“Good for you,” David said but didn’t mean it.
As David got older, he started to see why people despised certain professions. Right now, he wasn’t sure what was worse. In no particular order: lawyers, used car salesmen, TV talking heads, and he now added agents to his list.
Then he had a thought … he hated spam phone callers with a passion. If a politician promised to shut them down, they would get his vote. They’d passed a law that made the calls illegal, but the spammers weren’t afraid it would ever be enforced. The proof was in the daily calls and texts to fix his credit card or to sell him an extended car warranty.
They were also smart enough to bypass most spam software—he knew because he’d paid for a few of those apps, and eventually, they quit working.
He might authorize a few rogue drone strikes on call centers worldwide if he were elected president.
This was a good reminder of why Tami had told him that his first idea was ALWAYS wrong. But he felt he might be right on this one. There would be a bunch of hand-wringing over ‘collateral damage,’ but this was one of those issues that the majority of people would secretly agree with.
Especially when the calls stopped.
“I’ve got some more bad news. The Pac-12 is holding off on using you to promote the conference until you’re a starter.”
“Really?” David asked, trying to sound disappointed.
“I told them I doubted you’d be interested down the road if that were the case,” Kendrick said.
Maybe he wasn’t the self-centered agent David suspected. Then he did the math. Kendrick made nothing if David donated his time. But this time, Kendrick had done the right thing. This got him out of having to help the Pac-12 make more money.
Personally, he thought they were crazy not to promote him because, as a conference, they were lagging in TV
revenues compared to the big-boy conferences. If it weren’t for two big boosters, USC wouldn’t be able to make up for the shortfall left by the lack of TV revenue.
“Well, good job for not letting them play you,” David said.
“That’s all I have,” Kendrick said and hung up on David.
David had to laugh. He wondered why he let Kendrick talk him into even having an agent when he couldn’t work.
◊◊◊
After practice, David was to meet Coach Stackhouse and whoever else showed up in one of the coaches’ conference rooms for his video call. He found Rachel spinning around in her chair, obviously ready for her day to be over.
“When are you ever going to go out with me?” David asked startling her.
“The last thing I want to do is take my work home with me. You’re in conference room B.”
“Not so fast. I haven’t seen you in a few days, and I heard you went out with your office-mate and wanted to hear how it went.”
She glared at him, but David grabbed a chair and pulled it beside her so he could hear all about it.
“He made reservations for La Tequila,” Rachel said.
“I hear they have great margaritas.”
“They do. So anyway, it was packed, and we had to go to the bar before we could be seated. He orders a pitcher of said margaritas. While we wait, he tells me he’s a warlock.”
“The fuck you say?” David asks with a big grin.
“Exactly,” Rachel said, and he could see she was trying not to grin. “It gets better. He tells me he cast a love spell to get his last girlfriend.”
“See, this is why you should date me.”
“Then he shares the spell. On a full moon, he cut his nut sack to draw blood, which he saved and put into her drink at a bar. He bragged that she was his bitch now.”
“You’re telling me that they’re still dating?” David asked in disbelief.
“Oh no,” Rachel said, shaking her head. “She dumped him, but he claims she’s still desperately in love with him.
He said he figured I could act as her stand-in until she came running back.”
“I hope you ordered the most expensive item on the menu.”
“Turns out he didn’t really have reservations and that our wait would be like three hours. His buddy who worked there was supposed to hook him up, but the guy got fired for stealing tips the night before. He offered to take me to his friend’s house because the friend had eaten there and swore that he could make anything on the menu. I told him it would be best if he just paid the tab and left. He paid and was hurt when I said I’d get an Uber home.”
“That was probably for the best.”
“It would have been if that hadn’t left me depressed with a pitcher to finish on my own. One of the waitstaff overheard most of what he said, and they brought me appetizers on the house. Their food is outstanding.”
“Why don’t we head over and eat there after my meeting?” David asked.
“We’ll never get in.”
“When you’re with David A. Dawson, you don’t need no stinking reservations.”
“I’d like to try their food if you’re serious,” Rachel said, agreeing to go on a date.
David was early for his call, so he handed his phone to Rachel so she could see his kids’ video from Halloween.
“They did pretty well at first,” David said as they did the dance Cassidy had taught them, “And then it became a free-for-all.”
“I want your dick,” Rachel said.
This was going much better than he expected. Maybe his kid’s dancing was an aphrodisiac to make women want Mr.
Happy.
Rachel looked up from the phone and showed him the text message.
“Who’s Wren?” Rachel asked.
David didn’t even try to explain as Rachel packed up her stuff and left. Maybe Wren would go with him to La Tequila.
◊◊◊
David had been running workouts just for Notre Dame, so he wasn’t all that surprised when almost the entire offense showed up for the call. Coach Stackhouse moved them to a bigger room when the coaching staff filed into the back of the room.
“It looks like we have a crowd,” Coach Mason said when he came on.
Coach Hope joined them, and they got to work.
“We think we have a way to beat the Irish,” Coach Mason announced.
The room approved of that pronouncement.
“It all has to do with how sound they are on defense.
They don’t fall for misdirection or tricks because they’re all veterans and have been well-coached. They’ve seen almost everything, and don’t panic,” Coach Hope said.
“I want to show you some plays that the guy at Mississippi State is running,” Coach Mason said.
“We saw that everyone the Irish played tried to run their offense perfectly. Screw that. With a few modifications to how you run your stuff, all your plays will be problems for them,” Coach Hope said.
“Let me explain …” Coach Mason said.
Notre Dame played off the ball on the wideouts to try to make opponents take the easy catch in front of them. They would then close and tackle with minimal gains.
Mississippi State sent everyone eligible to catch a ball thirty yards downfield and spread the receivers from sideline to sideline. The quarterback had no idea who he was going to throw to, so they had no way of making a read on where the play would go. Their offensive line did a great job of protecting the quarterback while giving their receivers time to get in position.
Then it got to a mad-scientist level of deviousness.
Instead of throwing to a receiver, the quarterback threw to where he saw green grass. The receivers went and got the ball. The key was that the quarterback and receiver had to make the same decision. It was as simple as reading the defense and throwing where they weren’t. The added bonus was that since the receiver had to go get it, they were already running at full speed when they caught the ball. It was similar to the offense that Washington State ran, though MSU seemed to be better at executing it.