Junior Year Box Set

Finally, I wondered why I bothered to help Jan with her issues. I guess the best answer was that she was part of the team, so to speak. I might not be friends with everyone, but if they were in need, I’d help them. The big question was, did Jan really want my help? The way she broke down and cried in my room Thursday night seemed to indicate that she was hurting. I grudgingly decided I needed to follow through on this. I think a good first step was putting Yuri on the case. He seemed to be okay with how everything had gone last night if the grin on his face was any indication.

Then there was the coming week. We would find out how we were seeded in the State Football Tournament and who our opponent would be on Wednesday. The All-Conference Team would also be announced. After the way they’d treated underclassmen, I really didn’t care about those awards.

I smiled when I realized I was almost home. When my mind was traveling a million miles an hour, I completely forgot about my run. I would need to break out the weighted vest Bo had given me after the season so I could get serious about improving. If I wanted to get better, I needed to push myself.

◊◊◊

When I got back from church, I sent a text to Tami, and we jumped onto video chat.

“We all watched your game. You did well. Damion was jealous of the new kid who caught all the passes,” she said.

“You must mean Roc. You remember him. He played little league with us and was homeschooled. We went to his farm for his birthday.”

“You mean little Rockefeller? He’s grown up.”

“Zoe’s his sister,” I said because she knew Zoe and it would confirm who Roc was.

In the back of my mind, I was concerned that Tami was anywhere near Damion. I’d warned Teddy Wesleyan about him after his two instances of trouble with women at the Elite Football Camp in Houston, Texas. He was not the kind of person I wanted anywhere near Tami.

“You mean the Zoe you go out with?”

“Yes, that Zoe. I took Kyle and Mac to their farm yesterday, and we rode horses. Kyle almost came home with a kitten, but I was afraid of what Greg would do to me if I let him have it.”

“You’re growing up,” Tami teased me.

“Maybe.”

We talked about school and other safe topics before I mustered the guts to ask about Damion.

“You said Damion watched the game with you,” I said.

“I’ve been helping him since he’s a scholarship kid.”

“Do you remember what happened at the Houston football camp?” I asked.

“He hit on me at first, but I told him what you’d do to him if he pushed it,” Tami giggled.

For some reason, that didn’t make me feel better. She read my expression and changed the topic. From the look she gave me, I didn’t expect I’d enjoy this.

“There’s a video blog you need to see,” Tami said, and then sent me the link.

The title of the blog was, ‘David Dawson—Swagger or Douche?’

I watched the video with Tami, who thought it was funny. If it hadn’t been about me, I would have voted for total douchebag. It showed me in various interviews and my antics on the field as I danced around and taunted other players. The ones that tipped the scale were of me busting a pose in an interview and then the Halloween one. Even though they were done in fun, it’s a different story when a mirror is held up so you can see what others saw.

The blog included a poll, and it was running 82% towards my douchedom. I wondered if that was like a dukedom. Did I get a crown with that? Of course, that thought just highlighted that I’d been acting like a real douche.

“Do I really come off that bad?” I asked.

That made Tami laugh even harder. At least she thought it was funny and hadn’t ripped me a new one. I copied the link and sent it to Frank Ingram, my PR agent. He’d been unequivocal when he returned to LA that if I found anything like this, I needed to send it to him as soon as possible.

Tami could tell I wasn’t happy and told me to call her when I was in a better mood. She knew I wasn’t mad at her. I would have to thank her for pointing it out, as much as that pained me.

I called Todd. He’d seen a sports medicine doctor who worked for the Colts before going home. It looked like a slight tear to his lateral meniscus. They wanted to do surgery to clean it up and help it heal. They told him he could expect three to six months of rehab, and he needed to take it easy until then. All indications were that he would be able to play football at the same level after the recovery.

“Did you get a chance to see the play yet?” I asked.

“No. My parents told me they wanted only positive things around me to help my recovery.”

“You might want to watch it. The kid who hit you was knee-hunting on that play. He tried to take me out, but when I pushed him to get out of his way, he injured you.”