Page 60 of The Backup Plan
Avery flipped to a page where all three players, in warm-ups and with casual smiles, gazed at the camera from various shades of blue light. Arranged in black-banded panels instead of a single group photo, Benny and Trevon stood at Cam’s left and right, lit in pale blue. Cam smiled from the center panel, under barely different lights. It was, no doubt, one of Shelby’s solutions to the fact that Jordan would have been in all the group photos shot months ago, and Cam had to be pieced in at the last minute.
“If it’s in everyone’s mailboxes today, it’s in his. He definitely won’t like the photos, but he didn’t expect to.” She tapped the one in warm-ups. “This isn’t too bad.”
“Are you kidding? If you didn’t already have your claws in him, I’d hang those over my bed. Like, over it.”
“He’s wearing a hat he doesn’t like and not the one he wears every day, and any photo without his glasses is just not him.”
“No hat and no glasses is how he’s going to look in bed,” Natasha said with a wicked grin. “The tight pants, well. I won’t fight you for those pictures.”
“I don’t want them.” With jittering hands, Avery closed the magazine and tossed it on Natasha’s desk. “Photography is a bunch of lighting tricks. I know what he looks like, and I don’t need some modeling photos every girl on campus is going to see in the next twenty-four hours.”
“Every girl on campus. Maybe you should get moving before someone else does.”
“Cam could sniff out a girl like that a mile away.”
“I’m just saying it might not hurt to lock that down,” Natasha said, flipping through the magazine again. “In the meantime, I’ll keep the pictures of the other two.”
She held up the magazine open to Trevon Stevenson’s article. Grabbing it, Avery squinted at the photo and inspected one section. “Cam likes this guy’s tattoos. I’ve never seen them before.”
“He’d look good with one. He looks good without one, but those arms.”
“Oh, I know.”
The afternoon in the sculpture studio gave her a perfect chance to stare. He couldn’t see her eyes while he was working, and if they darted from the stone to his arms and shoulders, he didn’t know. He didn’t know she watched his profile, the angle of his nose and the curve of his lips as he concentrated. She turned back to the photo of him ready to throw the ball. That wasn’t the face he made when he thought as hard and fast as he did on the field.
The pants were just pants, and Avery’s head spun between wondering whether the photo was just lit to show him off, and wondering why. She couldn’t see anything. It wasn’t as though he was straining the seams, but something about the photo composition caught her attention more than she wanted to admit. The shadows and angles drew her eyes from his beautiful face and set an ache rising in her body.
No wonder Shelby from P.R. set off a string of curses every time her number appeared on his phone. The heavy sighs and juvenile stomping made more sense.
“Why can’t they let these guys just play football?” she wondered aloud. “No one bothers my brother. He’s pretty and has nice cheekbones.” She raised a hand. “And don’t say anything about him in tight pants. Please.”
“Brothers aside, alumni want stars and a winning season, and the university wants the alumni to donate obscene sums of money,” Natasha said. “This is less about journalism and more about P.R., but there’s a lot of overlap.”
Avery narrowed her eyes. “Are you going to end up on one of these P.R. crews he hates so much?”
“By the time I’m a junior, if I’m lucky. The athletics crew is the hottest ticket in my program.”
She wanted to throw her body over Cam and protect him. She wanted to throw her body over him for plenty of selfish reasons, but the driving force was as much from sheer physical need as the compulsion to keep girls like Natasha and Shelby far away. No wonder the loss of Jordan—this Jordan—ached so much. He lost his friend and his insulation from a role he never wanted to play.
“I’ll keep the magazine over here if you want to look again,” Natasha said, brandishing it like a flag. “I promise to keep my eyes on the other two and leave your guy alone.”
“He’s not my guy.”
“You might want to get on that.”
NINETEEN
Good Sports
CAMERON
Cam checked the note in his phone. He had to be ready in case of a confrontation, and promised himself that if Hayden set the bar low, he wouldn’t crawl under it.
He opened a private chat, paged him, pasted, and sent it.
Cameron
I’m sorry for the way I behaved when we talked on Sunday morning. I was a self-righteous ass, and I know you didn’t need to hear any of that. I am genuinely sorry about the injury, and concerned for you. It’s not about winning and losing here. It’s about a couple of guys who respect each other, and I respect the way you play this game.