5. The Rules of the Game
FIVE
Cory
Good morning, QBs! I hope everyone had a stellar start to the season. How’s everybody’s morning after Game 1?
Hayden
You’re awfully cheery.
Cory
All I do is win, win, win no matter what
Hayden
Are you always like this on Sundays?
Ethan
More or less, unless it’s a playoff game. Then he gets so, so sad.
Cory
I’m not manifesting losses, brother. This is the year. Championship or bust.
Marshall
Carry on, man. I got my dub.
Dale
Me too!
Cameron
Y’all know what I got.
Ethan
My dude. You went to WORK on those guys.
Marshall
I salute you, buddy. I know you were nervous.
Cameron
I never said I was nervous.
Cory
You didn’t have to. You were totally nervous. And that’s fine. It didn’t affect your game.
Cameron
I got lucky. My receivers were on fire, and the Cougars’ secondary is trash.
Hayden
MY secondary is trash. I threw for 350 yards and since D couldn’t stop their guys, it was a shootout and we lost.
Dale
Ouch. It burns when you run up the points and the other phases can’t get it done. You’re the one who has to answer for it.
Hayden
Don’t I know it.
Ethan
I’m sure you did fine. It gets easier, Hammy. You learn to fake the chill and say all the right keywords about executing better on all phases and trusting the coaching staff and blah blah. Your media crew will help you. That goes for all of you.
Cameron
Mine had my victory and loss speeches ready before the game for me to memorize.
Cory
Yeah, your crew is taking it a little far.
Cameron
I pissed them off calling out one of my receivers by name, but he deserved a lot of credit. O-line, too. Those guys were a wall.
Dale
The media can’t say shit about what really matters, and that’s what you say to your guys when no one’s looking. Win or lose.
Ethan
Amen. How did that go for you this week, Hammy? You got trial by fire.
Hayden
I don’t really know. I guess I said something like “well, that sucked.” I got hit a lot in the second half, and after a few questions I was in the damn ice bath.
Class tomorrow is gonna feel awesome.
I have never said ‘class’ and ‘awesome’ in the same sentence.
Cory
Ooof, that’s always a wake-up call. The sore butt on those little plastic classroom seats.
Cameron
I’d consider one of those donut cushions, but just what I need is more people noticing me. That part sucks.
Hayden
Why? You’re the guy now.
Cameron
I’m so tired of talking to people already. I wouldn’t talk to any of you if it required using my actual voice.
Marshall
See how this week goes with everyone recognizing you, Hammy. How many kids are going to tell you how they would have won that game? Do us a favor and count.
Hayden
Seriously?
Ethan
The last Auburn QB we had in here set the record. It was something like 112 people in two days.
Cameron
Jesus Christ.
Ethan
The SEC is… different.
Cameron
You don’t have to tell me. I remember learning Southern sportsmanship. I’m a robot with the same feedback any time someone hits me with a complaint.
Hayden
Y’all fuck off now, ya hear?
Cameron
Thank you. I’ll keep that in mind.
From a long conversation with Cory,Cameron learned the ins and outs of the secure message app and the QB1 chat. The chat predated the app by many years, and Cory declined to tell him how far back in college football that quarterbacks had a social community to both support one another and keep one another in check. Former players, whether they went pro or not, were welcome to remain as legacy members in whatever format the current chat operated, and were kept on a dark list only the admins could access.
Only active college quarterbacks could be paged by members, and only if they had been active in the chat in the past three months. Anyone else could be paged by the admins only. Groups were maintained to sort everyone by conference in case of reasons Cory refused to define. Incognito mode was a privilege granted only to current and former professional players.
Cam let out a low whistle when Cory paused for a breath. “That’s a lot,” Cam said. “And you won’t give me one good name of someone who’s been in this group?”
Cory laughed. “The settings allow us to protect the privacy of the people who need it most—the pros—and gives the college guys a lot of options to dip in and out and participate however they want. Some people disappear for a season and we see them back the rest of the year.”
