42. Total Game-Changer
FORTY-TWO
“Yeah, we’re doing this.”Jordan bobbled his phone, shaking Cam’s view as he situated himself on a recliner. “You’re putting up better numbers than I ever did. I knew I left that place in good hands.”
“Are you finally ready for your press conference? Because I’ve got questions.”
“Warm me up with an easy one. I’m out of shape.” He reached for a beer as if to prove his point.
“Were you hooking up with Shelby Wentz from P.R.?”
Jordan spit half a mouthful of lager onto his shirt. “Why is that your first question?” he rasped.
“Because it has haunted my nightmares since the day Marsh North suggested it was the reason she always held you up as a paragon of goodness while telling me all the ways I suck. Oh God, your face is so red. It’s true. You sick bastard.”
“Have you seen her in a good pair of jeans, though?”
“If you’re down with the humiliation kink, carry on. But she’s an evil misandrist who has big thoughts about how my dick compares to yours.”
“She what? What the hell did you do?”
“Well, I didn’t do her.” He yawned. “It’s a long story. I’ll tell you in a year and a half, since that’s how long we go between calls now.”
“Buddy, you have to know why I didn’t tell you.”
“Whatever it is—and remember, I still don’t know entirely what it is—don’t you think I would have lied for you?” Cameron demanded. “What I said just now about you handing me the team on purpose was a guess. If this is about what happened with that stupid helmet, I’d have helped you however I could.”
“Talking about it would have opened us all up to trouble. If you knew, it meant the coaches knew. It meant the program knew. I couldn’t let that happen.”
“What was all that shit about unfinished business for if you weren’t going to tell me? What are you doing here now, if it’s still such a big secret?”
“The pressure’s off you, for now. I doubt anyone will ask you about me again, so you won’t have to lie. Cory texted me before Fish got on. I had to let you know I’m still here for you and the team.”
“Here for us, where? South Dakota? Maine, Ohio, Fiji?” Cam stared at the ceiling. “Not feeling the love, Jordy. Do better.”
“Cam, listen. I screwed myself over big-time with that helmet deal. Top-secret new safety technology, and I was going to be the first guy who had it, remember? More like the first guy to take the bait and destroy my career for a bag of money. You want apologies? You have no idea how sorry I am.”
Cam softened his tone. “You were a kid with big dreams, and you saw an opportunity.”
“I saw dollar signs, you mean. I could have just stuck with the safest helmet already in the game, the one all the pros use, but no. I had to show off the flavor of the month and get paid.”
“You told me you wanted to promote player safety and use the money to help pay for your brother’s college. That company took advantage of you, and Coach Keyes, and our whole program.”
“And I could have screwed over the whole program if I spoke up after I got hurt and told the company I wanted out of my contract. It’s not the same as when you take a knock wearing the same gear everyone else is wearing. If I went out there with my old helmet on, it looks like I’m telling that tech startup to get stuffed, right? I would only do that if I knew something was wrong with their fancy helmet, and then it looks like UND let me lay it all on the line for a stack of cash.”
“Technically, they did.”
“No one’s done this before, Cam. No one should. Student athletes should never endorse protective gear. These kids are too vulnerable and stupid and their coaches are not scientists. I shot myself in the foot with that non-disclosure agreement, and I can’t talk about it. I stayed away so the program we love wouldn’t get gutted by investigations and sanctions while everyone jumps ship. Even if I could physically do it, I wasn’t going to send it all up in smoke just so I could play another season.”
Cameron popped up from the couch and walked laps around the waiting room, glasses shoved up, palm to his throbbing forehead.
“And I’m not physically able to do it anymore.” Jordan’s voice weakened. “I wanted to tell you why I gave you the Star Bowl, even though I was cleared to play.”
“Maybe you wanted to, but you didn’t. I was right next to you at training and conditioning all winter and spring. Throwing with you at practice in May. And you couldn’t make time to fill me in.”
“I saw it coming and spent the entire off-season trying to stop it.” The agitation rose in Jordan’s voice and Cam found himself matching his strides with the cadence of his friend’s words. “I had lawyers all over that NDA and the contract. I had cease-and-desist letters from the startup every other week, and I was sneaking up to Chicago one weekend a month to meet with neurologists who are interested in how the human brain reacts to repeated low-grade concussions with minimal recovery time. I tried. Now sit down. You’re giving me a headache with the pacing.”
