The Backup Plan (Stadium Lights Romances - Standalones Book 1)
1. Nice Ball
ONE
The first timehe threw a football, six-year-old Cameron Porter was stung by a bee and nearly died from anaphylactic shock. Fourteen years later, the sight of his name on the depth chart at summer training camp left him choking on his own breath.
He’d earned the job of starting quarterback for the twelfth-ranked college program in the country, and his first instinct was to quit the team and disappear—just like the last quarterback did.
It was almost nine a.m., and judging by the state of his phone, the media release went out at eight. Silent mode had granted him a final hour of peace before the glowing letters blurred on the screen, message after message of congratulations and trash talk.
He should have fumbled a snap in the bowl game last year. Bowl games didn’t matter. He shouldn’t have showed off in training camp. He should have tripped on something, or missed some easy tosses, and for the love of God, he should have quit slinging those long routes for the receivers to practice on. Nice ball, Cam.
Nice ball, indeed. Football finally screwed him over. The roar in his head and the incessant alerts from his phone faded to a dull hum, like a bee buzzing in his ears as he fought back denial.
Unknown #1 8:01 AM
Is this Cameron Porter? Call me ASAP. Shelby, UND PR
Unknown #1 8:02 AM
We absolutely need to hear from you. Shelby, UND PR
Justin 8:03 AM
Congrats, buddy.
Hakeem 8:04 AM
My man. I knew it.
Unknown #2 8:04 AM
Cameron Porter, we need to talk about the press conference tomorrow. This is Pippa. I work with Shelby.
Benny 8:05 AM
You and me. Brady to Gronk, right?
Mom 8:05 AM
Sweetie! You’re on the news! Why didn’t you tell us?
Dad 8:06 AM
Exciting times! Be careful.
Mom 8:06 AM
Yes, be careful.
He counted ten voicemails and fifteen more messages from people claiming to be with the university’s P.R. team, forty-six from friends and teammates, and not one from any of his coaches. Maybe he’d go to weights in a few minutes and someone would tell him they sent P.R. the wrong name, and it was a mistake.
The phone lit up as he drew back to throw it off his bed, and he looked at his messages one more time.
Unknown #3
You’re one of us now, loser.
Cameron
Who’s this?
Unknown #3
Jay Rottler gave me your number. I’m adding you to the chat. Get the app and you’ll get the invite.
link>
Cam clicked to install the secure messaging app. Jay Rottler, his high school teammate who now played for his college team’s rivals was giving out his cell number? They hadn’t spoken for years.
You have been added to the chat “QB1 Fight Club” by Hayden Hamilton.
Hayden
I told you I could find him. Guys, Cameron Porter, Cam, the guys.
Cory
Congrats, Cam. Cory Thatcher, Michigan. Don’t let Hammy fool you with the fight club crap. It’s all love here.
Marshall
Hammy’s not fooling anybody, and he’s fresh off the bench, too. Good to have you, Cam. Marshall North, Rutgers.
Cameron
Where am I, exactly?
Hayden
You’re in the QB1 Fight Club, obviously. Starting QBs from mostly-decent schools here to talk trash. And you know where I’m from.
Marshall
You’re from the practice squad. You haven’t sniffed a start. At least our boy here had one last year when Jordan got hurt.
Cameron
Why ARE you here, Hayden? You’re supposed to be bench warming at least another year like I am. Was. Whatever.
Hayden
Meningitis got us bad at camp and about thirty guys caught it. Malik Whitehead was Patient Zero.
Cameron
Is he okay? Is everyone okay?
Hayden
We’ve got the cleanest locker rooms in the country. You could do lines off these benches.
Marshall
WHAT.
Hayden
What?
Cory
Malik’s back home in Louisiana for the year. He had the worst case and was septic at one point. The boy is out of strength and needs the year off. I just talked to him yesterday.
Cameron
You’re call-at-home buddies with your arch-rival’s quarterback?
Hayden
Ex-quarterback.
Marshall
Sir, it’s been a week.
Hayden
It was a joke.
Cory
Malik’s a great guy who does a heck of a job at something very few people can do. That’s why we’re here. We’ve cornered a niche market, and we respect each other.
Marshall
Please note, Hammy remains unproven.
Hayden
Watch me handle it even though we got gutted. A bunch of our guys made the same call Malik did—save the year and hit the transfer portal. My O-line is half fresh.
Marshall
Haha, turnstile tackles. You’re doomed, man. See you in concussion protocol.
Cory
Trash talk is not actually the point of this chat, despite what these two bozos say. Hammy, change the name back or I will.
Hayden Hamilton has named the chat
“QB1 Emotional Support Dawgs.”
Cory
You are about to make me cuss.
Marshall
He only gets one swear word a month, Cam. Cory is too pure for this world.
Cameron
I am so lost.
Cory
It’s just better to not manifest all that negativity. So, since I like dogs, I will accept this change.
Hayden
Listen to this guy.
Cory
Paging @EthanEngel. He’s the other admin. We run this space to connect with other guys who are in similar situations, under similar stress. We can talk ball, but we don’t talk game plans or head-to-heads. How are you feeling, Cam?
Cameron
A little overwhelmed. My phone’s blowing up.
Marshall
You got a press conference?
