“What do you mean?” he asks as his gaze darts to mine. He takes his jacket off and hangs it on the back of the chair.

“You look on edge. Like you’ve already had a bucket of caffeine.”

“I need something hot.”

We sit in silence until his coffee arrives. “Thanks,” he says to the waitress when she puts it down in front of him.

“You sure you don’t want something to eat? The cake here is really great.” I cut a piece off with the fork and put it in my mouth.

“No, thanks,” he says.

“Okay, so we’re here. What did you want to talk about?” I put my fork down and pick up my coffee, blowing on it before taking a sip.

“What you said last night, at Grayson’s place…about the real possibility of him getting jail time for the drug possession? Was that true?”

I put my cup down and lean back in my seat, staring at him. “Yes. Grayson isn’t a drug user. The police took a look at the regular tests that athletes take. Grayson has taken these tests for the past twelve months, and since he’s always showed up as clean, a hundred percent of the time, the police know the drugs weren’t for personal use. And the amount he was carrying…well, even without the clean testing, they have enough evidence to pin an intent to distribute charge to him.”

“I didn’t know,” Tyler says as he shakes his head, putting his cup down and staring into it.

“Grayson is hanging by the skin of his teeth onto the life he’s living, and that’s only because the press hasn’t gotten wind of his arrest yet. The moment they do, his endorsements will go. He might still be allowed to play until his case goes to trial. But if he’s found guilty, the team will drop him. And it wouldn’t matter anyway, because if he goes to jail on the felony possession of the second degree charge, he’ll be too old to go back into the pros when he’s out, even if a team agrees to take him after he’s damaged his reputation this much.”

“I didn’t realize.”

“You knew how many drugs he had on him, and you had to know the police wouldn’t think it was for personal use.”

“But I thought with him being who he is…they’d just let it go.”

I let out a dry laugh. “Police and judges love to make examples out of famous names—sports celebrities especially. With my old boss on the case, there was no way Grayson was getting off clean from the moment they found the drugs on him.”

“But he said—”

“It was Grayson’s idea.”

He stares me in the eye. Then breaks contact and blows out a breath. “He won’t be happy I’m telling you this.”

“He’ll be less happy if he ends up living in a prison cell.”

“That night I was out with Grayson. I had that stash on me. I wasn’t actually selling yet. I would never do that around Grayson. But I was out and he called me—asked me to come meet him for a drink. So I went along for one. I was planning to leave and hit up some clubs after, sell the shit on me.”