Page 21 of Forever Relentless

Dante shook his head. “Spring training, man. It’s your call, but . . .”

I groaned out loud. “Do you think the Santo guys are sitting around sipping soda?”

Dante scoffed. “Yeah, I do. You want to see them take competition seriously? Go sit in their locker room.”

That confused me. “You’ve been in their locker room?”

“Dustin showed me a clip of their last high-school game once. Jett Santo was screaming at everyone, even the coach. Behind him was his brother, and if Jett wasn’t punching, Gray was.”

“In the locker room?” I asked him, slightly amused. “And the coach was there?”

“Yes! And getting screamed at with everyone else!”

“How much were they down by?”

Dante looked me straight in the eye. “They were up by twenty.”

I laughed out loud. “That’s awesome.” I saw his face and shook my head. “You don’t do the whole ‘I’m gonna beat your ass’ thing. You’re calmer and more collected, but I don’t know, Dante. If I think you’re going to take my head off my shoulders at halftime for a penalty I gave away, I might have more incentive not to give away a penalty.”

“Violence doesn’t instill discipline. It only breeds a bullying atmosphere.” I saw his huff of displeasure.

“That’s why you don’t like him? You think he’s a bully?”

Dante nodded. “It isn’t the way to lead. I don’t shout at the bench because I don’t want to be shouted at on the bench. Being shouted at doesn’t make me want to improve; it makes me uncomfortable. Leadership through positivity and discipline by example is what makes a good leader.”

I nodded. He had a point. But also . . . “Sometimes you need a good screaming match to just, you know . . . vent.”

Dante finished his soda. “That’s why God gave us sex,” he said.

I let out a surprised laugh. “Well, okay.” We shared a grin. I broached the subject because that’s what Dante did. He got you comfortable before he asked the thing you didn’t want to answer. “Is this what you wanted to talk about?”

“No.” He glanced over at the bar. “But now I’ve decided I can ask another time.”

“Ask now.” I raised my hand to the server, who nodded. “Hope you wanted the same again.”

“That’s fine.”

We sat in silence for a moment, the music in the bar playing early 90s classics, my fingers drumming against the tabletop.

She brought over another two sodas. “Thanks.” I paid and left a tip. Dante didn’t say a word when he saw my tip.

“I’ve worked in the service industry,” I reminded him. “Pay is shit.”

“Agreed.” He took a sip of Coke. “Are you going to leave?”

I looked around. No one was near, but still, it hardly felt like the time or the place. “Is this the place for this discussion?”

Dante shrugged. “If I ask on the field, someone may hear. If I ask in the dorm, it’s too serious. If I ask in a bar while having a soda . . . it can just be a casual conversation, right?”

He just pulled a quarterback sneak, and he wasn’t even on the field.

“I was thinking about it.” I saw his look and put him out of his misery. “But I think, no, I know, that the more of us who know what’s happening, the less they can do shit to us.”

Dante looked at me in surprise. “You want to tell more people?”

I nodded. I hadn’t known that until right this moment, but yeah, I did.

“Yeah. They can ship five bench warmers off in the middle of the night. They’ll get questioned if they try it with the first team. Hell, even with the second team. I say we speak to more of the guys we play with. Ask them what they know.”