Page 147 of The Backup Plan
“I haven’t been paying attention to the chat since you called. Fish is talking big game, but can they really mess with all Hayden’s endorsements and stuff like that?”
“Did you see who’s in there? Four pros from his school, or five, if you count Joe before he transferred. They all have enough pull to make it hurt. If I’ve got money to throw at a student athlete, I’ll find someone a bunch of franchise quarterbacks don’t loathe. Integrity matters to these guys, and they’ll use their platform for it.”
“Yeah, but it’s not like his coach will just boot him from the team because Fish complains. They still have to win, and he’s their guy.”
“Of course not. But guys like Hamilton always get what’s coming to them, in this world or the next. He’ll find out when his sponsors drop him, or when his locker room turns on him, or when he goes to his own draft. Either way, he will find out what connections can do. This game has a long memory.”
The warning in a somber chat thread a year before rang alarm bells in his head.
Everyone associated with this game remembers that guy. Don’t make them think of him when they think of you.
Everyone remembers.
“Have they come down on anyone before?”
“You’ll have to ask Cory.”
“I hope he doesn’t leave early. It’ll be bad enough without Ethan next year.”
“I’ll be the next sage of the chat, if I’m still qualified.”
“You’ve got two years of eligibility left, and legend status. You’re perma-qualified. I heard you hacked the NIL collective bank account, gambled half of it away in Monaco, and ran off to Aruba with a supermodel.”
“Sounds like a sweet retirement package. Not if you ask Tom, I guess, but he seems to be managing.”
“I cannot believe that all this time Cory and Ethan were sitting on the fact that one of the greatest quarterbacks of all time is in there.”
“He went to UM, so he got the alert for the Big Ten. He’s been in and out of active status and helping out the college QBs for years. He gave me a hell of a pep talk when I was a freshman.”
“Are you kidding me?”
Jordan smirked, and the familiar curl of the lips brought back the cocky face that once graced banners on every lamppost on campus. He was a know-it-all starter again, lording his insider knowledge over the backup.
“You might have had an even more interesting evening if Fish had paged the SEC group. I hear they have a few lurkers you met at a certain summer camp.”
“Wait. No.” Cam dropped his phone and bobbled it trying to retrieve it from the floor.
“Isn’t it about time you got a new hat?”
Epilogue
TWO YEARS LATER
College football eligibility: Year 4 of 4
Avery gazed at his face and held what might have been meaningful eye contact had Jordan Ackerman been a man and not a canvas. “You again,” she whispered as she unfolded the protective paper from the panel. “First, we can’t find you. Now, we can’t stop bumping into each other.”
“Where does that one go?” Sarabeth MacMillan held out her hands for the canvas.
“That’s number eight,” Avery said, pointing at a sticky note on the wall.
Sarabeth situated it on an easel and plucked the note from the wall before returning for the next piece. They unwrapped and placed the other nine panels as the media room next door filled with conversation and tension while the media waited for Cameron and Coach Keyes to arrive. The folding wall panel between the two spaces would remain closed until the end of the interviews.
Her toes twitched.
Sarabeth stepped back from panel number two—Jordan with a half-open briefcase shedding money and jewelry as he bolted down the Las Vegas strip—and sighed as she held up Avery’s hand so their engagement rings caught the light together. “Why does it feel like everything’s ending when we’re supposed to be excited for new beginnings? Today is bittersweet, and even a little sad.”
“We are excited for new beginnings,” Avery said. The pale blue diamond on her left hand twinkled, casting a rainbow on panel number three, a solemn scene in a bubblegum-pink hospital room with puzzle pieces of cut-up CT scans scattered on the wall. “Today was Cameron and Isaac’s last game here, but there’s a lot to celebrate about that.”