Chapter 6
Chapter six
Cam
It’s been two days since that disastrous meeting at ERS.
Two blessed days of silence from my agent.
I’m jogging toward the sideline with a bag of mini footballs slung over my shoulder when the press ambush hits.
It’s supposed to be simple today. A charity youth clinic. A few drills, some laughs, a bunch of kids who think I’m Superman because I can catch a ball while getting tackled by a man built like a refrigerator.
These events are usually my favorite. Just football and kids and the rare feeling that my existence is a net positive.
Then the cameras show up like a swarm of angry insects.
Microphones push in. Sharp smiles. Hungry eyes.
Before I can even plant my foot, a mic is shoved so close to my jaw that I can smell the reporter’s coffee.
“Cam! Any comment on the lawyer's statements?”
“What about the accusation that you pressured her?”
“Are you cooperating with investigators?”
The words overlap, fast and sharp, and it feels like being pelted with rocks that have my name carved into them.
A few kids nearby freeze mid-run. A boy holding a flag belt looks at me like I just turned into a stranger. Parents shift closer to their kids, protective and wary in the same motion.
Fantastic.
I keep my face neutral. I lift a hand, palm out, trying to slow the chaos without letting it infect the field.
“I’m here for the clinic,” I say, steadying my voice. “These questions can go through the team rep.”
I aim my gaze over their heads toward the turf where the drills are set up. I keep my tone calm, the way you talk to a dog that’s barking too loud because it thinks it’s in charge.
The reporters do not care.
A volunteer tries to step in. A staffer waves at the media line. None of it matters.
Then a voice cuts through, familiar in the worst way.
The ruthless one. The guy who always seems to show up when there’s blood in the water and a chance to get his face on camera.
He steps forward, mic angled just right, smile sharp as broken glass.
“Is it true you’ve hired a relationship firm to clean up your image?” he asks.
My blood spikes.
The field goes quiet in my peripheral. Not completely, but enough that I notice. A couple parents glance up. A few kids slow down, sensing the shift without understanding it.
ERS.
They’re already sniffing around it.
Something cold settles in my chest, heavy and clean, like a door closing. I don’t respond, because I don’t trust what will come out if I do. I’m one wrong syllable away from a headline that reads like a confession.
I swallow hard and keep my eyes forward, past the cameras, past the microphones, past the people who want to chew up my life and spit it out in a thirty-second clip.
I want to tell them to get away from these kids.
I want to tell them to leave me alone.
Instead, I turn toward the field, because the clinic is still happening and those kids are still waiting, and I refuse to let my mess become their moment.
But as I walk, I can feel the press at my back like a shadow I can’t outrun.
I force myself onto the field like nothing happened.
Like I didn’t just have my life interrogated ten feet from a group of nine-year-olds in football cleats.
The grass smells clean. Fresh. Honest. That helps. Football fields don’t care who’s trending. They just wait for you to do the work.
The kids spot me immediately.
“Cam!”
“Throw it to me!”
“No, me!”
They swarm like happy chaos, all elbows and laughter and untied shoelaces. A couple of them bounce on their toes like I might vanish if they don’t keep moving.
My chest loosens a notch.
This is why I like these clinics. Kids don’t want explanations. They want spirals and jokes and someone to tell them they’ve got a great arm even if the ball goes sideways.
I toss one football high and easy. A kid jumps, misses it, then laughs so hard he has to bend over.
“Again!” he shouts.
I grin despite myself and throw another. Then another. I run a quick drill, exaggerating my footwork so they can copy it, which turns into absolute nonsense immediately.
For a few minutes, I forget about cameras and contracts and women with lawyers. I forget about words like optics and stability indicators.
I’m just a guy on a field with kids who think I’m cool for reasons that have nothing to do with headlines.
Then a small voice cuts through the noise.
“Mr. Drake?”
I turn and see a little girl standing a few feet away, helmet too big, chin strap crooked. She’s holding a football to her chest like it might float away if she lets go.
“Yeah?” I say, crouching down to her level.
She hesitates, glancing toward the sideline where a few reporters are still lurking, pretending to check their phones.
“Are those people being mean to you?” she says quietly.
I open my mouth and realize I have no idea how to answer that in a way that doesn’t drag adult ugliness into a child’s world.
I swallow and steady myself, keeping my voice calm.
“Sometimes,” I say, choosing each word carefully, “people say things that aren’t true.”
Her brow furrows. “That’s not nice.”
“No,” I agree. “It’s not.”
She watches me, serious now. “What do you do?”
The honest question in her eyes disarms me.
“You keep doing the right thing,” I say finally. “Even when it’s hard.”
She nods like that makes perfect sense. Because to her, it does.
“Okay,” she says, satisfied, and runs off to rejoin the drill.
I stay crouched a second longer than necessary.
I straighten and rejoin the drills, laughing when a kid accidentally pegs me in the shin with a football. I play it off. I always do.
The break whistle blows, and the kids scatter toward water bottles and shade.
