Page 38 of The Backup Plan

“I was thinking we could just let it fade into the background,” Isaac said. “Say the romantic part just wasn’t there for us, and we’re happy to be friends. That’s all true.”

Justin turned back to his sister. “What are you doing in the meantime?”

“Cam and I are study buddies now that I’m a safe person, and we’ll stay that way.” She lifted her chin. “I solemnly swear I will not put him in the horrible position of having to push his buddy’s girlfriend off him. We had a drawing lesson yesterday, and I left room for Jesus.”

Barely. Standing so close while he drew with his eyes closed wasn’t even the hardest part. It was when he opened them and smiled that she felt the sun’s heat on her cheeks. They talked and drew circles as his offensive line shifted and formed the pocket around him. Another day, she promised, they would add the defense. She stacked the nine sheets of paper in her drawer in the drawing studio.

“Noble of you,” Justin said drily. “What time of day are you guys always there? Mornings, right?”

“You are not sending Professor Scheer to babysit us.” Avery refused to call her Mindy anymore.

“I’m considering it.”

“You can stop bragging about staying out of my love life, then.”

“Cam’s not your love life, though, is he?”

Avery glared. “Well, he’s going to be.”

“I don’t doubt your motives, kid, but I seriously question your methods.”

Kid. There it was again: the indulgent exasperation. Her brother Isaac’s tacit permission always came with veiled warnings—warnings that, in hindsight, he tragically could not follow himself. He would have argued that what he did was necessary—had he survived to argue about it. Instead, it was Justin arguing and lecturing, filling their older brother’s shoes better than he realized, but now was not the time to congratulate him.

Isaac raised his hand. “If it goes well for the study buddies, we can reduce the four weeks. That’s just the max we agreed on.”

Justin sighed heavily, dropping his shoulders. “You two… you know, you’d have the weirdest kids.”

Avery and Isaac looked at one another, then spoke in unison.

“Gross.”

THIRTEEN

The Loss

CAMERON: WEEK 3 (2-1)

Sunday morning hit him like a car wreck.

From his neck to his knees, everything hurt. A weekend without a serious knock to the head was always a win, but other than that, the game was a painful loss, and his first as a starter.

The team. God, how he let them all down. Not one, but two interceptions, one of them entirely his fault. Checkdowns for no gain when he read the defense wrong and was pressured out of the gate. Three and out, three and out. He managed a few good balls and found Will Bennett in the end zone with a minute left to play—not enough to win it, but it made the score palatable instead of pathetic.

Groaning, he buried his face in his pillow. He wished he could blame Avery for sidetracking him, so he could tell himself she wasn’t worth it. But just like in the weeks before, she was nowhere in his mind on the field. He didn’t even remember to check the size of Zack Tucker’s helmet for his drawing until the bus ride home.

Cam flipped the switch like he did for years before he met her, and nothing outside the game mattered. He was heads-down with either the quarterbacks’ coach or the head coach every time the defense took the field, and didn’t even think to watch Isaac Fields or Justin Whitman. For every read and every progression, he was as tuned in as he could be, and he just got it wrong.

Every replay stung like a bee on his throwing arm and tightened his throat.

It wasn’t her. He tried with everything he had and failed his team. The coaches, the alumni, and the entire university saw the headline only minutes after the whistle blasted: Iowa Picks off Porter, UND Falls to 2-1. The first interception was a bobbled catch and not entirely his fault, but that second one was his to own, and the opponent scored on it. Pick-six. He laid that ball in their cornerback’s hands like it was a baby. No one could say it wasn’t his fault.

He answered a few questions for the media on his way into the tunnel. Shelby would have his ass for rambling about growing as a team from the experience, instead of saying something about “battling adversity.” He did his best with the guys in the locker room when it was over, and that wasn’t good enough either.

The bus ride home helped numb him with the vibrations from the highway, and Cam distracted himself from his mental replays by watching the chat blow up with messages from less-frequent visitors—guys from Oregon, Texas, Oklahoma, Florida. During the week, they were a smaller crew of regulars, but the active members converged in a virtual huddle on game days. The usual cyclone of Saturday trash talk was a little boost on a bus full of grumbling, exhausted teammates.

That boost gave him the horrible idea to swing by The Farm for the party when they got home.

Avery was there with Isaac, who looked as fresh and bright-eyed as he did every morning at the gym—not like a guy who spent forty minutes on the field smashing into the brick wall of Iowa’s offensive line, or sprinting like a madman after their receivers. He never left her side.