2. Camden
Camden
Three years after draft night, Camden limped through the stadium tunnel with a scratched helmet hanging from his right hand and sweat cooling beneath his pads.
His cleats scraped over the concrete in an uneven rhythm, each step jarring the shoulder that had taken the worst of the fourth quarter.
Liniment cut through the stale stadium air, strong enough to taste at the back of his throat.
All he wanted was the locker room, the trainers, and enough ice to make the joint stop throbbing.
He found the lower buckle on his pads with his left hand and tugged. The strap caught on the sweat-soaked gear.
“Come on,” he muttered.
The double doors waited ahead, a strip of brighter light glowing beneath them. Beyond those doors sat the medical staff and the submersion tubs. No cameras. No sponsor handshakes. No one asking him to explain a coverage audible he had already explained twice on national television.
A figure stepped into his path.
Marcus planted himself between Camden and the doors as if the tunnel belonged to him.
“Hold up, son. Let me look at you.”
Camden kept his hand on the buckle. “Look while I walk. Trainers are waiting.”
Marcus ignored the invitation to move and gave him a once-over instead, taking in the grass streaks across his pants, the scrape along his forearm, the sweat running from his hairline. Then his father broke into a grin and slapped him square on the shoulder pad.
Pain flared beneath the plastic.
Camden’s fingers slipped from the buckle.
“You dismantled that zero-blitz,” Marcus said. “They couldn’t even reach you inside the pocket.”
The praise should have landed better. Three years ago, Camden would have lived on that sentence for a week.
Marcus had spent half of Camden’s childhood drilling pocket awareness into him, barking footwork corrections from folding chairs, turning every bad rep into another reason to stay after sunset.
Tonight, the only thing Camden could think about was the tub on the other side of those doors.
“Thanks, Dad.” He shifted the helmet against his palm and rolled the injured shoulder as far as the pads allowed. Bad idea. “But my rotator cuff is killing me. I need the submersion tub before this thing decides it’s done for the night.”
Marcus’s grin faded into the business expression Camden knew better than most defensive fronts.
“Which side took the worst of it?”
Camden stared at him.
“The one you just slapped.”
Marcus glanced at the pad, then back at Camden’s face. “You survived.”
“That isn’t the medical standard.”
“It is mine.”
Camden hooked his thumb under the stubborn buckle again. The strap came loose this time, giving him a little room beneath the gear. Turf fibers still clung to the scrape on his forearm, embedded in the raw skin from the third-quarter hit that had sent him skidding past the sideline numbers.
He wanted a shower almost as much as he wanted the ice.
Ten minutes alone would be nice.
Marcus stepped sideways when Camden tried to angle toward the doors.
There it was.
Not congratulations. Not concern. A block.
Camden stopped rather than shoulder through his own father. “What?”
“Make the trainers hold off for ten minutes.”
Camden looked past him toward the doors.
Ten minutes.
The number sounded harmless enough until Marcus said it.
“The corporate team just arrived from Manhattan,” his father continued. “Chloe is waiting with them. We need the postgame material before the midnight embargo lifts.”
Camden let his hand drop from the loosened buckle.
Of course.
The game had ended, but Marcus’s clock had not.
Somewhere in the stadium, people who had spent the evening in clean clothes were waiting to photograph exactly how ruined Camden looked after earning the win.
Sweat, scrapes, grass, maybe a little blood if the lighting caught it.
Authenticity packaged before anyone had time to wash it off.
“I just took hits for three hours.”
“Which is why they need you now.”
“My shoulder needs ice.”
“And it will get ice.”
“After the campaign gets its pound of flesh.”
Marcus gave him a look that said Camden was being dramatic, though he kept the thought to himself. “Ten minutes. They flew in from Manhattan for this window, and Chloe has another call before midnight. Give them what they came for.”
The helmet shifted against Camden’s damp palm. He tightened his grip before it could slide.
There had always been another ten minutes.
Another introduction. Another executive. Another dinner that could not move because flights, money, contracts, press schedules, and a dozen people Camden never met had somehow arranged their lives around his face.
Marcus had built most of that machine before Camden knew enough to understand what it cost. The endorsements, the private facilities, the staff who handled everything from travel to security—his father had turned a kid with an arm and a football into a career that employed half a small company.
