay him off?”

“What? Who?”

I peer at the floor. “My dad.”

Aidan’s quiet for a long time. “You want to give him money to go away?”

“It’s all he wants. Or so he says.”

The tension in the room mounts. It’s like the rallying crowd right before kickoff. The screams pitch higher and higher, right up until the kicker connects with the ball.

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