That bile creeps its way back up my throat.
I’m gonna throw up.
I’m gonna do it right here in the middle of our kitchen table because that word makes me as sick as that other word used to make me.
“Did she stroll up on your porch with a black eye, Kenny? Did she show you any evidence that he touched?—”
“Hold the hell up,” Aunt Faye sputters. “See, this is what we ain’t gon’ do.”
Blake’s eyebrows shoot up, and he leans forward over the table. “It’s a valid question, Faye. Did she?”
“That doesn’t matter! How disgusting of you to insinuate that she would lie about something like that.”
He holds his hands up. “Hey…when there’s money on the table, I don’t put anything past anyone.”
“What do you want from me, Blake?” I croak. “I left. I didn’t take anything from AJ. I didn’t go to the media. I didn’t leak anything to any of the blogs. I didn’t get a lawyer to try to get any of his money or ruin his reputation. I left on my own?—”
“No you didn’t.” He reaches into his jacket pocket, pulling out the AirTag I left in New York and tossing it in the middle of the table. “That was a ten thousand dollar vintage Chanel Flap with twenty-four karat gold hardware you left with that Bronx hoodrat in that dump, by the way.”
“Your client signed a four year twenty million dollar rookie contract. Tell him to consider it a donation to that so-calleddump, but that would be too self-incriminating, wouldn’t it? Oh, and that Bronx hoodrat has more balls than he ever will.”
Aunt Faye grabs her forehead. “If this is really about money, we can pay AJ for the twenty-four karat gold Chanel-whatever.”
Blake lets out a hearty laugh, eyeing our kitchen from corner to corner and the old stained tile beneath his feet. “Let’s not promise the impossible right now.”
“Are you tryna say we ain’t got it?—”
“I just don’t understand why the boy ain’t here and you are,” Uncle Kenny cuts in. “He should be here talking to us about this. He’s involved in this too.”
“The boyis safe in his hotel room where he needs to be. Your niece walked into a domestic violence agency in the middle of a city where her fiancé’s face is plastered on Foot Locker ads in the subway stations and featured in Jersey Mike’s commercials that play every hour and poke fun at him being the Jersey boy next door.” He flicks the AirTag. “She pulled this out of her purse and said the Knights’ cornerstone wide receiver stalks her every move and beats her mercilessly. These are some serious ass allegations she’s pinning on AJ, so you damn right I think it’s best if we keep them separate for now.”
“There you go again!” Aunt Faye yelps. “I don’t like this language you’re using. These ain’t no damn allegations!”
“But theyare, Faye! They’re just claims with no evidence to back them up. I asked that agency to show me proof! Show me some goddamn pictures of what she’s alleging, and they couldn’t show me a thing. So it’s just her word against his.”
The weight of his last sentence is so heavy it shuts everybody up.
He glances at Uncle Kenny. “I like Lovie for AJ, I really do, Ken. She’s good for his image. She’s his college sweetheart…”
He points out a finger.
“She’s successfully stayed away from the hot mess that is the Knights WAGs.”
He points out another finger.
“She hasn’t fucked half the NFL.”
My stomach turns as he points out a third finger.
“She’s black in a league full of white and exotic WAGs. She’s the real deal, but she’s jeopardizing the money. Do you know how much it’ll cost to clean this mess up if that little rinky-dink domestic violence agency talks all because your niece got madand walked out on her fiancé? Do you know how much AJ’s stock will plummet if he doesn’t get his head out of his ass and get it back in the game? And don’t even get me started on if the league starts investigating and the public gets involved. We’re in the middle of a winning season. The Knights ain’t had a season like this in ten years. I don’t have time to be cleaning up this alleged DV mess and playing relationship counselor. I’msoclose to making this boy a franchise player for the Knights.”
He doesn’t talk about the things AJ harped on after our fights, like the cops taking him away from me or the possibility of his career ending. According to Blake Harvey, none of that will happen because all of it can be swept under the rug.
“Lovie has been okay with the nature of their relationship as far as I’ve known her. She was very well taken care of in New York. They have a beautiful home, a cleaner, a chef. She has thousands of dollars worth of clothes and accessories in a closet the size of this house. They have a state-of-the art security system that keeps her safe up on the penthouse floor. She has everything a woman could ask for. So, tell me exactly what she told you the problem was that has us having a family meeting during one of the most crucial bye weeks of your nephew’s career? Tell me, Ken. I wanna hear it verbatim.”
Uncle Kenny scratches the back of his head. “She said AJ wasn’t nice to her.”
Blake belts out a hearty laugh. “That’s it? Ken, the boy is in the NFL. A man ain’t gon’ be jolly twenty-four seven when it’s millions on the line?—”