Cameron
I have a bunch of messages from P.R. people but I haven’t called anyone back. I haven’t even talked to my coaches. I should talk to them first, right?
Cory
Your head coach will have an agreement with the P.R. crew about what they can do and when. They won’t set up a press conference without his approval.
Hayden
Make friends with the P.R. crew now, and they’ll be your besties. I love the P.R. girls already, and I look forward to loving them more.
Ethan
You disgust me, Hammy.
Cory
Is there a way to put Hayden on some sort of child-safe account so he can’t change the chat name anymore?
Ethan
I’ll look into it. Cam, welcome on. Ethan Engel, Tennessee.
Ethan Engel had the job Cameron dreamed of since the day the bee got him. The battered orange ball cap he wore everywhere bore the signature of the University of Tennessee’s all-time great quarterback, the legendary Peyton Manning, the man who inspired Cam and thousands of other young men to eat, sleep, and breathe football. The brim of the cap had been so thoroughly layered in fabric protection spray it had a sheen over the signature, and remained bright orange while the rest of the cap faded. Cameron, a three-star recruit from central Tennessee, was offered a scholarship that would have put him on Ethan’s team, and turned it down.
Cameron
Big fan, Ethan, nice to meet you. I grew up a Vols fan. Dad went there.
Marshall
Are we waiting for anyone else? Give us the story, because your boy just quit on us the way he quit on you guys. What happened to Jordan?
If there was a question with more traction than Who’s going to start at quarterback? it was What happened to Jordan?
Whoever knew wasn’t sharing. The alumni and boosters wanted answers no one would or could give them, and when word spread that the coaches were looking at his backups and transfer options, media went as far as sending reporters to Jordan Ackerman’s parents’ home in South Dakota to dig up why the university’s star quarterback, a top draft prospect in his final year of college eligibility, simply didn’t show up to training camp.
His parents said nothing.
Players were told not to speak to the media about their former teammate, and in the locker room, the whispers spanned every possibility from prison to rehab to witness protection. Like Hayden did with Malik, Cam sat behind Jordan as a red-shirt freshman bench-warmer and spent more time with him than anyone else did. He wanted him back more than anyone else did, too.
Cameron
I’ve heard everything from alien abduction to kibbutz influencer life.
Ethan
I worry about the guy.
Hayden
No one gives up this gig and walks away when he could be a first-round pick. No one.
Cameron
What would make you guys bail?
Cory
It would have to be some kind of major health reason. Major. I worked too hard my entire life to get here. I can’t think of another reason.
Hayden
Depends how rich the sugar momma is. Or how close the cops are to finding the bodies.
Ethan
Are you always this dense, Hammy?
I’ve heard people say it was about a girl. I love Kaia, but I am not breaking my stride if she wants out. Jordy quitting over a girl does NOT track.
Cameron
Everyone’s still confused here. We loved Jordan. Hell of a leader. Hell of a great guy. I have no idea how to follow that.
Cory
It’ll be tough for a while, and that doesn’t mean you’re doing anything wrong. I followed Patrick Hart, and the dude was loved. It took a minute.
Marshall
You’re the face of the program now. Come talk to us when it gets bad, because your coaches and media team will not care if you don’t feel pretty for interviews. We’re the guys who have been there.
And when the P.R. team says jump, you ask how high.
Hayden
Oh damn, they told me I need a haircut.
Bee stings again. The clogged throat. Jordan Ackerman, their “Air it out, Jordan!” was as good-looking as he was gifted, and even in the promotional photos where he was instructed to look tough and get a game face on, his lips curled at one corner—a tell, they called it, an unconscious bit of body language that gave away the next move. That tell was the smile he couldn’t hide, the one that said Let’s dance.
Jordan’s golden hair was a crown, where Cam’s dark curls were an adolescent mop poking out from under a backward ball cap. Jordan’s deep blue eyes set hearts fluttering, especially in his navy jersey, where Cam’s dark brown ones hid behind the glare from his glasses. They’d make him take those off for pictures, or someone would push him—again—to get contact lenses. Or laser correction. He’d be half blind, and God knew where the passes would land.
Nice ball, Cam.
Three pairs of unbreakable sports glasses sat in his sideline bag next to his epi-pen at every game. He would see the way he wanted to see, and would put his foot down on that one thing, at least. Or else… what, exactly?
He picked over his options.
The depth chart was not his call. He couldn’t say sorry coach, not feeling it and promote Archie Hawke, the freshman he always assumed would leapfrog him after Jordan graduated. If he didn’t do the job Coach Keyes gave him, there was no scholarship, and without the scholarship, there was no college.
If he stayed at UND, he would play the game he’d loved all his life at a level he always knew he could master, and he would only get better. He’d be the face of a program that had sold out a seventy-thousand person stadium for every home game in the past fifty years and had a loyal fan base around the globe. He’d be primed for a professional football career in two or three years’ time.
The pressure unnerved him—press conferences, social media, angry fans if they lost—but the reason why he had to do any of it hung over him like a shadow.
As the truth sank in, Cam crunched the numbers and looked for the bright side. Even as a freshman, he had banked Name, Image, and Likeness money from the boosters on top of the free college education. The amount would only go up with his promotion, and he would need it for what came next.
It could be worse.
He thought of Jordan and wondered how much worse.