Cameron sat.
“When I bailed on everyone without notice, it made a much bigger splash than if I said I got cancer or chicken pox, or whatever the Malik and his guys got.”
“Meningitis.”
“There it is.”
“You scared the shit out of us and made that mess on purpose to get attention?”
“I made that mess to keep everyone’s attention. I want them to remember the big mystery, because I will have words for those tech bro bastards as soon as I legally can. As a bonus, media were drooling for what you said at UT last year.”
Cam rubbed the back of his head. “A very convenient concussion.”
“You didn’t want to believe everything you’d pieced together until that happened, did you?”
“Why did I have to piece anything together? You could have just had Cory or Ethan tell me. You told them, and not me.”
“It wasn’t some big master plan, all right? Cam, I can’t play football anymore. I had to look in my mirror every day and tell myself every dream I ever had was over. Every dollar I made off this game is paying medical bills that the company may or may not reimburse since they won’t admit liability and I can’t sue them yet. I don’t have a scholarship anymore, so college might be over, too.”
“Jordan, I’m?—”
“I was gutted, and alone, and some stupid paper I signed said I couldn’t talk to anyone from my team or my school. Coach Keyes knew enough to make an educated guess. I let him guess so he could stay honest and say he hadn’t talked to me. You were the next person everyone asked when I didn’t show up.”
Cam wanted to cover his ears and block out the locker-room chatter. Haven’t you talked to him, Cam? Thought you guys were tight.
And worse, his coaches while they were pretending to audition him for the job at training camp, ‘just in case.’ You haven’t heard anything from him? Really? We’re on the same page. I mean, we haven’t heard from him either.
Thanks to Jordan’s dramatic disappearance, they could all stay honest enough for a judge, if it ever came to that—exactly the way he wanted it, as long as people were asking.
The integrity of the position, Cory always said. Leadership through adversity. Even UND’s playboy knew when to put his own wishes aside for his team. A laugh caught in Cam’s chest.
“I bet those slimy tech bros were in the press conferences waiting for someone to slip up so they’d have grounds to take back every dollar they paid me,” Jordan continued. “Money I needed to pay the bills they won’t touch. No one knows I know Cory and Ethan. Why would I know them? I had to talk to someone. Cory and Ethan were safe. You weren’t.”
Jordan clutched his forehead. “The best thing for everyone was for me to be the weirdo who disappeared. Then the mystery is a Jordan problem. Not a UND problem, or a football problem—just one dumb kid in the news. This team is closer to a national championship than it’s been in decades because of you. I watched you living my dream out there. I didn’t want to destroy anything else.”
Avery stirred on the couch next to him, and Cam stroked her shoulder. Somewhere in the building, surgeons with saws and drills were re-sculpting Justin’s bones to hold titanium rods in place, and the imagined high-pitched whirr of a blade whistled in his ears and drowned out all the voices but one. A pain shot through the back of his skull, and the man on his screen was suddenly two years younger, pale, sweating, and staring blankly over Cam’s shoulder.
I just felt like I had to throw up for a second. It’s fine. I’m fine. Check that out, Cam. That shock absorption stuff puffed up right where I hit the ground…
I must be getting sick or something. Stomach bug. It’s been a week and I keep randomly feeling like I’m going to throw up…
Doesn’t that feel about ten pounds lighter than your helmet? See how fast you can turn your head now? And they studied all the ways we’re most likely to fall, you know. The other companies do that, but they’re not using this lightweight silicone stuff. We’re light-years ahead…
It’s just a headache. I need to get my contacts updated. I haven’t gone in two years. What? No, that’s not why I overshot those passes to Micah, you little twerp. He’s dragging today…
They did their little checklist, and I don’t meet the criteria to sit out. Seriously, Cam. You’re worse than my mom. This shell is made of the same stuff as a Tesla. I can head-butt a car in this thing. Total game-changer…
“I’m sorry, Jordan.” Cam choked out the words. “I’m so sorry all that happened to you, and I’m sorry I’m giving you shit about it.”
“You’re doing everything I wanted you to do. Unload the rage. I can take it.”
“I’m done. There’s nothing else to say except I’m sorry.”
“It’s not over. December marks two more years left on the NDA, so keep doing what you’re doing. Talk player safety, so we build the reputation we’re going to need when I blow these guys up. I’ll call you when I need you in court.”