Ethan had been an admin the year before, along with a player who went pro, and selected Cory to follow up. They stuck to the rules handed down to them with few exceptions.
“We don’t always allow photo sharing, and most of the time, we don’t allow screenshots. The photos are fun sometimes, but some people get a little over the top. We turn off screenshots, for obvious reasons. No one wants college chats floating around. Things can get heated. That’s why we never get into it about games we play against each other. The chat only shows first names by design, but sometimes we let people grab a picture if something was really hilarious. We’re not total fascists.”
“But slightly fascist.”
“We do what it takes to survive,” Cory said, affecting a dramatic voice. “But in all seriousness, I hope it’s been useful for you.”
“You have no idea. I was supposed to get another year as Jordan’s backup, and kind of hoped the guy behind me would be the starter when Jordan left. It’s all out of order, and none of my non-football friends are any help. Hell, none of my football friends are any help except for a little moral support. I think they think like Hammy. Bunch of girls following me around, why complain?”
“Is that really what’s happening?”
“I don’t have an entourage or anything, and maybe I’ve gotten a little paranoid, but there are a lot of stares. A lot of giggles and whispers and girls asking if I’m Cameron Porter the quarterback, and then they obviously don’t know what that even means besides I’m the big football guy. The art building is the only place I can hide because no one in the studios gives a shit about football. But even there… there’s a girl I see there a lot, and honestly, I’m beating myself up for not talking to her, but I’m frozen because I don’t want to talk to anyone.”
Cory let out a low whistle. “It’s a lot, but it’ll pass. This place pinned its hopes on me when I was a freshman, and there was some attention like that, but I went a little over the top posting about my girlfriend on my social media. It’s not something I usually do, and I don’t know if it directly made a difference, but the weirdness died down after the season was over. This year, it’s less weird.”
“So I just have to survive the first season, and possibly get a girlfriend in the meantime?”
“Yes, and it might not hurt.”
Cam thought about the blonde girl in the lounge for the dozenth time that day. He wondered if she was at the game, and if she liked what she saw or if he came off as a cocky jock asshole, which is what the media crew seemed to prefer. Pippa yanked off his glasses just before she shoved him behind the podium for a blurry post-game press conference, so maybe the blonde girl didn’t even recognize that guy. He wondered if she would go to the lounge every day at the same time like she had the whole first week, and worried he’d already shot himself in the foot by being such a grumpy, silent jerk the first five chances he had to speak to her.
She didn’t look like one of the girls who giggled and whispered. She looked like an art student, with smudgy hands and doodles in ballpoint pen on her arm one day, and a fistful of expensive colored pencils shoved in the pocket of her backpack. The way she stared at one sketch with a gaze so ferocious she might set it ablaze both enchanted and terrified him. She was either really good at stalking him, or she was so captivated by light and dark that she might understand the twitch in his hands for a chisel when he saw a beautiful rock.
Five days. She probably thought he was an absolute Neanderthal. But he startled each time he saw that halo of pale hair peeking over the couch when he got to the lounge, and he had to fight to breathe without his chest heaving. She always said hello and goodbye even though he never replied, and he turned off his music sometimes just to hear those few words when her deep blue eyes met his.
“Cory?”
“Yeah?”
“Is Jordan still a member?”
“We last heard from him less than ninety days ago, so technically, he’s still an active member. I’ll remove him or dark-list him if he asks me to, but so far, he hasn’t.”
“So I could page him in a private chat if I want to, as long as he’s an active member?”
“Yes. The settings allow you to do that. But if he deleted the app, he won’t get a notification.”
“When are his ninety days up?”
Cory muttered under his breath, counting. “Sometime around October first. I can get you the date, if it matters.”
The last time Cameron spoke to him was June thirteenth. “Around October first” meant he was active around July first, which tracked with the timeline he was piecing together.
“Thanks, man. Yeah. It matters.”