Camden knew the debt.
He also knew what waited at home once the noise stopped.
Tess hated this part of it. She always had.
The cameras, the manufactured access, the way strangers talked about him as if his body belonged to the franchise long after the final whistle.
That was why he kept the two worlds apart.
Marcus could have the tunnel. The sponsors could have the sweat and the jersey and whatever battered image sold shoes.
They didn’t get the house.
They didn’t get her.
He held tightly to that line.
Camden glanced once more at the locker-room doors, then let his hand fall away from the buckle.
“How long?”
Marcus’s answer came without hesitation.
“Ten minutes.”
Camden shifted the helmet under his arm and stood there in the concrete tunnel with liniment in the air, turf buried in his scraped skin, and the medical room waiting on the other side of his father’s shoulder.
The ice bath could wait ten minutes.
Marcus hooked a hand over the edge of Camden’s shoulder pad before he could change his mind and reach for the locker-room doors.
“This way.”
Camden let himself be turned; fighting the setup would only take longer.
The helmet stayed tucked against his side, its shell slick beneath his palm, while Marcus steered him away from the medical wing and into a recessed media alcove.
Portable LED panels washed the space in white glare.
A handheld camera rig swept across him before he had both feet inside.
“You said ten minutes,” Camden said. “Start the clock.”
“Then stop fighting the setup and give them something usable.”
The camera operator backed toward a taped position on the floor and pointed at Camden’s helmet. “Keep that with you. Postgame damage is the whole point.”
Camden looked down at himself. Sweat had darkened the jersey under his pads, grass clung to one knee, and grit still marked the scrape on his forearm. Apparently none of that qualified as a reason to clean up. It qualified as content.
Across the alcove, Chloe Kensington stood beneath the lights in a jersey dress built for a billboard rather than a stadium corridor. Her hair fell over one shoulder, untouched by the humidity hanging around Camden’s uniform. Vanilla perfume cut through sweat and liniment.
“Look at the survivor,” she said. “I swore that defensive line was going to fold you in half during the fourth quarter.”
Camden shifted the helmet lower against his hip. “They came close. Let’s roll the digital promo. I need a bag of ice on this knee before the joint seizes.”
His shoulder had first claim on the tub, but the knee had started stiffening during the walk off the field. One injury masked the next until the final whistle blew.
Chloe appraised him, lingering on the grass streaks and the loosened buckle beneath his pads. “You look like hell.”
“That’s apparently the concept.”
“Exactly,” the content creator said. He circled to Camden’s other side, lifting the rig until the lens sat level with their faces. “Don’t clean him up. I want the contrast.”
The campaign had spent weeks selling him as some impossible combination of violence and polish. Now the people paid to manufacture that image wanted the bruises before ice took the swelling down and a shower washed the field off him.
Take the picture. Get to the tub.
Marcus moved behind the camera operator and pointed toward the mark. “Step in. We’re burning time.”
Camden planted his cleats where directed. The lights flattened the shadows in front of him, and the camera drifted from his helmet to his face, then over to Chloe. She stepped onto the neighboring mark, close enough for the perfume to mask the liniment again.
The creator lowered the rig, frowned at the space between them, then lifted it back up. “No. Kill the negative space. I need high fashion pressed against fresh turf damage. That’s the campaign. Give me the crossover chemistry.”
Camden looked at him. “You want us closer.”
“I want you in the same shot without an airport runway between you.”
Chloe shifted toward him. “We can survive that much.”
“Speak for yourself.” Camden adjusted his stance as his knee protested. “I’m on borrowed parts right now.”
She tipped her chin toward the helmet. “At least you brought a prop.”
“This prop took a linebacker to the face.”
The creator waved a hand sharply. “Good. Keep that energy. Chloe, hold there. Camden, shoulders up. You’re not waiting for treatment in this shot.”
Marcus echoed from behind the rig. “Shoulders up. Give him the campaign shot.”
Camden resisted the urge to look back toward the locker room. Ten minutes. That was the agreement. He could stand under a few lights, let Chloe occupy a strip of floor beside him, and get out before somebody decided the content needed an executive handshake.
Tess understood this part of the job. She hated the circus, but she understood the difference between the circus and their life. Chloe was a campaign partner. The cameras were work. Home was real.
He held firmly to that line.