Page 8 of Gross Misconduct
I was buzzing up Taylor late the next morning. One look at his face, and I could see he was doubting me. He had two takeout coffee cups and set them down on my coffee table. I sat in my comfy gaming chair, and he sat on the sofa.
“Let me start,” he said, his dark brown eyes searing holes through me. The one thing about Taylor was that he never blew up. He managed to keep his anger under control at all times, but one look from him said what words didn’t have to. “I spoke with Dave. He’s looking to shop Lex around and have him gone before the end of training camp. I also talked to Lex’s agent. Lex wants to kick the shit out of you, but he’s willing to put up with you for training camp as long as you stay away from each other. He’s also blaming you for all this and thinks you’ve taken advantage of his wife.”
I slapped both hands against my forehead. The guy was a tool. Hadn’t he figured out thatno onetook advantage of Orla? “Are you kidding me? She was just as responsible for what happened as I was.”
Taylor pursed his lips and adjusted his rimless glasses. “What exactly happened with her?”
Shit. I’d walked into that one.
I rolled my shoulders to relax some of the tension in them in hopes that would make me sound more believable. “Like I said, we fooled around a bit. Nothing happened. The media is running with the story because people like that shit. But I resent that Lex thinks?—”
Taylor held up his hand. He’d been an agent for more than twenty years and had probably dealt with more than his fair share of crap over the years. “We are past assessing blame. What we need to do right now is save your image as the nice guy who loves to mentor kids and help old ladies cross busy streets. What we don’t need is the homewrecker image. What you’re going to do is stay away from Lex and his wife.Especially his wife. Make no contact with her. Secondly, we are going to send out a prepared statement where you apologize and grovel a little.” He handed me a sheet of paper to read. “And finally, you will meet with Clay and his team tomorrow. You will grovel some more and tell him how sorry you are. You will do whatever he asks you to. In the meantime, I’m going to work on salvaging this mess.”
“You’re coming with me to meet Clay, right?”
“I wouldn’t let you go in there alone,” Taylor said. “Clay is mostly a fair man, but he doesn’t like anyone tarnishing his image or that of his team. I imagine he’s also not happy that he’s going to lose the team’s top defenseman.”
I imagined the rest of the team wouldn’t be happy about it either. Lex was popular with the guys. A total oaf, but he had a good heart.
“Read over the statement and let me know if anything needs to be changed.”
I read it over twice to make sure I hadn’t missed anything. As expected, it was a saccharine apology that didn’t sound like me at all, but Taylor knew what he was doing, and I wasn’t about to make a bigger mess of things by changing what he and his staff had come up with.
“It’s fine,” I said.
“Good. Make sure you tell your parents about this, that’s if they haven’t heard already. I’m sure they’ll be disappointed.” Taylor watched me with that hard stare again. “Jeremy, don’t you think it’s time to stop screwing around? You’re pushing thirty.”
“I’m twenty-seven!”
“My point is, it’s time to bring some stability into your personal life. You’ve been sowing your wild oats a long time. Why don’t you meet a nice girl, settle down, get married, and have a family. I think your parents would love some grandkids.”
Taylor was in his early fifties, but he was sounding a lot like my less-judgy grandfather.
What he didn’t want to say was that my older sister, who’d declared herself child-free, was a great disappointment to my parents. They felt that we were all put on this earth to procreate, and when Gwen announced that not only did she not want kids, she didn’t even like kids, my parents nearly had a joint heart attack. Christmas dinner probably wasn’t the best time for that announcement. I still chuckled when I thought about it. What Mom and Dad didn’t know was that Gwen was put on this earth to push boundaries and their buttons.
“Thanks for the pep talk, Taylor. I’ll keep all that in mind. I’ll also make sure to be on time and dressed appropriately for my meeting with Clay.”
Taylor shot one more death glare, took his coffee, and buzzed off.
Chapter Five
Jill
Talk about trial by fire. I’d been on the job barely two months, and I was already facing a scandal thanks to our team captain, the same doofus who’d tried to impress me at Tangi and Ethan’s. I knew he was a longtime friend of Ethan’s, but really, how dense could a guy be? Screwing around with a teammate’s wife? Our best defenseman at that? The same one who now wanted a one-way ticket out of town? Jeremy Vaughn was leaving me and my new team with this mess.
The moment the news broke, I’d texted Tangi. We compared what few notes we had, and while I’d wanted to spend the evening talking to her about it, I was instead in meeting after meeting with Clay, our general manager Dave, Coach Anthony, the rest of my PR team, legal, reps for Lex and Doofus, and all our assistants. By the time those meetings were done, my head was pounding, and all I wanted to do was crawl into bed.
First thing the next morning, there were dozens of texts and emails that I had to scroll through. When I was all caught up, Ihad a meeting planned with Clay, Dave, and Doofus. Clay and Dave didn’t want anyone else there. I found it odd, but Clay was the boss. As I showered and got ready for work, I sent Tangi a text and we agreed to meet for an early breakfast. She had the morning off, and since Maddy liked to be up early, that meant Tangi was up early too. The idea of breakfast also appealed to me. I hadn’t eaten a decent meal in twenty-four hours. Who had time with all the damn meetings?
Tangi was already at the small diner-like restaurant that we’d gone to a few times. The place opened for breakfast and lunch only, and I’d barely sat down when the server brought a coffee and a menu. I wasted no time and ordered the mega breakfast. I needed a lot of carbohydrates and extra bacon to get through this day.
“He slept with her, didn’t he?” I asked as I put a sugar packet and two creamers into my coffee.
Tangi shrugged. “He finally talked to Ethan last night. He claims he hasn’t. But if I had to put money on it …”
Right. He slept with her.
“Didn’t you tell me he liked to screw around? Not be tied down? This sounds like something a guy like him would do. He has no idea how much damage he’s caused. If I were Clay, I’d be trading him and not Lex.”