Ethan
Noah reads the article standing in the middle of the kitchen, phone gripped so tight his knuckles go pale, and I watch the color drain out of his face line by line.
“They’re quoting actual scouts,” he says, voice shaking with something between fury and panic. “Anonymous, obviously, but real people apparently willing to say my off-field life could be a factor in draft evaluations. This isn’t Cole running his mouth anymore. This is national coverage treating it like a legitimate story.”
“Let me see it.”
He hands the phone over, and I read through it fast, my own anger rising with every paragraph, the careful, deniable phrasing designed to sound reasonable while doing exactly the damage it’s meant to do.
“This is garbage,” I say. “Cowardly, anonymous garbage.”
“Doesn’t matter if
