“I don’t joke about this shit.” I leaned back, keeping my expression calm. “It’s controlled. There’s nothing written down, no paper trail. Just information that I pass on.”
Noah finally spoke, his voice low. “Why?”
I stared at the wall behind him. “Because... because I needed something.”
“You’re being blackmailed?” Noah guessed.
“Yes. No . . . Kind of.”
“Someone came after you?” Dustin asked incredulously.
I shook my head. “They didn’t come after me. I went to them.”
Noah’s hands stilled. Dustin swore under his breath.
I turned to look at them both, meeting their stares dead on. “My shoulder’s more than I said it was. It was really fucking wrong before the championship game and I knew I needed something to take to dull the pain, but—”
“Drug tests,” Noah said solemnly.
“Yeah. So I played through it. Like we all do with an injury.”
Dustin was leaning forward. “No, we play through a niggle, we don’t play through an injury that could fuck us up for our entire career.”
“Yeah, well, it’s not that bad.” I refused to look at either of them. “And then we won, so it was good, and we got our physical assessments and...” I tilted my head back. “It’s so stupid. I got one comment from one of the PTs.”
“What’d they say?” Noah asked me.
“I can’t even remember,” I told him honestly, meeting his eyes briefly. “But I remember theimplicationof what they said. That an injury that neededworkwent on Draft sheets and they didn’t want anything interfering with my Draft options.”
Dustin made a sound of disgust or disbelief, I wasn’t sure. “Theysaidthat?”
“Kind of.” Truthfully, I no longer knew what they’d said and what I’d filled in myself. “So I played down my shoulder.”
“And you self-medicated.” Noah’s voice was firm and offered no room for argument.
Dustin scoffed. “He would never,” he said with such conviction that I felt even more like shit. “Spence is a stickler for rules,” he said, looking over at me, and I saw his look of complete conviction morph into one of shocked disbelief. “Fuckoff.” He was on his feet. “What the fuck did you do?”
There it was. The indignant anger. The look of betrayal.
“My sister Jiana was a user. It was getting pretty bad. She’s clean now. Nicky, my nephew,” I supplied for Noah, “is three. But it’s been rough. Her old dealer still hangs around, a low-level piece of scum who knows how easy it would be for Ji to fall.” I looked down at the ground. “All I needed was some strong painkillers I couldn’t get at CVS. That I wouldn’t be on the books for here.”
“You took painkillers off a drug dealer?” Dustin looked ready to explode. “Are you out of yourfuckingmind?” He pointedat the door. “They’re paying people to shut the fuck up about injuries. You had access to a whole fucking pharmacy, you stupid son of a bitch.”
“I didn’t know that!” I roared back at him. “I didn’t know they did that, trust me, if I did...” If I did, I would have used them and not had to go to Knox, and I would be no better than the guys I threw a punch at on Saturday.
Fuck — I was a fucking hypocrite.
“You’d have used them?” Noah asked, and I turned to look at him. Something in his voice didn’t sound like he believed me.
I couldn’t hold his stare. “I...” No. Maybe? I honestly didn’t know. What I’d been doing was stupid. Would taking them from a professional, someone on my program, have made it any better? Knowing there was no record of it? It felt sleazy. But then, so did getting painkillers from a drug dealer. “I don’t know.”
Dustin grunted. “You wouldn’t. Despite being a fucking idiot, you wouldn’t have been comfortable knowing about it.That’sthe difference.Or your last week with us has been a very big fucking lie, but that seems to be what you do now.” He was angry, really fucking pissed. “A drug dealer? Are you out of your fucking mind?” He glared at me, his hands balled into fists. “And in turn for your pills—” his sneer was deserved — “you gave him what?”
“I told him who was injured on a team, who was carrying a knock, it allowed him to make his bets, get better odds.”
Dustin was watching me, anger and disappointment clear in his eyes. “You are so screwed if anyone finds out.”
“I know.”
