More likely...."0" conversation if something was going on.
The Deflator and his boss were joking about it and about making sure that the boss got the goods for the Deflator. Matt Hasselback had described that these were the type of guys who would have done it and who would end up hung out to dry once any investigation was done. This afternoon he was crowing about how obvious, as seen in the texts it is that that’s exactly what happened.
And yeah—those equipment room guys live on tips in the form of either cash or that kind of swag.