Cam cracked a smile for the first time in hours. “I feel so used.”
“Use it for all it’s worth. The stakes are a lot lower when you’re shilling energy drinks and whatever else you’ve picked up this year.”
“Sunglasses. The same company that does my sports glasses also makes apocalypse-proof sunglasses. You’ll see my smug mug in the spring.”
“You’ll be so pretty.”
“Avery thinks so.” He couldn’t hide his smirk.
Jordan whistled. “Justin’s beloved Avery. Is he going to be okay?”
“He is. They’re putting some rods in his leg, and if similar injuries are any indication, he’ll have a tough offseason and be back out there with us next summer.”
“I listened to that man go on about her for two years, then I vanish into the mist, and boom. Not only are you breaking my completion records, you’re wooing the girl the whole team either wanted to adopt or marry.”
“Out of curiosity, which half were you in?”
“Oh, definitely the marriage crowd.”
“Excellent. We’ll send you an invitation to the wedding a year and a half after it happens.”
Jordan poked the lens of the camera. “Now you’re just trying to look mad at me. You’re making that same dumb smile you are in every picture with her on your social media. You love to show her off.”
Cam angled his phone to his sleeping girlfriend snuggled under his UND football hoodie. He brushed a few stray hairs back from her forehead. “I do,” he said. “And for some reason, she lets me. She’s everything. And she’s coming with me when I’m done here.”
“You’re wasting your talent if you don’t play professionally for a little while, at least. That paycheck will dwarf anything you make from NIL. Do it for a few years and bank it.”
“It’s worth the injury risk to play while it’s paying for my degree. After that, no thanks. Did you hear what happened to my friend Jordan?”
“I hear the rumors got pretty creative.”
“Avery heard you’re making quite a name for yourself as an undercover influencer at a couturier in Paris. We’re planning to visit you next year on Rue de la Paix.”
“Well, she sounds perfect for you.”
“She’s no Shelby Wentz, of course.” Cam held back a laugh. “And thank God. What were you thinking? Shelby hates me for not being a good boy like you. I get a sick pleasure out of pissing her off. Can I tell her you said hi?”
“I won’t be responsible if she kills you.”
“I haven’t been paying attention to the chat since you called. Fish is talking big game, but can they really mess with all Hayden’s endorsements and stuff like that?”
“Did you see who’s in there? Four pros from his school, or five, if you count Joe before he transferred. They all have enough pull to make it hurt. If I’ve got money to throw at a student athlete, I’ll find someone a bunch of franchise quarterbacks don’t loathe. Integrity matters to these guys, and they’ll use their platform for it.”
“Yeah, but it’s not like his coach will just boot him from the team because Fish complains. They still have to win, and he’s their guy.”
“Of course not. But guys like Hamilton always get what’s coming to them, in this world or the next. He’ll find out when his sponsors drop him, or when his locker room turns on him, or when he goes to his own draft. Either way, he will find out what connections can do. This game has a long memory.”
The warning in a somber chat thread a year before rang alarm bells in his head.
Everyone associated with this game remembers that guy. Don’t make them think of him when they think of you.
Everyone remembers.
“Have they come down on anyone before?”
“You’ll have to ask Cory.”
“I hope he doesn’t leave early. It’ll be bad enough without Ethan next year.”
“I’ll be the next sage of the chat, if I’m still qualified.”
“You’ve got two years of eligibility left, and legend status. You’re perma-qualified. I heard you hacked the NIL collective bank account, gambled half of it away in Monaco, and ran off to Aruba with a supermodel.”
“Sounds like a sweet retirement package. Not if you ask Tom, I guess, but he seems to be managing.”
“I cannot believe that all this time Cory and Ethan were sitting on the fact that one of the greatest quarterbacks of all time is in there.”
“He went to UM, so he got the alert for the Big Ten. He’s been in and out of active status and helping out the college QBs for years. He gave me a hell of a pep talk when I was a freshman.”
“Are you kidding me?”
Jordan smirked, and the familiar curl of the lips brought back the cocky face that once graced banners on every lamppost on campus. He was a know-it-all starter again, lording his insider knowledge over the backup.
“You might have had an even more interesting evening if Fish had paged the SEC group. I hear they have a few lurkers you met at a certain summer camp.”
“Wait. No.” Cam dropped his phone and bobbled it trying to retrieve it from the floor.
“Isn’t it about time you got a new hat?”