“So, when everybody suddenly invited themselves along on a couple of trips, it just got to me. I’d love to have everyone along, and I’d love to pay for it all. I have to ask myself, would I be doing it for the right reasons? What would you be expecting of me then and in the future? Would it hurt our friendship if I were honest about how I felt?”
I looked at them helplessly and found more than one who didn’t meet my eyes.
“Guys! I’m not yelling at you,” I said with a weak smile.
“I just feel bad that we would make you feel like that,” Tim said.
“Look, I consider us a team. If a team member needs some help, we rally around them and do what we can. If you see me tossing money around, you stop me. Can we do that?” I asked.
“Before we start this new team arrangement, I need a new Mustang,” Tracy said.
“I saw a purse that Coby had his eyes on,” Pam teased.
The two of them joking around seemed to lighten the mood. I sort of got lost in my own thoughts for a couple of minutes. I was glad I’d talked to them but worried about how everything would turn out. The Alpha Male in me still wanted to control it all, but sometimes you just had to take the best actions you could and leave the rest up to God.
◊◊◊
I received a Google Alert concerning Brandon Rigby. His accomplices had turned on him. With the mounting DNA evidence, and more women coming forward, he’d accepted a plea deal of 25 years in prison with no chance of parole. The article said that the average sentence for rape varied by area, but the average was 9.8 years, with only 5.4 years of it actual jail time. Because of the nature and the number of victims, he could have easily never gotten out of jail. His two accomplices had each received reduced 10-year sentences for their part in drugging and raping their fellow college students.
I forwarded the link to the article to Tami. I hoped this gave her some closure on that chapter of her life. For me personally, I didn’t know how to feel. I guess the best description was relief that he’d actually been punished. I’d been worried his dad, as a well-connected lawyer, would have figured out a way for him to go free.
◊◊◊
After school, Coach Haskins and Moose met me on the baseball field. It seemed a little weird with just the three of us.
“I sent your game film to the people at the Under-18 team. They gave me some ideas on what they want you to work on,” Moose said.
“There are four things: batting, stealing bases, all three outfield positions, and pitching. They want to use you as an emergency pitcher if you make the team,” Coach Haskins shared.
For the next two hours, the two of them worked with me. They’d done a lot of one-on-one coaching throughout the season. But without having to worry about all my teammates, they took their time to make sure I understood the why along with the how to.
I smiled when Cassidy came out of the field house, decked out in catcher’s gear.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“I’m going with you to Cuba. You need to practice pitching,” she said reasonably.
I was a little tentative at first. A fastball can hurt. I had no desire to let my friend get injured trying to catch me. Part of my learning might mean a pitch would get away from me, and an errant ball would hit the catcher. I should have known Cassidy was up to the task. I tried a curveball, and it bounced off the plate and about knocked her mask off. She just readjusted her mask, tracked the ball down, and threw it back.
“You okay?” I asked.
She gave me a look that I was used to seeing. I shut up and tried it again.
◊◊◊
When I got home, Greg was there with his munchkins. Someone must have fed them sugar because they were going wild. Mom sent me out to the backyard with Kyle and Mac to wear them out. I guess Nate was upset he didn’t get to go because Greg soon joined me, carrying him. He found his son and daughter squealing as we played ‘Unca David, Catch Me!’ I took Nate and told him to tag them as I ran after them. He got the giggles, and his brother and sister soon joined him.
“Mom tells me you don’t have a date to Prom. Dad seems to think it’s funny that Phil found a girl, and you lost yours,” Greg said.
“Prom is Saturday. I have plenty of time to get a date,” I said like it was no big deal.
Even Greg wasn’t buying that.
“Well, Adrienne said she’d get me a replacement date,” I admitted.
“Remember that faux one? Did she even make it to Prom?” Greg asked.
“I almost forgot about her. Adrienne is dead if it’s someone like that. She mentioned it might be Melinda,” I said.
“Is that the Victoria’s Secret model?” Greg asked.
I just grinned at him. Kyle and Mac had caught their breath, and it was time for Unca David to chase them again. Greg stood back and let me wear them out for him.
◊◊◊
Finals were next week, so I was reviewing when Tami sent me a text. I jumped onto video chat.
“Hey. Did you get my email?” I asked.
“Yes. I’m glad he’s getting jail time,” she said and sighed. “I’m just happy it’s over.”
“You okay?” I asked.
She just shrugged. I could relate to that.
“I hear you and Alan aren’t talking. Did you really take his date for Prom and give it to someone else?”
“He’s such a baby. He got himself grounded and can’t go to Prom. You’d think he would have the decency to tell me so I could find his date someone else to go with. She’s flying all the way from LA, after all. Kind of shitty on his part to have her make the trip and find out her date couldn’t leave his house,” I ranted.
Tami just laughed at me.
“I talked to your mom, and she’s not happy with him. Was that the last straw?”
I took a deep breath. It was one thing to think it, and another to say it aloud.
“Yeah, I believe we may be done as friends.”
“Good,” she said, surprising me.
“You think so? He and I have been friends since kindergarten.”
“I always thought Alan and Jeff were friends, and you just tolerated Alan because of Jeff.”
“Jeff was the only one who seemed to be able to get him to listen to reason unless you smacked him in the head,” I said.
“It’s funny. I always imagined the four of us would be friends for the rest of our lives. I never realized that Jeff was the one who held us all together. Well, I mean the Alan part. I knew our friendship didn’t rely on the group,” Tami said.
“Yeah, I agree. I miss Jeff.”
We got quiet for a minute, lost in our thoughts of our friend. Tami was right. If it hadn’t been for Jeff, I probably wouldn’t have hung out with Alan.
◊◊◊
Before going to bed, I saw there was an email from Frank Ingram. It was labeled ‘Car Video,’ and there was a note that said he’d gotten all the video Fritz had downloaded from Detective Kitchens. Ms. Dixon wanted there to be a clear chain of custody in case we ever had to go to court. She didn’t want us to open ourselves up to charges of tampering with the videos.
I clicked on it and watched the two women who had interviewed me as they loaded their car.
Interviewer: “Oh my God, did you see the look on his face when I told him he wouldn’t be getting the raw footage? I’d melt my hard drive before I’d let anyone see it!”
Videographer: “By the time we get done editing this, we’ll have turned him into someone no woman would ever want to talk to. He’s going to regret making me look like I was doing anything other than trying to save that poor girl from him last fall.”
Interviewer: “This’ll also be good for us. By the time I’m done editing this, we’ll have a salacious story that’ll fit perfectly with the movement’s primary message. We’ll be able to sell this for some big bucks to a lot of different outlets, and it’ll really boost our cred with the organizations.”