We had an incident during practice this afternoon between Austin Monroe and Tucker Milligan. On the surface, Monroe was at fault; he attacked Milligan—but Tucker slept with Ashley Monroe.
I immediately hit reply all, demanding a meeting and adding our chief legal counsel into the mix. I also sent a screenshot of the email to Kendra.
Kendra: Can I come to the meeting?
Me: Of course.
I didn’t worry about what they would think of her presence; Kendra’s role in the team would be whatever the fuck she and I wanted. If anyone complained, they could fuck the hell off. If I had to give her the title, First Lady of the fucking Minutemen to make our point, I would.
Me: Can you try to get a read on what the players think of all this?
Kendra: I’ll try.
As if on cue, a text arrived from Sam.
Sam Drummond: Can we talk off the record?
Me: Anytime. I’m in the office and free until 1:00 pm.
Sam arrived with half the team, and as they all crammed into my office, I knew I didn’t need to wait for Kendra to dig into this. Sam had brought it right to my front door.
“Is this related to the incident between Monroe and Milligan?”
At least fifteen heads nodded back at me.
“I know we’re the only ones here, boss, but the only guy on Milligan’s side in this is Griffen,” Sam said.
Interesting. The rumors were true; Elijah and Tucker had become tight since the season. Unfortunately, that didn’t bode well for Griffen; he’d already had a reputation for indiscretions on the road. If Tucker had been blatant enough to sleep with his teammate’s wife, there was no telling whatthey were doing with Elijah, if he wasn’t being kept in line by his own wife.
“We wanted to go on record that Monroe punched first, but Milligan deserved it.” Nate Reaves, the rookie, spoke up next. He had moved in with Austin and Ashley, and they had taken him under their wings while he got acclimated to the Major Leagues and Boston. The kid was from a small town in northern Minnesota, and until recently, the largest city he’d ever seen was Duluth. “And I’m not just saying that because Austin is one of the best guys I know.”
Carlos Martino stepped forward and patted Nate on the back. “Milligan’s a fucking piece of shit.”
And here we were. As I looked at every one of the players in the office, they all nodded in agreement.
“We called the union, but they said this needed to be handled by management.”
I nodded. “Yes. We’re meeting at 1:00 pm. I will definitely share your input.”
My afternoon blew up from there. After meeting with the management team, both Monroe and Milligan’s agents requested meetings. I pushed those meetings off to the legal team, planning to have them gather facts so we could decide what the fuck to do. I wanted to trade Tucker, but I’d wanted the fucker gone long before his latest transgression.
Kendra had stayed quiet throughout the discussions and blended into the background.
“Fuck.” One word was all she could manage once we were alone together.
“If we manage this correctly, we can get him out of our hair,” I said.
“Yeah, but then he’s going to be a problem somewhere else.”
“He’s a grown-ass adult. We aren’t responsible for his behavior; he is.”
“I’m meeting my sisters later. I’m assuming this is not something I can discuss with them.”
“Absolutely not. Not that I don’t trust them, but with Sam and Luc being connected to the team, you just can’t. I’m sorry, babe. I don’t want you cut off from your support system, but we can’t fuck this up.”
“Okay.” She gave me a chaste kiss. “I’ll see you at home later.”
At the same time this story broke, the private investigator had turned up an accusation against him that had arisen a few years earlier and been squashed shortly after the statement was made. A clear sign Kendra wasn’t his only victim, and an even deeper sign that this guy was a serial offender.