I drop onto the edge of the bleachers and wipe sweat from the back of my neck with a towel. The sun is high now, bright enough to make everything feel exposed. The kind of light that doesn’t let you hide much.
I stare out at the field while volunteers wrangle kids into some loose version of order, and my mind drifts backward uninvited.
My ex asked for one photo. Then another. Then “just a little more,” until my name stopped being mine and started being her leverage.
When it ended, she kept the audience and handed me the fallout—half-truths, tears, and a story that made her look brave and made me look guilty.
I rub my hands together and stand, trying to shake it off, but the thought lingers.
Love hadn’t just made me blind.
It had made me weak.
I wouldn’t make that mistake again.
Not with anyone.
Especially not with someone whose life sparkles as brightly, and dangerously, as Lila Hart’s.
***
Brent walks onto the field like bad news.
Fast. Purposeful. With a look on his face that says he’s already had this conversation in his head and didn’t enjoy any version of it.
He cuts across the field, dodging a loose football and a kid sprinting the wrong direction, phone still in his hand like it’s glued there. He gives a quick nod to a volunteer, then stops in front of me, lowering his voice without bothering to soften his tone.
“I need to talk to you.”
“This is supposed to be a kids’ clinic,” I mutter.
“And you'll get right back to it,” he says. “Right after our brief discussion.”
I take a breath and glance back at the field. The kids are laughing again, chasing each other in uneven lines.
“They want a statement by Friday,” Brent says.
Of course they do.
“Who’s they?” I ask, even though I already know.
“The league. The team. Everyone with money attached to your name,” he replies. “They want stability indicators.”
I let out a humorless laugh. “That phrase should come with a warning label.”
Brent doesn’t smile. “You know what it means.”
I do.
It means they want proof that I’m not unraveling. Proof that I won’t become a liability they have to explain away.
My stomach sinks.
“No,” I say immediately. “I’m not doing the ERS match. I’m not playing pretend with some woman just to calm the fanbase on social media.”
Brent’s jaw tightens. “This isn’t about social media.”
“Everything is about social media,” I shoot back.
He steps closer, lowering his voice further. “This is about your NFL contract. Your reputation. Your career.”
I turn away from him and watch a kid launch a football far too hard, then look stunned when it sails over everyone’s head.
“I didn’t do anything wrong,” I say. “I shouldn’t have to prove I’m stable because someone else lied.”
Brent exhales slowly. “You're handing your enemies ammunition.”
I clench my fists, the anger sharp and familiar. “So the solution is to stick me next to a woman and hope people calm down?”
“The solution,” Brent says, “is to give them something predictable. Steady. Something that doesn’t feed the cycle.”
My jaw tightens. “You mean optics.”
He doesn’t deny it. “I mean survival.”
The word hangs there between us.
Survival.
I glance back at the kids again. They’re lining up for another drill now, faces flushed, joy uncomplicated. None of them are thinking about image management or public perception. None of them are one bad headline away from losing everything.
“I’m not letting someone into my life just to make this easier,” I say. “It ends badly.”
Brent’s expression softens just a fraction. “The league doesn’t want chaos,” he says quietly. “And right now, they think you’re standing too close to it.”
The pressure builds, slow and relentless, like water rising around my ankles.
I shake my head. “There has to be another option.”
He looks me straight in the eye, expression stripped of spin or reassurance, and says, “The team wants to bench you.”
Benched. For not agreeing to an arranged marriage.
“Maybe suspend you,” he adds. “And if enough sponsors get nervous, they could cut you entirely.”
I stare at him, the field blurring at the edges.
It doesn’t matter that the claims are false. It doesn’t matter that I’ve done everything by the book. In this world, truth is optional. Perception is currency.
And right now, I’m bankrupt.
“You’re telling me I lose my career because I won’t pretend to be in love,” I say.
“I’m telling you that you lose your career if people decide you’re unstable,” Brent replies. “Fair has nothing to do with it.”
My pulse pounds in my ears, loud enough to drown out the laughter from the field. I want to argue. To demand proof. To remind him I’ve given this team everything.
But football is a business that protects itself first and apologizes later.
Brent lowers his voice. “Please consider the ERS match.”
I turn away from him and look at the kids again. One of them trips during a drill and pops right back up, grinning like nothing happened. No fear. No second-guessing. No awareness of how fast things can fall apart.
I envy that simplicity.
Because I know what happens when you fall in my world. You don’t just get scraped knees. You get dissected.
I think about Lila Hart.
About the way she looked across that table. Guarded. Unwilling. Like she was already bracing for disappointment.
About how quickly she walked out.
Smart.
I swallow hard.
I don’t want to lose football—the one place where effort still means something. Where I know who I am.
Brent waits, giving me space I don’t deserve.
Finally, I nod once, slow and reluctant.
“Fine,” I say, my voice tight. “I’ll think about it.”
It isn’t a yes.
But it isn’t a no either.
And judging by the way Brent exhales, that might be all the leverage they need.