Sean's Next Adventure Ch. 20

The reply from the basketball coach, "Your wife was out drinking, we have no evidence of any conversation and until Mr. Little interfered; she didn't seem to be stopping him from touching her."

Matt was ready to throw a punch, Sean quickly jumped between them. He turned to his Coach, "Matt, sit down. Don't do something you will regret."

The basketball coach wouldn't relent, "Maybe we should say the same thing to you Mr. Little. Officers from three jurisdictions here to investigate YOU."

Sean spun, the fear gone and the anger raging, Kris truly thought Sean was going to throw a punch instead he looked squarely at the coach, "Perhaps if you would stop your team from sexually assaulting women we wouldn't be here at all. Jennifer was not the first but she damn sure better be the last." The coach looked stunned, "Yeah, Coach. I can have the receipts with just a few phone calls. Do you really want the PR that Andrei Shevchenko, Savior of Tech Basketball., Wasn't that the headline when you recruited him? Andrei Shevchenko, with as many sexual assault charges as he has three pointers. A PR and Title IX nightmare. Tell him from me, to drop this bullshit or we go to war."

Both coaches returned to their seats rather uncomfortably. After a few moments to let the energy in the room settle Kris Ross finally spoke, "Well, I think we are finished here for the day. It seems as if there is nothing to charge Mr. Little with, that the aggressor in this event was Mr. Shevchenko and unless Mr. Little wants to provide more information."

Sgt. Moss pushed a little harder, "If you know of a crime, then it is a violation of the law to withhold that information."

Sean shook his head, "Stop bluffing Sergeant. First off I am not a mandated reporter in this state unless the violation was of a senior citizen or a child. I've read the law. Secondly, I believe Ms Ross will confirm that in reality all I have is hearsay evidence, I was not a witness therefore anything I would say wouldn't hold up. Lastly, for everyone this is not my story to tell, but rest assured I know of at least one, perhaps two and they are aware of multiple others, all within the Athletic Department. If they CHOOSE to come forward it is their choice."

The basketball coach pounded the arm of his chair, "I will not sit here and let someone accuse members of our program of such things. We run a clean program."

Sean looked at him, "Coach, with all due respect I'm guessing if word got out to coaches whose athletes have been victims you would be singing a different song. Tell Shevchenko that if he gets in my way again, I will unleash the hounds of war."

The Assistant Athletic Director tried to be "the good cop" this time. "Mr. Little integrity is one of the cornerstones of our program here at Tech. I would be in everyone's best interest if you shared the information we have so there can be a thorough investigation"

Sean smiled the cold, dark smile that he sometimes got, "You wouldn't be threatening me would you? Here is my guess, we know how the grapevine is, we know how social media is. Stop thinking that just because I am the student here that I am stupid or naive. If you let slip outside of this office that you are investigating some unspoken allegations against a student athlete, within hours you would have all the evidence you need."

Kris stood up from behind her desk, "I think that's enough. We are indeed finished here with this part of the investigation, I think Mr. Little, Trooper Lopez and I can handle the next part ourselves." The others in the room began to leave, Sean noticed the Assistant AD motioned to Matt and the basketball assistant to follow him to his office.

When the door closed Kris didn't waste any time. "Okay, Sean. While you handled yourself well there, can we cut through the bullshit? Sean. Yes, I broke your confidence when Jen told me she gave you the password to our 'hidden pictures' (She used air quotes).

Sean was tired. The emotion of the morning left him with little sense of humor and zero patience, "I have had a long morning, can we do this later?"

The Trooper shook her head, "My time is valuable, start talking."

Sean sighed, "Fine, but I want it on the record that I am in no mood for fuck fuck games, yet you insist so here goes. So tell me Ms. Ross, why would you need to share that with Trooper Lopez? We had an agreement. Attorney client privilege I think it's called. Yet you shared case sensitive information with an investigative officer. Information that would only need to be shared with a prosecutor if it ever came to that and only then if you decided to call Samantha Clark as a witness. Am I right? Of course I am right, that offense could result in your being fired at least and disbarred at the worst. So, why would you do that?"

