“Distraction?” he asked, and she nodded. “That sucks.”
“It gets better. Dare and Corvus wanted to get some real Mexican food, so I took them to that taco place you like.”
“The one in the sketchy neighborhood?” he asked with a bit of worry in his voice.
“They got propositioned. I’m pretty sure Corvus took the girl up on her offer.”
“You don’t know for sure?”
“I wasn’t about to go into the alley and watch,” she said to draw him a graphic picture.
David rubbed his temple, trying to make the sudden headache go away. He understood now how his mom used to get them when he did something stupid. The two boys were old enough to make their own decisions, but he somehow felt responsible for keeping them safe.
“Did Dare?” he asked.
“No. This was before Veronica told him about her trip.”
“No more tacos for those two,” he ordered.
“Maybe the housekeeper could …”
“No! They can use their hands like most guys do while they’re here.”
When they’d lived in the dorm, Alex had paid their housekeeper extra for special services. David had walked in on his roommate getting head more than once. Alex was much more worldly than these two, even though it didn’t sound like it right now.
“How did that work for you once you started to have sex?” Cassidy asked.
He gave her a dirty look and left her chuckling. David might not be the best example of circumspect behavior.
He did have one evil thought. When he lost his virginity, his mom had quickly found out. David still shuddered when he relived her taking him to buy condoms. Added to that, the girl had shared with his mother how big his dick was. His mom had stuck the dagger in and twisted it with her comment that ‘at least she didn’t call you “pencil dick.”’
Maybe Dare’s mom should be filled in on Veronica. Then again, the kid would probably die if his mother discovered her little boy was now a man. Thinking back, David might have helped dig the hole if he knew what would happen once his mother learned of his activities.
◊◊◊
David was given a note by one of the team managers. He was being summoned to Coach Clayton’s office. He had a pretty good idea what the meeting was about.
Over the last few days, they’d been testing the VR stuff. Yesterday, Dare had announced that it was time to do full-scale testing. David had to agree because what he’d been able to see in the latest sessions wowed him.
They’d filmed him working with his former high school teammate, Bill Callaway. Bill was penciled in as either a wide receiver or slotback this fall and was willing to practice with anyone who would throw him passes. They’d focused on running fade routes into the end zone since that was where the cameras were set up.
By the time David had finished practice and spent some stress-relief time with Colleen, Dare had sent him a text saying the practice session had been rendered and was ready for him.
As soon as David put on the headgear, he was hooked. He had selfishly checked himself out first, which turned out to be a massive mistake. David would watch thousands of hours of game and practice footage of himself throwing a football. This was utterly different when he was able to see each pass from every angle.
Being a student of the game, David had a better idea of how a quarterback should throw a ball than most. When he saw himself in VR, David discovered was that he wasn’t nearly as good as he thought he was. David found hundreds of nitpicky things that all added up to him only being average.
If he got nothing else from this VR equipment, this would be enough. It was a wake-up call that if he expected his teammates to bust their butts to stack days, he had to as well. To this point, he’d thought he had been.
David was concerned enough that he’d reached out to his former quarterback coach, Bo Harrington. Bo’s wife wasn’t thrilled that the call came at three in the morning their time … which David felt terrible about since he hadn’t realized he’d been on the system that long. When she finally woke her husband up, he’d been more understanding.
David promised to ship him a tablet and VR headgear so he could see what David was talking about. In return, Bo made David promise that once Dare and Corvus had everything working, Western Michigan would be the second school to get the VR system.
The following day, David had called Jaxson Pettis, who reached out to Hank Manalo to install cameras around all the practice fields.
Someone—Matt Long—had tattled. Coach Clayton had come out to stop the installation, but the facilities manager held his ground, saying he worked for the athletic department, not Coach Clayton. It seemed that was news to the head coach.
That was when David’s name was mentioned. When David found out, he’d called the athletic director to warn Jaxson that he might get a call from his head football coach. The AD had made David promise to show him the software, which was planned for later that day. He suggested that David invite Coach Clayton to that demonstration.
◊◊◊
“The red seven will go on the black eight,” David said.
“Ah!”
“Ow!”
When David came in, Rachel was sitting out in front of the coaches’ offices, playing solitaire on her phone. She hadn’t heard him, so he’d walked behind her chair to see if she was doing something naughty. When he’d offered his helpful suggestion, she’d freaked out, and somehow her phone had shot out of her hand and hit him under his right eye.
“If you broke my phone …”
“What is it with you and your made-up threats?” David asked, looking injured.
“You are so infuriating sometimes. No wonder Coach Clayton is talking about sending you back to play defense.”
He gave her a confused look, and Rachel quickly realized that she shouldn’t have said anything.
“Why don’t you let Coach Clayton tell me that?” David suggested.
“He said to send you right in,” she responded once she’d gathered her thoughts.
“Thank you,” he said and started to walk away but stopped. “Is your phone working?”
She looked down at it and tried a few things.
“It’s fine.”
David nodded and then went to face his head coach.
◊◊◊
David found the coach’s door closed, so he knocked.
“Enter!”
David opened the door and found the head coach was with his offensive, defensive, and recruiting coordinators.
“Have a seat. I think we need to clear the air,” Coach Clayton said.
David sat down and noted that the three coordinators looked uncomfortable, while Coach Clayton put on his best used-car-salesman persona.
It was funny how David had learned to read people. When he was younger, he was only aware of what affected him. David was always the last to know stuff, like if two people were interested in each other. Since he started acting, he’d become acutely mindful of his surroundings and the people in them. He’d had to learn that for his craft.
Coach Clayton was about to sell him something.
“Bryant tells me that you’ve been helping him with recruiting, that you’ve also gotten the freshmen and a few others coming to his office to ask how they can help, too. Now, I’m not big on social media—that’s what I pay Bryant for—but he’s shared that you’ve become a ‘brand ambassador’ for USC football, which has him excited. He tells me that your little TV show on the Internet has become a must-see for the kids we’re after.
“Coach Farrow said that you had a three-minute conversation with Todd Davis, and he couldn’t wait to sign. Now Coach Thomas is all but having kittens because you talked to Colt Macklin, and he wants to come to our football camp. When he’d indicated that he was a heavy Alabama or Clemson lean, we’d backed off.
“I’ve also been told that you organized additional voluntary workouts, and the whole freshman class has been attending, along with many of the backups. What made us realize that you were vital was that when you went to Elite 11, only the freshmen worked out on their own.