“I don’t know about this,” my agent, Carey, says to me. I smile at him and adjust my tie when I get out of my car and walk into the building. I fasten the button on my blue suit jacket, and we walk to the elevator. “I have a bad feeling about this.”

“Relax,” I say, getting in the elevator and looking forward. I see from the reflection that he’s rubbing his forehead. I look at myself in my blue suit and white shirt. This morning when I put it on, Dylan laughed at me and said I looked like a banker.

“You know that, as your agent, I have to be on your side,” he says. “But this … it’s just …” He puts his hand on his chest, and I have to laugh again. He’s been with me since the beginning. “I thought your brother was nuts, but this …” Now I laugh. “It might kill your career.” He doesn’t just represent me; he has my whole family under him.

“That’s okay,” I say. “I made enough money to last a long time.”

We walk out, and the receptionist greets us and asks us to follow her. “Here we go,” he says when we get to the conference room. She opens the door, and we walk in.

I spot all the key players sitting around the table. The general manager for the team, Hartley. The owners of the team, Albert and Charles, and finally, the coach of the team, Claude. “Gentlemen,” I say, and they each stand and shake my hand. “Thank you so much for coming.”

“No problem,” Albert says.

“Anything for you,” Charles chimes in after him.

“Well, not really anything,” I say to them, and they don’t say a word as I unbutton my jacket and sit down in front of them with Carey beside me.

“Well, gentlemen,” Carey says. “I bet we are all wondering why we are here.”

“I mean, I don’t think it’s actually that much of a surprise,” I say. Putting my hands on the table in front of me, I fold them together.

“We were going to reach out to you,” Hartley says.

“But you figured that before you reached out to me to get my side of the story, you would suspend me.” I look at them and see Claude lean back in the chair and side-eye the rest of the guys. “And tell the press before picking up the phone and telling me?”

“Justin.” Charles starts to talk. “You have to understand that our hands were tied.”

“You were charged with assault,” Hartley says, “in front of a church.”

“Charged doesn’t mean convicted,” Carey says from beside me, and I know that he is nervous, but I also know by the way he just leaned in his chair that shit is going to go down. “Especially now that the DA has thrown the case out, and all charges were dropped.”