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James sat in his office, staring down at his phone in his hands. He turned it over and over, over and over. Finally, he flipped it open and punched in a number from the binder next to his desk.
“Coach David Wymack, Palmetto State,” a gruff voice answered.
“Hey, it’s James.”
“James, what’s up?”
He glanced at the clock. After practice for the Trojans was nighttime on the east coast. “Is it too late over there?”
David snorted. “You know me. Of course not. Why are you calling?” There was a beat of silence. He didn’t know how to start. “Is it that backliner I sent you?”
James couldn’t find the words, so instead he blurted “You hired Kevin as a coach. Did he… did he ever hit your players?”
David was ominously quiet. It didn’t sound like a no. Or a what the fuck are you talking about, that would be insane. He heard a heavy sigh, and then “I told Kevin and Neil you’d ask questions. No way we could send you a Raven, especially one of their goddamn Perfect Court, and tell any half-awake coach to just leave it alone. This is going to be a whiskey conversation, isn’t it? Don’t answer that.” James heard shuffling and bangs as David moved around, and something being poured.
“If I wasn’t still in office, it would be.”
“You mean to tell me I’m not supposed to have that Jameson in the drawer?” David said dryly. There were more sounds as he moved about his apartment, a sigh as he seemed to sit down somewhere. Then. “Once.”
James tightened his hand on his whistle, still around his neck. He wished, suddenly, for a pencil to snap.
“Seth mouthed off and Kevin walloped him. He learned pretty quick after that what I won’t tolerate, and much slower what my players won’t accept. Foxes fight back. What happened?”
James took a deep, unsteady breath. “Jean’s been… struggling. We knew he would. Can’t undo three years of Raven training in a week.”
David snorted “Is he doing the goddamn foot thing?”
“Yes. ERC told Moriyama off for that technique so many times but he still taught it, you know he did. Jean’s sneaky, he learned to hide it inside a normal body-block so it looks like he’s just standing there innocently. Not sure he even knows he’s hiding it, he’s certainly not shy about calling out what he’s trying to do.”
“Took me weeks to break Kevin of that fucking habit. I finally convinced him that a win was worth more if you actually won, instead of just injuring so many players they stop being able to field a whole goddamn team. Well, and I knocked it into him that the Foxes are so small we can’t risk red cards, especially from him. Then he spent two weeks teaching my team to counter it. Now they all take off with these bizarre little hops like fucking deer. You didn’t call to ask about Raven footwork.”
“No.” The two of them sat and listened to each other’s breathing for a moment while James mustered the courage to say it out loud. “Today in practice, Jean messed up too many times. Everyone is frustrated about how hard it is to break Raven habits. Coaching team is pissed, my players are sick of being dumped on their backs, Jean’s angry at himself for not being able to change on a dime, I can tell. Habit took over too many times and he laid Jeremy out flat.” He was stalling; none of that was the important part.
David huffed a laugh. “He’s good for your lot. Get them used to playing against a normal team.”
James seized the humor like a lifeline and grinned wryly to himself. “Not the point, David.” Get to the point, James. “I came on to talk to him about it and get his head back in the game. He knew he’d messed up, and he just… knelt there. Went down on both knees next to Jeremy and stared at the wall like he was in a drill sargeant line-up. And then he… he handed me his racquet and expected me to hit him with it. For screwing up a drill.”
David hissed through his teeth, but didn’t respond.
“What the fuck was going on in the Nest, David? Whatever the hell happened to your team last year, I know you know more than you’ve told the ERC. Don’t bullshit me, if Kevin came to you in half the state I found Jean in then it’s enough to start a formal investigation all by itself. If this hazing search at Edgar Allan successfully turns anything up, it’s not going to be coaches beating their players with a racquet.”
He heard David take a long gulp of whiskey through the phone. “Right. Truth? I don’t know, James. They didn’t tell me. I don’t actually know everything Moriyama was doing down there, I just know how my kids came out of it. It wasn’t pretty.”
“Not good enough.”
“More truth? I can’t tell you.”
“Fuck off, David.”
“It’s literal. I signed an NDA with the feds.”
"You what?”
“NDA. Feds told me to sit down and shut up, James.”
James took the phone away from his ear and stared at it for a moment, aghast, as if he could look straight through to Palmetto and check if David was serious.
“How the hell did the feds get involved with college exy hazing?” Although… “Your new striker kid? He got into some shit in Baltimore, didn’t he?” Which was a mild way of phrasing a situation that had made international news and led to a week of ERC calls on the policy involved in letting the subject of federal investigation back on the court. It seemed insane, but it was also the only thing he could think of that might have warranted NDAs being thrown around.
“Neil’s situation is part of it.”
