Page 87 of The Backup Plan
Well, thanks to my Kentucky fan base, I am now a country guitarist in my free time. Put a farmer’s tan on a quarterback’s body, and I AM the Rust Belt.
Cameron
When you put it that way, I endorse that endorsement.
Dale
What’s yours, Cambelina?
Cameron
Home Depot. All the power tools, and I look fetching in orange.
I’ve got diamond-tipped drill bits, Marsh.
Marshall
Is that a pick-up line?
Cameron
Would you like it to be?
Hayden
I’ll bring you a moon rock, Cam. Make me a Heisman.
Dale
Won’t get one any other way.
Cory
Hey, as long as we’re all on, I’ve been meaning to talk to you guys about finances.
Cameron snickered as he watched his friends’ names disappear from the chat when Cory brought up money. He’d been trying for two weeks to get everyone together for a lecture on endorsements and collectives and red flags to look for when considering deals. No one wanted to burst the bubble and agree with Cory that it was unsustainable and probably dangerous.
One day, it would come crashing down around everyone’s ears and there would be talk of collective bargaining and profit-sharing and new taxes. Their college years would be known as ‘the good old days’ between the legislation that allowed college athletes to get paid and the inevitable legislation that curbed the insanity. Until then, they and most of their teammates were happy to take the bag and run.
Already, Cam had socked away enough for a comfortable life as an unemployed artist in Europe for two very frugal years, by his best estimates. The payout for the current season would triple that. His money management firm in Nashville was ordered to make conservative, long-term investments instead of short gains. In a few short years, he would check the scores and follow his friends’ careers from Florence and Vienna and Bordeaux, where football meant soccer.
But he would rather not do it alone.
The drawing studio was usually empty during the mid-day class period when he met Avery in the lounge, but when Cam saw the light on, he knew who he’d find inside.
She looked up at the sound of his footsteps. “Hey,” she said, smiling as he closed the door. “I was just drawing on you.”
“You were what?”
“Come see.”
She’d scanned, enlarged, and printed a half-dozen copies of his magazine photos in grayscale, and doodled on his right arm in each one. “I like the start of that one the best,” she said, poking it with a pencil. “Got your bumble bee front and center.”
“Good and fluffy. I look kind of badass with all that.” He tilted his head and followed the vine of interlocking flowers and football uprights to the scoreboard at the Star Bowl. “Check this tough guy out.”
“You had birds on your list, and I saved a place so I could ask you what kind.”
“That’s for you to pick. Birds remind me of you.”