I glance at the comments for two seconds before they make me nauseous, and I close them out. I toss the phone across the bed, and lay back against it, staring at the ceiling.
It won’t take long before all the vitriol starts to roll in. Before I start to hear from my father about how I’ve disgraced the Westfield name. About how many times he’s told me to get my act together. How he didn’t put me through expensive schools with top football programs and all the best training camps with all the best connections to watch me fuck up left and right. To make the Westfield name a laughingstock.
And like I’m a fucking psychic my phone lights up with the call, and I answer it.
“Why the fuck am I looking at your bare fucking ass above the fucking fold on a tabloid website?”
“Because someone hacked the video.”
“Why is there a video? Is this a girlfriend or just some random woman you picked up for the night?”
“She’s not a girlfriend.”
“Fan-fucking-tastic. So who knows what she’ll say to the media. If she’ll fucking blame you for it. I hope you have your people on this.”
“I have them on it.”
“This is going to wreck your mother’s nerves. Jesus Christ. You know what that does to her. She doesn’t fucking need it, Tobias.” He pauses for effect and as he intends, the guilt of making my mother miserable rolls over me. A fresh new horror in all of this. “And now Easton and I are going to have to answer these questions from the media. Talk about your bare ass instead of talking about my guys and how well they’re playing. I’m gonna be fielding questions about you fucking some random girl because you’re too fucking stupid to think about consequences.”
I feel my chest collapsing in on itself as it all hits me. He’s not wrong. I hadn’t even thought that far. Too worried about Scarlett, the woman in the video, and me to think about how this would radiate out from us.
“Is there a point to this call?” I’m used to grey rocking this man, but sometimes, like right now when the wounds are fresh, I can hardly stand all the fucking salt he pours in them.
“This is your last fucking shot, Tobias. I swear to all that’s fucking holy, I didn’t spend my life’s work on this family, on you boys getting your shit together just to watch you squander it. You’re too old for this shit. Too fucking smart for it too, frankly. I expected Easton would turn out like this, and yet somehow, he manages to be the least problematic of the fucking three of you.”
“What does my last shot entail exactly? Gonna make me change my name?” I summon up the courage to taunt the man.
“I’m not gonna do shit, but the league will. You’re old. You’re getting slower every fucking season. I can see it on the tapes. You’ve got a few years left at best and no fucking ring to show for it. You’ll be lucky if they don’t replace you with someone they draft next year. You have all these off-field scandals and when the Phantom offloads you, no one else will want you either. You’ll be relegated to some fucking foreign team or an indoor league at best. A few used car lots might have you throw a sport coat on and smile along to their fucking jingle. That how you wanna go out?” He pummels me with all my worst fears. The ones he knows will set me back in line. Make me think twice about speaking in the future.
“Thanks for the pep talk, Dad.”
“Don’t fucking Dad me. Get your act together. Put a cease and desist out, and I highly recommend you track this woman down and kiss her ass. Give her a car, a house, a fucking ring if she wants it, and worry about a divorce later. But make sure she doesn’t trash you in the tabloids just to save herself.”
“Fuck up my whole life because someone stole something private of mine. Got it,Dad. Will get right on it.” I’m too angry to care about pissing him off more right now.
“You have the fucking privilege of having the name you do. The chances you do. Sometimes that means you gotta deal with the consequences of that privilege,Son. Do what you gotta do to fix it.”
I don’t answer. I just stay silent because I have no answer to his demands. There’s no point in arguing.
“Call me tomorrow when you’ve got a fucking plan, but if you go under, you’re on your own. I’m not trying to save you again. Not going to watch the rest of the family suffer because you can’t stop being a fucking train wreck.”
“Thanks for the consolation, Dad. Appreciate you. Have a good fucking night.”
I hang up the phone. It usually sends him into a full-on rage, but tonight I don’t care. He can rage at me and everyone else all he wants.
My phone dings again and I look down at it when I see SPITFIRE as the name that pops up. I open the message, hoping she’s seen that it’s not her and at least one of us can be relieved by it all.
SPITFIRE:
Saw the video pop up. I’m so sorry.
Have your people figured out where the leak is from and how many of these there are?
I hit the call button, too tired to try and type this conversation out with her. Too emotionally broken to try to come up with all the perfect words and hoping that hearing her voice will at least be a little bit of a balm to how fucking rough this all feels.
“Hello?” she answers.
“Hi. Just thought I’d make this conversation easier. They don’t know where the leak is from. They’re looking into it. She had a copy of that video too, so I’m going to talk to her and see if she thinks the leak could have been on her end.”
