Page 4 of The Marriage Playbook
“Don’t you fool yourself into thinking that my position is in jeopardy,” Liam snapped. “You can walk around calling yourself a star all you want, but everyone knows that I’m the real headliner of the Stingers. I’m the one people pay to see. And I’m not going anywhere.”
“We’ll just see about that. Hit me. Go on. Do it.”
“Don’t do it.” Mark’s hands were on Liam’s shoulders now. “He wants you to, Liam. He wants a scene. Let’s just go, all right?”
His friend’s words penetrated the fog of rage around Liam’s mind. Mark was right. He would be giving Sandusky exactly what he wanted if he allowed this to escalate. He wasn’t sure why the younger man was so desperate to provoke him, but it was clear that Sandusky wasn’t going to be satisfied until he’d made Liam lose control.
Liam wasn’t going to give him that.
“Come on,” he said to Mark. “This place is full of upstarts. We’ll take our business elsewhere.”
He knew Sandusky was smirking at him as he left, and his blood boiled knowing that the kid thought he had won. But even so, it was best to get away before things blew up any more than they already had.
Liam woke up the next morning to the sound of the phone ringing.
He pulled his pillow over his head. He had gone a bit too heavy on the whiskey the night before—letting Sandusky get under his skin, he supposed—and now he felt ill and headachey. A glass of tomato juice would be the cure he needed, but first he’d need to get on his feet and to the kitchen.
He wished that phone would stop ringing.
As if it had heard his thoughts, it did stop—but then it started up again. Liam groaned and reached for it. Whatever this was, there was only one way to be sure of making it stop. “Hello?”
“Sims?”
Liam recognized the voice of his agent, Gregory Finster. He forced himself to sit upright. “Greg. What’s going on?” He’d been hoping to get a marketing partnership with his favorite energy drink—maybe that had come through.
“Do you want to explain these pictures?” Greg demanded.
Liam frowned. “What pictures?”
“They’re all over social media. Pictures of you roughing up some kid in a nightclub. This looks pretty bad, Sims. We’re going to have to get a statement out there fast if we’re going to salvage it.”
Liam’s heart dropped. He grabbed his computer and pulled it into his lap, running a quick search for his own name.
Greg was right. The first thing that came up was a photo from last night. And there it was again from another angle. Liam lunging across the table to slap the glass out of Sandusky’s hand. Liam pulling Sandusky to his feet and backing him into the wall. By the angles of the shots—and there were many shots—he knew that Sandusky’s friends had taken them.
This was a setup. This was why he was trying to piss me off. This is why he wanted me to hit him at the club. He knew his friends were going to be taking pictures, and he was trying to make me look bad!
“It’s this new kid on the team,” he explained to Greg. “He’s been giving me a hard time.”
“So you thought you’d fight him in public? Sims, you should know better than this! You know the kind of heat players face for getting violent, and this guy is obviously younger than you. You’ve been the face of Miami football for years. People are not taking this well. You should see some of the comments on these pictures.”
Liam had a feeling he shouldn’t see those comments. “Well, what are we going to do about it?” he asked. “Release a statement? Because I was completely provoked. It’s all his fault.”
Greg was quiet.
Liam’s stomach turned. “I know how I sound right now,” he said. “But if you’d been around this guy for the past day, Greg, you would understand. He’s insufferable. Anyone would have lost their temper. I’ll say what I have to say for the media, but he did start it.”
“Sims,” Greg said quietly.
“What?”
“I have an email from the Stingers management staff here.”
“What do they want me to do?” Surely they weren’t going to bench him.
There was a long, drawn-out pause.
“Just say it,” Liam said. “Whatever it is, I’ll do it. Just say it.”