Chelsea Lopez looked at Sean, "Cut the shit, Little. You've seen the pictures, you have seen me, tits out with a huge Jamaican dick in my face and in my hand"

Sean turned his gaze towards Chelsea, "Was that you? I thought maybe it was but with your hair down and looking like a real human and not someone with a stick up their ass I wasn't sure. Thank you for confirming the suspicion though."

Kris looked at Sean, "Stop, Sean. We aren't your enemy here."

Chelsea fired back, "Someone paying to have you injured, crossing the centerline to kill you, and Andrei Shevchenko are though."

Kris cut Chelsea off sharply, "Chelsea, enough, we are here to de-escalate and negotiate not draw lines in the sand." She softened her gaze and looked back to Sean, "What do you want to make this go away?"

Sean's fatigue was evident. "I just want all of this shit to go away. Shevchenko, investigations, silver Porsche's. I'm over it all.Ms. Ross, I need you to work your magic and get Shevchenko to understand the hell I can bring down on him and everyone else. If I am forced to go to war you know what will happen. The NCAA will drop the hammer on him and I'm guessing he would be imprisoned or deported. There would be a full NCAA investigation of this Athletic Department that would set recruiting back 20 years and heads will roll. Up to and including the AD, the Vice President, every damn coach in the facility and you."

Kris responded, "Give us the names, Sean."

Sean replied, "You know I can't do that. You also know where to start looking, volleyball, women's basketball, softball, track, swimming and diving. You know who their captains are, and if I remember you played sports in college so you know how locker rooms work. Just ask and you will find what you need.

Chelsea Lopez was pissed, "Fuck this Little. First you obstruct justice on that investigation, now you are obstructing justice on this one. I should slap your ass in cuffs and take you in for more official questioning."

Sean stood and turned his back and placed his hands behind his back, "Fine, you do that and perhaps I will make sure the investigators take a good look at one of the thumb drives in my bookbag, or perhaps the one of the drives at home, or maybe one in my locker. I make sure that I have redundancies, but you do what you need to do, Trooper Lopez."

Chelsea Lopez had no answer, and if you know military veterans or first responders she replied with the word we all use when we have no words, "Fuck!"

Sean turned towards Trooper Lopez. "You now know who drove that Silver Porsche. As for now I have no intention of pursuing that. File that piece of information away and call off your dogs. Leave Adam Clark alone for now. Stop asking me to answer questions that I am not going to answer on the record. If you can connect him with the evidence you have, feel free. If not, then drop it."

The Trooper's posture relaxed, "And in exchange for that you will erase the pictures?"

Sean shrugged, "They are on your cloud, change the password, delete the evidence."

Kris added, "See Chelsea, he isn't impossible, just like that the pictures go away."

Sean stood and smiled, "Oh, I didn't say that, I have all of the evidence I need on your group, safely tucked away in safe places. However, I promise not to ruin careers with them."

The attorney looked at him, "Sean, keeping those pictures with the threat of using them is extortion."

Sean shrugged, "I said I wouldn't ruin careers. If you want to start an investigation then you know that everything I have will go public. We are a college town. What is our population, maybe 45,000 residents and 35,000 students during the school year? I can't protect any of the seven or eight of you if that happens."

Kris sighed, "It seems we have detente."

Sean shrugged, "Or Mutually Assured Destruction. I give you my word I will not expose any of you to ruin careers and you will make sure that my legal life gets a bit smoother." Sean got up and headed to the door. When his hand reached the doorknob Kris spoke, "Stay out of trouble Sean, you've had a bad few weeks."

Sean started to leave with Chelsea Lopez couldn't resist, "Maybe start by not fucking married women"

Sean spun and walked directly to the Trooper. "Convenient that you left your bodycam in the car Chelsea. Is that what you really want, you want me to come and threaten to release the pictures because you want fucked? Kris isn't married, but that nice neoprene ring on your finger says that you are. So what is it? Is your husband not man enough or too vanilla?"

Kris tried to interrupt, "Sean..." but he kept on going.

"Or is it that he gets off on watching, or do you like keeping dirty little secrets from him? Does he want to be a cuck, or do you prefer forcing him to be? Or maybe he's not Dominant enough in the bedroom and after wielding all of that power all day you want someone to make you scream and squeal as they force you to bend to their kinkiest desires? Or maybe yet your husband's dick isn't big enough, I mean seeing that one in your hand maybe you have a thing for big cocks and he just doesn't have what it takes."

