Page 69 of He Has It All (Boston Brawlers Hockey)
“Hello, Eli. Thank you for calling,” some serious-sounding dude says. Tim’s attorney. I don’t even know his name and I don’t care. Don’t want to know. Don’t want to be here. But I listen and it feel like I’m being subjected to torture. My hands fist up. The kittens disappear from my head. The laughing children vanish.
“Did you have a chance to review the affidavit I sent you from one of our witnesses?” Eli cuts to the chase. I like his style and I listen, literally moving to the edge of my seat.
Serious Dude clears his throat and pauses. Must be a tactic. It works because my tension doubles. I wonder what happened to that cool, calm guy I used to be?
“Your witness, Chelsea Wilde ofGossip Girlfame, I believe—”
“She quit that job and you know it,” Eli says.
“Ah, but now she’s working for the Boston Brawlers, the very same team O’Rourke plays for—and where I come from that smacks of bribery. O’Rourke has bribed her with a job to testify for him. Or at the very least he’s done her a favor and now he’s collecting on it with her testimony. She owes him. She was desperate for a job after being blackballed in broadcasting.”
“Fuck.” Fishing my phone from my pocket, I punch in Chelsea’s number.
Eli punches the button to shut down the speaker and picks up his phone. “Just a minute. My client has some input.” He punches on the mute button and turns to me, voice tight, “What are you doing?”
“We can’t use her as a witness. I’m not having her lose her job over this.” Or allowing her to be unfairly dragged through the mud.
“Without her, we might have to go to trial, at the very least the settlement discussions and this case along with all the media attention gets dragged out.”
“Tough shit.”
She answers the phone after three rings.
“Ryan. What’s up?”
“You’re off the case—we don’t need you as a witness. Something else has come up. I really appreciate your help—”
“Don’t bullshit me. What’s going on?”
I close my eyes and cover the phone.
“How much will it take to settle this case tomorrow?” I say to Eli.
“You serious?”
“Deadly.”
“A mil. Maybe 1.5, but I don’t—”
I hold up my hand to shut him up and go back to my call with Chelsea.
“What the fuck, Ryan? Tell me what’s going on?” She sounds panicked. She never uses the F-bomb.
“We’re settling the case. I’m sick of it all. We’re doing it tomorrow.” There’s silence on her end for a beat, then two. “Aren’t you going to congratulate me?”
“For buying your way out of it instead of fighting?”
Slap. “That stings,” I say, but I should have known what to expect. Getting up from the table, I walk into the empty dining room to talk in privacy. Funny I ended up exposing my shit with my dad, but exposing my shit with Chelsea goes too far.
“My money is the reason I’m in this mess. It’s their entire motivation.” I lie and hope she can’t tell.
“Not. Tiffany is a pathetic whore and Tim refuses to see it. There’s more going on here than money-envy.”
“Whatever. I’m not dragging everyone through court. Enough is enough—”
“Tell me really what’s going on, Ryan.”
“I did. I gotta go now.” I cut off the call. She’s too smart and too tough. I go back in the room and sit. Eli is shaking his head.
“I hope she’s worth it,” he says.
“She’s gold. She’s worth more than anything else I have.” Except I don’t have her. I only want her. Desperately. What I’ll do with her when I get her, I’m not sure. I’m only sure that I will get her. Feeling Levi’s eyes on me, I turn to him.
He’s suppressing a smile unsuccessfully. I give him the finger.
Eli says, “In any event, we’re not settling the case tomorrow. Even if they agree, things don’t happen overnight like that.”
Ham says, “What Eli is trying to tell you is they hung up on us while you were playing white knight.”
“Fuck.”
