25. Shoot for the Moon
TWENTY-FIVE
John Keyes lookedup from his desk and silently motioned Cameron to sit. “What’s got you up so early, Porter? You don’t start for twenty minutes.”
Cam slid a thin packet of papers across the desk. “This is Cory Thatcher’s weekly schedule. Blue is ball, yellow is school, pink is media and similar obligations. For comparison, here’s how I’ve spent the last three weeks, two of those around losses.”
Keyes furrowed his brows. “That’s a lot of pink.”
“Coach, one of the best in the country has six more hours for school and football every week because his P.R. and media are efficient, well-organized, and professional. My schoolwork has suffered, and I don’t think I’m playing as well as I could be. Ask Glamis. I’ve come to practice late and in makeup. I can do more than I am, if I’m not being dressed up and shoved in front of microphones and cameras for half an hour here, half an hour there. Marshall North at Rutgers and Dale Gellar at Louisville have lighter schedules than Cory. Even Hayden Hamilton at?—”
“I get it, Porter.” He thumbed through the pages of Cory’s schedule, brows lifting. “Does Thatcher sleep?”
“Not to my knowledge, Coach.”
“How do you know him?”
“We have a mutual friend who used to play here.”
Keyes set down the papers and narrowed his eyes. “What did he tell you?”
Cam pasted a grin on his face and kept his voice light. “He suggested I ask for your support in drawing some hard lines with our media team. Frankly, I think he was just tired of hearing me complain instead of taking action to fix things. Cory’s a take-action kind of guy.”
“Oh. Yeah, that’s what I hear.”
“I’m here to play for this team, Coach, and I’m proud to do that. I’m proud to represent these guys. But the non-football part of this job is not sustainable for me. I’ll be a fifth-year senior to finish my degree program as it is, and I will come back every year and play all of my remaining eligibility for you, if you help me make this work. I can’t stay if I have to half-ass the reasons I am here.”
Keyes studied the papers again. “You seriously plan on staying in school five years for your B.F.A.? Not drafting early for a big paycheck?”
“My bank account is not suffering, and if I can develop a healthier working relationship with the media team, I’ll be open to some deals in the off-season. I have no reason to leave early.” He straightened his shoulders. “If I wanted to blow through this place on my way to Canton, I’d have picked a different major.”
“I didn’t know media had been rough on you, Porter. You always do fine in the interviews.”
“A lot of the people on our crew are really nice. And they’re students, too. We all have to get to class. But if I need to talk to one podcaster and get three photos and review a contract with some sponsor all in the same week, let’s get it done in one block of time. It benefits all of us.”
“I can see that.”
“And it would be nice if the social media photos featured some other players besides me, Benny, and Travon. Why not get some receivers out there, or hell, anyone on defense or special teams? This team is stacked with interesting guys.”
“Share the pain?”
“Share the credit. We’re a team. At other schools, they snap candids at practice and games and use those. No hero poses. Show us grinding in practice jerseys. Show us running drills and lifting. Photography and journalism students need practice getting difficult shots. The artists who shoot for the league are the finest in the world. UND students can get experience with us.”
Cameron watched his coach squint at Cory’s schedule and think. He could scoop up a talented, uncomplaining quarterback and bench Cam if he wanted to, but the season looked good, and he wouldn’t boot him off the team for new blood even if it didn’t. One bad hit, and he’d need his backup that knew the playbook.
An unspoken threat lingered in the air between them. With Jordan’s mysterious exit over the summer, if Cameron transferred out after a successful season only months later, something would look very wrong with their program. Or, he could stay for three-and-a-half more seasons, with a handshake agreement neither of them could enforce, and Keyes could build a team around him.
Questions from the outside were the last thing the coach wanted, Cory said, and Cameron had just enough leverage to imply that he knew why—even if he didn’t.
“Some good ideas, Porter. Remind me who I’m supposed to talk to about all this. Whose word makes it a deal?”
“I think Shelby Wentz is the crew chief this year.” Cam bit his cheek to hide a smile when his coach grimaced. “Oh, I see you’ve met her.”
