Page 51 of The Backup Plan

“You’re joking.” Avery pressed her palms to her cheeks. “Oh my goodness, say it again.”

“I will not.”

“He didn’t tell me. Oh, now I really regret not going. Look at you right now, cracking yourself up. You really keep that accent under wraps, don’t you? I’ve only heard it that strong when you were grumbling.”

“When was I grumbling around you?”

She arched a brow at him. “First two weeks of class, right here, most days. A few very artistic strings of curses you must have thought I couldn’t hear.”

“I’m sorry about all that. There’s no excuse.”

“I’m glad you talk to me now,” she said, brushing the subject aside with a quick flick of her wrist. “Glad to be one of the good guys.”

“You’re absolutely one of the good guys.” Cam squinted and re-situated his glasses as he looked at her. “What’s that?” He pointed at her left arm.

She uncapped a fine-point black pen and poked the swirls she’d drawn all over her left hand. “Thinking ink,” she said. “I’ve drawn on myself since I was little, but around junior high I got pretty good at patterns. I could copy some henna designs, and my friends used to have me do their hands at lunch. It always washed right off. When I started real drawing classes and got the good pens, my mother would get so mad about me for wasting them. That ink really stuck.”

“What were you thinking about here?”

He stopped just short of touching her. If she moved her arm one inch, his fingertip would touch the top of her hand. His hand might meet hers in a moment that was just as sexless and platonic as the times Isaac touched her. Or, if the heat of his breath and the twist in her stomach were any indication, they might end up kissing and gasping, desperate bodies entangled and demanding release. Avery gritted her teeth and remembered the promise she offered Justin that was a promise to Cam more than anything: she wouldn’t put him in a terrible position by coming on to him.

She could let go of flute and piano if they were in the way of her art program, and they were. She wasn’t ready to let go of the dream with Cam before she had a chance to do it right.

Pulling her hand away, she gestured to her mess on the table. “Music theory homework. I was going to do a music minor, but I’m pretty sure that’s a thing of the past.”

“Why?”

“I don’t want my other work to suffer. I’m not even sad about it, but I wanted to be sure I gave it plenty of thought before pulling the trigger. So it looks like I was thinking of scales and intervals while I was ruminating on a decision I already made. My art is more important, and that’s that.”

“You’re good,” he said, and whistled as he inspected five-line staff twirling up her wrist and over a small section of her forearm, dotted with notes. “You shrank all those lines down and kept the distance between them perfectly.” He smiled when he looked up. “And on your own arm. That’s hard enough on paper.”

“We’ll do another perspective exercise for you sometime.” She pressed her hands together, eyes wide. “Oh, this would be fun. Well, fun for me, maybe for you. How do you feel about tattoos? Real ones, I mean.”

“Well, like every big, tough guy, I’m a chicken about needles, but I think some designs are really badass. Do you know Trevon Stevenson from the O-line? He’s got a full sleeve, and it’s got a million little pictures woven together. He said it’s taken the better part of four years for him to get it done the way he wanted.”

“That’s exactly what I’m talking about. Tattoos are a two-dimensional design on a three-dimensional surface. I don’t know your friend, but those sleeves can be so impressive. It blows my mind how good some tattoo artists are with just this one tool on one medium and so many limitations.” She lifted her pen. “You’re going to draw your tattoo.”

Cam squinted. “I’m pretty sure you’re going to draw my tattoo, and I will dictate.”

“You’ll design it, then,” she countered, poking the pen at him. “I’ll do the real drawing, but you have to lay it out, and we’ll talk design principles and relative size based on how important each element is to you, all right?”

He accepted the pen and twirled it in his hands, rolling it over calluses and cuts as Avery’s eyes darted between his hands and face. His eyes already said yes to her plan.

“Elements,” he mused. “I’ll make a list of what I like, and we’ll go from there?”

“We’ll go from there.”

SEVENTEEN

Relief

CAMERON: WEEK 5 (4-1)

Three minutes into the third quarter, Cam paced in front of the bench, squinting fruitlessly at the opposite side of the field. “Can anybody tell me what’s going on?” he asked the air. “Is he coming back in?”

No one on his sideline answered, and the tension as the home team cheered on their backup quarterback on the stadium settled into silence when their offense went three-and-out.

“Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go!” Cam shouted, knocking his teammates’ helmets with his fists while he reached for his own. “Back at it! Down three is nothing for us!”