“How the hell is the Butcher of Baltimore involved in college hazing? David. Al Capone didn’t get caught forcing frat freshmen to wear their shirts inside out.”
"NDA, James,” David said warningly.
“Fucking fine. Then what can you tell me?” He was getting louder. He glanced at the door and took a moment bring his voice back down to where the hallway couldn’t hear it.
David grumbled to himself and avoided answering for a beat too long. Finally, he said “Whatever you think was going on in the Nest, it was worse. It was much, much worse for Jean specifically.”
“No shit.”
“Think about it, James. You were there for every meeting. Moriyama slammed his exemptions through the ERC one after another. First to let a 16-year-old on the lineup, then to get him on the standard scholarship even though he was a frog with less than 2 years in the US, never attended high school in any country, and barely scraped a GED. And all of that with Moriyama himself signing off all the paperwork because Jean’s parents had apparently sent him overseas alone and given power of attorney to his goddamn coach. We were all too caught up in his Perfect Court legend to make a fuss.”
James thought back to the media frenzy that had led up to the Perfect Court stepping in to the college exy scene. Fuss was putting it mildly; Edgar Allan had been swarmed. He thought about a teenager put on a plane and then stuffed under an exy court and, apparently, never leaving until he was beaten half to death. He thought about the number of zeros he’d seen on his first pro contract, more money than a nobody from Compton had ever even thought about in his life. He thought, uncomfortably, about the Signs Of Trafficking and Mandated Reporter trainings that kicked off every year.
“How do you deal with it?”
David snorted, then asked wryly, “Deal with what, James? You're going to need to be more specific. I'm dealing with a lot.”
He stared at his hand, still clenched around his whistle. Every coach had their share of those kids, the ones that broke your heart. College sports, after all, was second only to the military as the free, attainable path for kids who couldn’t see any other way out. His team currently had one player who was undocumented and another with a restraining order against his parents. Not to mention the hell he’d dragged Xavier through to keep him on the team last year, thanking the spirit of Kayleigh Day every second for her ferocious fight to keep exy co-ed as it went pro. Every coach who cared had some sob stories; David had a whole lineup.
“How do you go to work every day and watch how scared they are? How do you stand not being able to help?”
The silence hung in the air. David took another long sip of his drink, breathed. James thought about a team of Ravens so broken they couldn’t live without the Nest.
“All you can do is refuse to be that guy.”
“Huh?”
“You can’t change the world. You’re not some kind of goddamn hero, you’re an NCAA coach. You can’t take back what happened to them. You can’t even tell them it’s going to be okay and they’re safe now, because they aren’t and they’re smart enough to know that. Hell, man I lost two of my kids last year, almost lost two more, and I’ve got another with a court date for a fucking murder charge. All you can do is refuse to be the person that made them this frightened in the first place. Whoever put scars on them, the reason they flinch when you yell. Whatever person makes them so scared they can’t even admit it. You show them over and over that you’re never going to hurt them no matter how mad they make you. You yell and bluster and let them figure out for themselves that they don’t have to be scared of you. You be the one spot in the world they can trust.”
“It sucks.”
“Yeah. Doesn’t get easier. You just get used to sleeping with it.”
He gazed at the wall for a long moment, not really seeing anything, just thinking about going back to work the next morning and checking Jean’s bandages, watching him struggle through another day of unlearning a lifetime of angry habits, listening to his flat yes coach, no coach, I will coach. Jean had some life in him; he’d seen him flash a small grin with Catalina and Laila, the way Jeremy seemed to get through to him when James had no idea what was going on, the flashes of arrogance and confidence he’d seen during the fight with Lucas, even bits and pieces of a fierce happiness when he won a scrimmage. The way he shut all that life down and became an exy robot as soon as a coach got near.
“Thanks, David. For listening.”
“Come on, James. No sappy shit. Kevin sent him to you because he knew you’d be able to help. Your team will be good for him. Your Captain Sunshine is what that boy needs; my foxes would tear him to shreds just from the shrapnel of their own fights.”
“Thank god for Jeremy, if I didn’t have him I don’t know who else I’d convince to pull off this Raven partner bullshit. I couldn’t even ask for someone to put in that much time to handle a transfer, not in good conscience.”
“Good luck, James. For what it’s worth, I think you can handle him.”
James smiled at the wall, small and crooked. “Thanks, David. Have a good night. Someday I need you to tell me what the hell you aren’t saying.”
David laughed again “Hope to hell we both live long enough for it to matter. Good night.”
James heard the beep of the disconnect, but didn’t move. He stared at the wall for another few minutes, then shook himself out of it and started cleaning up to go home. Despite every question David hadn’t answered, he had helped. Tomorrow would be one step forward. It had to be.