Page 16 of The Lawyer's Quandary
“No, I should be there.” Damn, those eyes were gorgeous, especially when he was being stubborn.
Greg placed his hand on the back of Mark’s neck. “This whole situation is putting you in a really bad position. You could lose your job if the college finds out. If you kept a certain amount of distance, then at least they couldn’t drag you into it.”
“I’m already in it, and I know enough already that when this comes to light, we need to either hit it out of the park or they are going to come at everyone. So let’s do our best to make sure we have the strongest case possible.”
The restaurantwas not a campus hangout. It was nice and relatively quiet. The guys were already there and seated. Stevenintroduced everyone, and Greg sat down with Mark next to him. He wondered if they’d start with regular conversation, but Connors got right into it. “I don’t know if I can do this.”
“Yeah, me either,” Wilson added. They were both nervous as hell, and that was the first thing he needed to deal with.
“Okay. Here’s the deal. Do each of you have a dollar?” he asked, and they both nodded. Greg held out his hand, and they both pulled out their wallets and handed him a buck. “Okay. Now I’m your lawyer too. That means I am bound by attorney/client confidentiality. Which means this conversation is absolutely confidential. If you want Mark to leave, then he must. But if you want him to stay….” Greg opened his case and pulled out a document. “Then we’ll ask him to sign this nondisclosure agreement, meaning he is being held to that same standard.”
They each looked at one another and then at Mark before agreeing he could stay. Mark nodded and signed the agreement. “So nothing said here will go any further without your permission.”
Greg took back the signed document and put it in his bag. “I know you’re scared, and you’re wondering what everyone is going to think about you. That is why we need to make the strongest case we can. And we need as many people to come forward as possible. I know this is hard, and you would rather stop thinking about it and try to go on with your life. But then he is going to continue to hurt other people. Bates isn’t going to stop. Not until someone makes him.”
“Yeah, but….”
“Let me ask you this… if it was your sister, would you want her to hide or to come forward? Or your little brother? I’d guess that if this happened to them, you’d beat the shit out of Bates and to hell with it. Well, that’s what we’re going to do. We aregoing to take away his job and his reputation, and once we’ve done that, we’re going to file criminal charges, and we’re going to take his freedom. Steven was brave enough to tell me his story, and I need you to do the same. I’ll take notes, which will also be confidential, and then we’ll figure out the way forward.”
Steven leaned forward. “Greg has a plan—a good one. And we need to be strong. We kick ass on the field, and we need to take that same grit and determination and do this too. I know I was the first to come forward, but we’re a team, and we back each other up.”
Connors was turning pale, but Wilson nodded. “Yeah… okay…,” he said. “I’m in.” Then he turned to Connors, who nodded as well.
“I hate even thinking about this. It makes me feel like less of a man… you know?”
And Greg knew that was the heart of an issue.
“I’m gay. Am I less of a man?” he pressed, and Connors looked down at his lap. “No. It doesn’t. Because we all know that being a man is not who you’re with, but how you behave.”
“But I should have stopped him… I should….”
“We are going to stop him,” Steven said. “If you had punched him, you’d have lost your scholarship. You know that. I wanted to hit him too. But real men don’t use their fists. They don’t hit. Instead, we use the law, and we hit him where it will hurt for years to come.” Dang, Steven was impressive. “Are we all together in this?”
“Yes.”
“Yes,” Connors said with more force.
“Good. Now I have a tough question for both of you.” Greg watched all three players. “You know it’s not just you. Who else?” He waited as Connors and Wilson looked at each other. “I know there is plenty of talk in the locker room. Did anyone sayanything about not being alone with Coach Bates? Or teased you about him?”
Wilson was the one who cleared his throat. “Walenski,” he said. “Remember how he hurt his ankle and refused to see Bates? He said he’d figure out how to tape it himself. Real stubborn about it too.”
“Yeah, I remember,” Steven said. “I didn’t think anything of it at the time, but now that I do, there are a lot of guys who steer clear of him.”
“So what do we do?” Wilson asked.
“For now, nothing, other than tell me what happened. I’m hoping that if we provide enough statements to the board, they will understand what’s going on and take action.”
“I already told the guys that we aren’t looking to sue or get money, that what we want is to make sure that he can’t do this any longer,” Steven said as their server came to take their orders.
By the time they had eaten, Greg had a very good idea of exactly what had happened to Connors and Wilson. He’d made notes about each story and let them see them to ensure they were accurate. “I’m going to have these written up and then I’ll send them to you. I want you to feel free to make any changes that you need to. I don’t want these to sound like legal documents, but stories… your stories. Once you’ve reviewed them, I’ll add yours to Steven’s.”
“But how do we really make sure he’s caught? They may believe us or not….”
“Mark is working on that,” Greg said. “But we aren’t going to discuss it at the moment.”
All three players looked at each other. “Do you want one of us to try and set him up?” Wilson asked.
“No. We can’t put you in that kind of position.”
