Junior Year Box Set

“Ladies, that’s my cue. I’ll be back at one if you want to hang out,” I said, and then hurried off to the bus.

For some reason, Chuck wouldn’t sit with me.

◊◊◊

When the bus came back at one, someone must have clued-in my girl friends as to what had transpired this morning. How could I tell? They were all waiting for me and dressed to impress. I had to laugh when Roc ducked his head and hurried to the elevators. I’d found my little rat.

As if on cue, the bevy of beauties from this morning strolled out of a conference room.

Yuri sidled up next to me.

“Incoming. I can’t wait to see what happens,” he said.

I ignored them, walked up to Brook, and kissed her.

“David’s giving out kisses,” Cassidy announced, and almost knocked Brook down to get her turn.

After I’d kissed all my girls, I turned to the ones I met this morning.

“Do you girls want a turn?” I asked.

Cassidy chose that moment to find the nerve bundle under my left arm.

“Oof,” I said as all the air left my lungs from the pain.

“We’ll take them to lunch while you go shower,” Tracy informed me.

I watched as they all walked to the sandwich shop.

I suddenly had twenty-plus new best friends, aka teammates, wanting to go to lunch with me.

◊◊◊

It turned out the Mexican beauties were at the hotel because they’d gotten the chance to shoot a calendar of undiscovered women. They all wanted to get into modeling, and some had traveled several hundred miles to get the exposure. The man sponsoring the calendar was just paying for their travel and lodging while they were here. It sounded a little sketchy to me, so I called Adrienne.

“Guess what I found for you?” I asked when Tyler answered.

“I saw your tiger cubs. They’re so cute.”

“That was so yesterday. I found you twelve models.”

I heard Adrienne in the background.

“Hey, David says he found us twelve models,” Tyler told her.

“Have him send over pictures.”

“I heard her,” I told Tyler. “Bra and panties?”

“You know the drill. She’s busy working with a client. It might be a day or so for her to get back to you.”

“No problem,” I said, and hung up.

I guess I didn’t blame these girls for thinking I was just some perv. Halle pulled out her tablet and showed them my modeling pictures and explained who I was. That was when they put together that I’d been in a couple movies. I guess I should have led with that.

◊◊◊

“Let me get this straight: they’re going to come up to your room and strip down to their bra and panties. And then you’re going to take their picture,” Allard said after the girls had all left.

“Yeah. I need to send the pictures to a modeling agency so they can see the girls’ bodies better.”

“And you date Halle James?” Shane asked.

“I thought you all knew that,” I said to my teammates.

“I thought they were pulling our legs,” Logan said, tilting his head towards Roc, Yuri, and Phil.

“Can you adopt me?” Tristan asked.

“Better yet, do you need help taking the pictures?” Daz asked.

“How about I invite them to the game and then for ice cream afterward? Maybe you can man-up and talk to them,” I suggested.

They all gave me the stink eye. I just shrugged.

◊◊◊

Tracy ended up taking the pictures with Pam’s help. Fritz had stepped in and nixed my plans. I was surprised my mom hadn’t heard about it. She had gone shopping with several of the moms while Dad was off playing golf. So, the parental units hadn’t heard anything, yet.

While Tracy and Pam were playing amateur photographer, I grabbed a group of guys, and we went to play a little football.

Coach Mason wanted me to work on fade passes. The name of the pass is misleading. The pass is mostly a vertical pass upfield of medium distance. From the name, you would assume that the receiver runs straight up the field and then moves toward, or fades, to the sideline. People mistakenly think the quarterback will throw the ball towards the sideline.

The play is designed to be thrown against press man coverage. That means the defender is one-on-one with the receiver and plays him tightly. The trick to the play is that the receiver wants to basically run at the defender and get him to move out of the way. The receiver wants to have at least six to seven yards between himself and the sideline. As the receiver runs with the defender, the receiver leans into the defender a little. That would seem to be counterintuitive. You, as the receiver, want to be near the defender before breaking away at the last moment, and never too early. This lean will get the defender’s center of gravity and momentum going in the wrong direction.

The ‘fade’ portion of the play comes in once the football has been thrown, but not before. The receiver will ‘fade’ to the ball and catch it at its highest point. Done correctly, it’s all but unstoppable.