Page 145 of The Backup Plan
“Here for us, where? South Dakota? Maine, Ohio, Fiji?” Cam stared at the ceiling. “Not feeling the love, Jordy. Do better.”
“Cam, listen. I screwed myself over big-time with that helmet deal. Top-secret new safety technology, and I was going to be the first guy who had it, remember? More like the first guy to take the bait and destroy my career for a bag of money. You want apologies? You have no idea how sorry I am.”
Cam softened his tone. “You were a kid with big dreams, and you saw an opportunity.”
“I saw dollar signs, you mean. I could have just stuck with the safest helmet already in the game, the one all the pros use, but no. I had to show off the flavor of the month and get paid.”
“You told me you wanted to promote player safety and use the money to help pay for your brother’s college. That company took advantage of you, and Coach Keyes, and our whole program.”
“And I could have screwed over the whole program if I spoke up after I got hurt and told the company I wanted out of my contract. It’s not the same as when you take a knock wearing the same gear everyone else is wearing. If I went out there with my old helmet on, it looks like I’m telling that tech startup to get stuffed, right? I would only do that if I knew something was wrong with their fancy helmet, and then it looks like UND let me lay it all on the line for a stack of cash.”
“Technically, they did.”
“No one’s done this before, Cam. No one should. Student athletes should never endorse protective gear. These kids are too vulnerable and stupid and their coaches are not scientists. I shot myself in the foot with that non-disclosure agreement, and I can’t talk about it. I stayed away so the program we love wouldn’t get gutted by investigations and sanctions while everyone jumps ship. Even if I could physically do it, I wasn’t going to send it all up in smoke just so I could play another season.”
Cameron popped up from the couch and walked laps around the waiting room, glasses shoved up, palm to his throbbing forehead.
“And I’m not physically able to do it anymore.” Jordan’s voice weakened. “I wanted to tell you why I gave you the Star Bowl, even though I was cleared to play.”
“Maybe you wanted to, but you didn’t. I was right next to you at training and conditioning all winter and spring. Throwing with you at practice in May. And you couldn’t make time to fill me in.”
“I saw it coming and spent the entire off-season trying to stop it.” The agitation rose in Jordan’s voice and Cam found himself matching his strides with the cadence of his friend’s words. “I had lawyers all over that NDA and the contract. I had cease-and-desist letters from the startup every other week, and I was sneaking up to Chicago one weekend a month to meet with neurologists who are interested in how the human brain reacts to repeated low-grade concussions with minimal recovery time. I tried. Now sit down. You’re giving me a headache with the pacing.”
Cameron sat.
“When I bailed on everyone without notice, it made a much bigger splash than if I said I got cancer or chicken pox, or whatever the Malik and his guys got.”
“Meningitis.”
“There it is.”
“You scared the shit out of us and made that mess on purpose to get attention?”
“I made that mess to keep everyone’s attention. I want them to remember the big mystery, because I will have words for those tech bro bastards as soon as I legally can. As a bonus, media were drooling for what you said at UT last year.”
Cam rubbed the back of his head. “A very convenient concussion.”
“You didn’t want to believe everything you’d pieced together until that happened, did you?”
“Why did I have to piece anything together? You could have just had Cory or Ethan tell me. You told them, and not me.”
“It wasn’t some big master plan, all right? Cam, I can’t play football anymore. I had to look in my mirror every day and tell myself every dream I ever had was over. Every dollar I made off this game is paying medical bills that the company may or may not reimburse since they won’t admit liability and I can’t sue them yet. I don’t have a scholarship anymore, so college might be over, too.”
“Jordan, I’m?—”
“I was gutted, and alone, and some stupid paper I signed said I couldn’t talk to anyone from my team or my school. Coach Keyes knew enough to make an educated guess. I let him guess so he could stay honest and say he hadn’t talked to me. You were the next person everyone asked when I didn’t show up.”
Cam wanted to cover his ears and block out the locker-room chatter. Haven’t you talked to him, Cam? Thought you guys were tight.
And worse, his coaches while they were pretending to audition him for the job at training camp, ‘just in case.’ You haven’t heard anything from him? Really? We’re on the same page. I mean, we haven’t heard from him either.
Thanks to Jordan’s dramatic disappearance, they could all stay honest enough for a judge, if it ever came to that—exactly the way he wanted it, as long as people were asking.
The integrity of the position, Cory always said. Leadership through adversity. Even UND’s playboy knew when to put his own wishes aside for his team. A laugh caught in Cam’s chest.
“I bet those slimy tech bros were in the press conferences waiting for someone to slip up so they’d have grounds to take back every dollar they paid me,” Jordan continued. “Money I needed to pay the bills they won’t touch. No one knows I know Cory and Ethan. Why would I know them? I had to talk to someone. Cory and Ethan were safe. You weren’t.”
Jordan clutched his forehead. “The best thing for everyone was for me to be the weirdo who disappeared. Then the mystery is a Jordan problem. Not a UND problem, or a football problem—just one dumb kid in the news. This team is closer to a national championship than it’s been in decades because of you. I watched you living my dream out there. I didn’t want to destroy anything else.”