“I heard your predecessor has.”
“Please don’t tell me.”
Dale
My Tuesday classes are boring. Amuse me until practice. What’s your dream endorsement? Anything at all. Shoot for the moon.
Marshall
Cartier. I’ll settle for Van Cleef and Arpels, but Cartier raps better.
Dale
Whoa. You didn’t even have to think about that one.
Marshall
I’ve been waiting for someone to ask me that. Still can’t believe Kirk Cousins didn’t make that happen. That bling was legendary.
Ethan
Too easy. Gatorade. Gatorade is for icons. When they offer you the Gatorade gig, you’ve made it.
I’m in stats right now and have the sudden urge to figure out the correlation between Gatorade and the hall of fame.
Hayden
NASA.
Ethan
How do you endorse NASA?
Hayden
He said to shoot for the moon. I don’t know. I just want a spacesuit.
Cameron
It’s not a bad idea. Something about a rocket arm, right?
Hayden
Thank you.
Cory
Aston Martin. I’d love to turn my 7 jersey into 007 for a game. Just once. I’ll be The Man With the Golden Guns.
Dale
Good one. Mine’s John Deere.
Cameron
Sir. You’re a garage band guitarist from Minneapolis.
Dale
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.”
She put down her pencil. “I should prepare you to be disappointed with my singing voice.”
“Your name makes me think of an aviary,” he said, standing behind her like he had Sunday evening. “Finches and parrots and flamingos wouldn’t normally live in the same habitat, but those bright colors and energy all together—that’s you to me.”
He slipped his arms around her, but instead of slumping against him like the last time, she wrapped her arms over his and pulled him closer. He didn’t think fast enough to step back.
“Cameron?”
“Avery?”
“You’re… you’re really hard right now.”
“Yeah, I noticed that, too.”
Fresh off his morning workout, his warm-up pants did little to conceal how he longed for her. That spike of adrenaline atop weeks of desperation pounded his pulse in every vein. He didn’t want to disguise it anymore.
The tiny motions of her breathing pressed her into him just enough to worsen the ache with every exhale. She didn’t speak.
“Look, I know it hasn’t been that long since you and Isaac?—”
“That doesn’t matter.”
“I can’t go another day without telling you how I feel.”
She whirled on her stool to face him. “Then tell me. Rubbing your dick on me doesn’t count.”
“I’m sorry, I?—”
“I kind of liked it.” She fought a tiny smile. “But it doesn’t count.”
He pulled up a stool next to hers and cupped her face in his hands like a jewel before he kissed her. “Avery, I’m crazy about you,” he whispered against her lips before kissing her again. “I should have told you that you captivated me the day we met. When I saw you looking at my sketch, I didn’t know what to do with myself, but I knew I had to know you. I needed to know everything about you all at once, and it scared me. I did everything wrong, and I’m so sorry. You deserve so much more than the jerk I showed you I was.”
Tightening his hold, he teased open her lips for another kiss, pausing only to breathe or murmur another adoration. “You are the brightest, warmest part of every day. Seeing you with someone else was better than not seeing you at all, but I can’t live with it ever being another someone else. It has to be me.”
He pulled back from kissing her until she opened her eyes. “It has to be us, Avery.”
“I don’t think—I mean…”
She trailed off, and he stopped breathing, hands frozen in her hair.
“I don’t think it could ever be anyone else. Cameron, that first day I saw you, I couldn’t get you out of my mind. You moved in and made yourself at home before you ever spoke to me.”
He lost himself in the taste of her lips and her skin, devouring her everywhere he could reach while he gave in to the heat of her hands, already under his shirt and roaming over his pants as she whispered his name. He dotted kisses over her collarbone when she tipped her head back, then lost all semblance of patience and pulled her mouth to his again. Every curve that kept him awake at night was within his grasp, and the need for her body consumed him.
“We have to go somewhere.” He struggled to push out the words. “We’re about to get busted as it is, with all those people in the hall.”
She gestured to their bags and her papers, and he scooped them up while she caught her breath. Intertwining her fingers with his, she pulled him to the door.
“Come with me.”