Chelsea Lopez's face was bright red, Sean wasn't sure if it was rage, embarrassment or a little bit of both. Kris interrupted again, "Sean, now you aren't de-escalating, this isn't helping."

Sean headed back to the door then turned back to face the two women,"Make this shit go away, you two have the power to do that."

Lopez growled, "Don't tell me how to do my fucking job."

Sean smiled, "You know where I live, drop by sometime when you want me to use the pictures against you." He opened the door and stepped into the hallway. When he closed the door he started to shake almost uncontrollably - he wasn't sure if it was adrenaline, anxiety, fear, exhaustion but he couldn't stop. He made it almost back to the outer office when the room started spinning, he couldn't catch his breath, his chest got tight and the walls started to close in around him and he collapsed.

Trooper Lopez heard the crash and flew into the hallway on her radio calling for a squad. For the first time in the past few weeks Chelsea Lopez didn't see an adversary or a stubborn mule obstructing her investigation. She saw the man, scared and gasping for breath. Her training took over as she knelt next to him, her hand on his chest softly talking to him. This was what Sean saw when his senses started to return. Within minutes the rescue squad had arrived and cut off Sean's shirt and hooked up an AED (just in case) - the AED doubled as a heart monitor. Soon they had Sean loaded onto the stretcher.

As Kayce's office was on the other end of the building she heard the sirens and came jogging down the sidewalk. Her heart dropped when she saw Sean being wheeled out of the building. She identified herself to the medics and was allowed to ride in the back of the ambulance to the hospital with him.

For the second time in a few short weeks Sean found himself in the emergency room, with the staff running batteries of tests. The doctors were working through the process of elimination. They needed to rule out that the concussion from the accident had caused more damage than originally thought. They had to rule out cardiac issues. They had to rule out dehydration. Kayce and Chelsea Lopez were with him for a while, until the Trooper needed to get back to patrol.

Kayce had a chance to text the group: "Hey, it's me. I'm at the ER with Sean. Doctor's think he had a panic attack but they are running some tests to make sure it's not a brain bleed or a cardiac event."

Mika was the first to reply, "He and I had a difficult confrontation in class the final week. He was zoned out and I asked him a question that he couldn't answer. I thought he was going to punish me in the classroom right after class. He didn't thank goodness, but we did have harsh words. Later he admitted that between The Clarks and the accident he was really stressed. Add in the incident over the weekend he has been a walking time bomb."

Courtney replied to the group, "He had a rough morning. Too many memories about his dad and Bobby came rushing out. He had no business at that meeting, he spent the morning sobbing, telling me that he ruins everything, that people would be better off without him fucking up their lives and that everything he loves gets destroyed. His anxiety was through the roof, if something got triggered I wouldn't be surprised if he had a panic attack, I think if I weren't here this morning it would have been bad, very bad."

Nobody had really heard any of those stories so Courtney filled them in. Hannah was devastated the more she learned. Here was this kid who found his dad, whose best friend was killed in a car wreck all before Sean turned 16 and when he came to her house that night she felt fine turning Scott and his friends loose on him.

Kayce assured the others that she would stay at the hospital as long as she could, but would probably have to leave around 4 to lock things up at the facility. Courtney said she would be there before then so that she could give Kayce a ride back.

Sean was very quiet with Kayce. The fear and anxiety that he had felt earlier was raging inside him and the longer it took for results to come in the worse his anxiety got. He would watch the heart monitor and as he did his heart rate would climb, his breathing would get shallow, and his oxygenation levels would begin to drop. It almost became a game to him, watching his numbers crash and normalize.

Around three Mika texted Kayce that she was there to give her a ride back to campus and that Courtney was there. Kayce headed out and talked to Courtney a bit in the waiting room. When Courtney walked into the room Sean immediately teared up again, "I'm so sorry Cort, I told you to get away from me, I'm destroying everything."

Courtney came over and started moving the hair around his head, "Sean, my Sir. Shhhh, you aren't ruining anything. It's been a lot. You need to take a deep breath. You'll be fine. I am not going anywhere. I promise."

