“Coach David,” he groans.
I loom over him, breathing hard. I stare down at the bastard, rage rolling through me. No other thoughts occurred to me in that moment when I saw him hurt that girl. I don’t know what he planned on doing, but it wasn’t going to be good. Maybe he would’ve let her go after scaring her, or maybe he was going to hurt her more. I don’t know what would’ve happened if I hadn’t stepped in, but that bastard put his hands on a woman.
I can’t stand by and let something like that happen, star quarterback or not.
Slowly, my heartrate starts to stabilize. I turn away from Erik and walk over to the girl. I hold my hands out. “Are you okay?”
She stares at me, her eyes wide. “You’re… you’re the assistant coach. You’re Coach Fyall.”
I nod once and glance back over my shoulder. Erik’s slowly sitting up, wincing at the pain in his gut. I look back at the girl. “What’s your name?”
“Chloe,” she says. “I’m, uh… I’m the team tutor.”
It locks into place. That’s why I’ve seen her around the athletics building. She’s the team tutor, the girl we pay to make sure our idiot athletes aren’t failing any of their courses. That also explains why I don’t really know her, since I just deal with the players, and not as much with the support staff.
She stares at me, her pretty pale eyes wide. She’s wearing a low-cut black tank top and a pair of tight jean shorts. She crosses her arms over her chest and bites her lip, and for a second, I want to pull her against me. I want to hug her tight, hold her, kiss her, tell her it’ll be okay. But anger gets the better of me and I turn away to look at Erik as he struggles to his feet.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” I growl at him.
“We were just fooling around. Right, Chloe?” He glares at the girl.
I glance back at her. “Was that just some kind of game?” I ask her.
She frowns but doesn’t say anything.
I look back at Erik. “You stupid shithead,” I say. “You don’t get enough on this campus already, you have to mess around with this girl?”
He glares at me, but the little shit knows I’m right. Erik’s treated like a god on our campus. We’re a fairly large and prestigious institution, but we’re still always overlooked. Our neighbor is USC, and they get all the media attention. Most players want to go there, and we rarely pick up talent like Erik. His freshman year last year was a stunning success, and we made our first bowl game in a very, very long time. Now there’s a lot riding on him, and the administration is doubling down on their support.
So he’s treated like a god walking among us. Which only makes me even more angry. These football players are treated like rock stars, and yet they’re still entitled little bitter assholes if they’re not given absolutely everything. It makes me rage that just playing for these great schools isn’t enough, they need everyone to lick their assholes too.
“We were just messing around,” he says. “And you fucking hit me.”
“You’re damn right I did.” I clench my jaw and stop myself from talking. I might hit the bastard all over again if I let myself lose my temper.
“You hit me,” he repeats, his eyes narrowing. “You know that was fucking stupid, right?”
My jaw drops. I stare at him in total disbelief. “Are you joking right now?”
“I’m not joking,” he says. “I know what this school thinks about me. Ask yourself this, you think Coach would get rid of me before he got rid of you?”
I almost lose it. I almost hurt the kid again, but there’s some voice in the back of my head that knows he’s right, or at least is afraid he might be. There’s a lot riding on Erik, and I’m not positive anyone would believe me over him right now, even if Chloe was willing to speak up.
Which, by the way she’s reacting to all this, I really doubt it.
“Go the fuck home,” I say to him, keeping my voice level. “Show up for practice tomorrow morning. If anyone asks how you got that bruise on your fucking face, you tell them you walked into a door. And you better pray I don’t talk to Coach.”
“You wouldn’t,” he growls.
“I would.” I don’t back down an inch. “Get out of here, Erik.”
“We were just playing round,” he says, sounding like a petulant toddler. “You tell him, Chloe.”
“Start fucking walking,” I say, clenching my fists, about to lose my temper again.
He hesitates, but he turns and walks off. I watch him go, so angry at myself, so angry at him.
I shouldn’t have let him go like that. I should’ve dragged him to the police station and made a report. But I don’t know what Chloe wants, and I’m not about to act like an idiot and fuck everything up.