Finally the doctor came in. She smiled at Sean, "Sean, I have good news, finally. I know it's been a long day for you. All of your tests came back negative. There is nothing going on neurologically to cause alarm. Your heart is fine. Like I had said before, I think that this was a panic attack and while terrifying is not something we have to intervene traumatically. I will prescribe you some anti anxiety meds and I would like to encourage you to talk to someone and begin to process your stress. I understand you play for the Tech football team and are actually the kicker. I can't imagine the stress that alone would cause. I would hate for this to happen during a game. Please use the next few weeks to work through some of the underlying causes."

Sean nodded and thanked the doctor for her diligence. He looked at Courtney, "Can you take me home?"

Kayce smiled. Sean had his shirt cut off of him, so the doctor and ER staff rummaged around to find him a set of scrubs to wear home. When they got in the car Sean looked at Courtney and she looked at him. Courtney was worried, the brightness in his eyes was dimmed, his shoulders slumped. He looked small, "Can I get Cookout?" he asked, almost shyly.

Courtney took his hand, "We can go to Cookout. Do you want to eat in or drive-thru?"

Sean closed his eyes, "Drive-Thru, I don't have the energy for anything else today." Sean went home, ate, took a long shower and crawled into bed. Courtney curled up next to him trying to absorb his pain." In the wee hours of the morning Courtney rolled over and panicked when Sean wasn't there. She got up out of bed, slipped one of his hoodies on her naked body and softly walked down stairs.

She walked up behind him as he stood at the stove, "Whatcha doin, cowboy?"

Sean's voice was almost a whisper, "Making breakfast."

She snuggled into him, "It's 4 AM, you need breakfast?"

Sean sighed, "I couldn't sleep. I didn't want my tossing and turning to bother you. Came down and made coffee, turned on some Tyler Childers around 230. Got hungry and thought I'd make breakfast. Sorry if I woke you up."

Courtney was worried, there was no affect in Sean's voice. No inflection, it was flat. The numbness inside was spilling out through his speaking and she noticed he didn't even acknowledge her embrace much less return it. "You didn't wake me up, just rolled over and you weren't there. I just wanted to make sure you were okay."

Sean shrugged, "I'm fine. No need to worry," he said as he flipped the bacon in the cast iron skillet. He finally turned to look at her, "I know it's not on your eating plan, but would you like some."

Courtney moved to pour a cup of coffee, "I'll have some bacon please. Sean, you aren't fine. You are hurting. I'm not sure exactly what opened those old wounds but they are open and oozing. I am worried and please don't tell me not to, that's like asking me to not love you."

Sean pulled the bacon out of the cast iron and cracked three eggs. He had heated up the other pan and he used the ladle to put some of the pancake batter into three small pancakes. He still didn't say anything and really didn't even look at her.

Courtney started to softly cry as she hopped up on the counter to sit, "Sean, I'm scared."

Sean flipped the eggs and the pancakes, put two pieces of bread in the toaster before he glanced her way, "I am too, Cort. I am living the dream. My school is paid for. I have you and the others. I am playing the game I love. Why do I feel like this?"

Sean reached beside her to get two plates, put a couple of pieces of bacon on hers and then filled his plate with the bacon, eggs, and toast. He grabbed another plate for his pancakes. They ate in silence, Sean standing at the stove as Courtney sat on the counter eating her bacon and sipping coffee.

When they had finished Sean took the plates and rinsed them off. Courtney watched intently in the soft light as first his shoulders started to shake and his head dropped to his chest. He shattered a plate by throwing it into the sink before he turned to her, trying to fight the tears, "I fucking miss him so bad. Why wouldn't he stay for me? What's so wrong with me that he chose to leave me. I just want to hear him tell me he's proud of me, I wanted him to teach me to drive a stick, to watch me kick."

This was a side of Sean that he kept locked away and rarely let anyone see. Courtney was overwhelmed and had no idea what to say so she did the only thing that she knew to do. She put her coffee cup down and opened her arms and Sean walked to her. She held him with all of her strength as for the third time in twenty four hours years of shit that Sean had locked away came pouring out of him as his entire body shook.

When his sobbing lessened he looked at this tiny woman who had become his strength, "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry." Courtney hushed him with a soft kiss. After the kiss, Sean stepped back and said "I'm so tired, Cort," before going to the sink to clean up the plate that he had shattered.