Chapter 37

Bryant had given David a call. He reported that the defensive coaches had reviewed game film from Hutchinson Community College and were impressed with Dequan Bailey. They’d contacted the young man and were setting up a campus visit for him.

Then he asked David where he was taking the recruits this weekend, as it had somehow fallen to David to figure out their entertainment. At the start of the year, he would’ve just asked Crystal where the next frat party was. But after the last one he’d attended—where Lars had forced a pledge to drink, and he and Crystal got into a fight about it—he wasn’t going there.

The other easy option was to take them to the football apartments, but he was worried about what those Neanderthals would get up to. He liked his teammates, but mix testosterone and alcohol, and the odds of a recruit getting his ass kicked were better than even.

He knew that Zak Verwood owed him for killing him off his soap, but after the last party slash orgy, he had to rethink bringing recruits to Zak’s place. They were venturing into Louisville basketball scandal territory. Granted, no one paid anyone to have sex, like the Louisville incident, but if word were to get out ... Let’s just say it wouldn’t be good.

David worried, even though he’d ensured the recruits all received condoms on their visit. That was something a recruit would likely remember about their visit to USC. It just screamed, ‘I might get laid,’ which every teenage boy wanted more than anything else.

Then he had an idea.

“Wakey, wakey,” David said to Wren. “I’m skipping running this morning after the marathon session you put me through last night. Take a shower, and we’ll go down for breakfast.”

“Care to join me?” she asked.

David shook his head vigorously ‘no.’

“I have stuff to do today, and I’m afraid of what that might start.”

He heard Wren call him a ‘wimp’ under her breath, but he had selective hearing this morning and ignored her challenge. He left Wren to get cleaned up and went out to the main room to find Alex and Chloe drinking coffee.

“I never got my turn,” Chloe complained.

“With great power comes great responsibility,” David said, quoting the Peter Parker principle from the Spider-Man comics. “Besides, I need to share that knowledge with Alex so he can help you achieve a massive orgasm whenever you want one.”

“My boyfriend is hot enough, and I don’t need him to know some secret David Dawson sex moves so he can sleep his way through the USC student body.”

“Now, hold on there,” Alex said to Chloe. Then he turned to David and stage-whispered, “You never told me your skills could help us sleep our way through the ... you know.”

“Please, David has zero skill. No girl would even look at that weirdo if he weren’t a pretty boy,” Chloe teased.

“This conversation is dangerously close to going somewhere none of us wants,” David said. “Instead, send a message to your sister saying I want the floor to meet us for breakfast. And have her inform Vanessa.”

Nat (aka Squeak) was Alex’s twin sister, who lived in the room at the other end of the hallway. She was also a social butterfly who knew everyone on the floor. Vanessa Pruitt was their resident assistant, aka RA.

“What for?” Alex asked.

“We’re having a floor party Saturday.”

Wren came out wearing one of his football jerseys and what looked like nothing else.

“Damn,” Alex drawled.

“You might want to borrow a pair of my shorts or sweatpants if you plan on going out in public,” David suggested.

“I have to agree,” Chloe said, adding her take with raised eyebrows.

Wren gave David a knowing look that made Mr. Happy start to wake up.

“Want to help me pick something out?” Wren asked.

Alex nearly swallowed his tongue.

“Nice try, but I really do have stuff to do today.”

Wren swayed her hips as she returned to his room. When she came back out, she wore a pair of his sweats that looked hot on her, even though they were way too big.

When they arrived at the cafeteria, it was packed with people from their floor. Nat and Vanessa were standing in a corner, surveying the assemblage. Once David’s group got their food and found a table, Nat and Vanessa joined them, and Nat began.

“Last year, each floor had a party and invited the rest of the dorm. Ours was a pajama party, which was a huge success. David asked me if we could have another one this Saturday.”

“I would bring a handful of football recruits and their hosts to the party. It will give them a chance to see what college life is about,” David said.

“I’ve talked to the other RAs, and they’ve agreed to allow the party as long as it’s mostly Sandoval residents,” Vanessa said. “While that’s the rule, I’m okay with a few recruits, but we don’t want this to turn into something that gets out of control.

“I want to remind you that USC is officially a dry campus. That said, the reality is something different, and I’m not going to deny reality. We just ask that if you’re going to drink, you do it in moderation.”

David knew their party wouldn’t get flooded with uninvited outsiders because of the extra security. They had people like Alex, Nat, and David living there. Security was the reason why Alex and Nat’s father spent the money to ensure his kids had a safe place to live.

“Is everyone in agreement?” Nat asked.

No one disagreed, so the party was on.

“Now, I need volunteers to help plan and organize stuff,” Nat said.

David and Alex both bailed, but Nat said they could make a donation to pay for alcohol instead of work. That was fine with the boys. They also saw that most of the floor residents had ‘volunteered.’ Nat would have plenty of help.

David had to drive to the studio to film his final scene for The Young and the Wild. He was impressed when they had a parking spot with his name on it right next to the door he was supposed to go in. Cassidy had driven so she and Greg could meet the cast.

When the cast and crew saw that David was letting Cassidy and Greg get pictures with the other actors, they joined in, which stopped all work. Their director, Abigail, also wanted a few photos, so she pushed back filming to accommodate the personal time.

Greg and Cassidy became very popular, as they were willing to share David stories. It reminded him of the wrap days at movies he’d been in. Everyone promised to keep in touch, but very few followed through.

“There’s the man who made all this possible,” Kendrick said as he walked in with Zak and Bec.

“Dude!” Zak said as he came up and gave David a big hug. “Thanks for recommending me.”

David’s eyes shifted, and he saw Kendrick give a micro-shake of his head to tell David not to say anything.

“Bec told me she was sick of you sitting around the house, complaining that no one will hire you,” David said.

The four of them got their pictures taken together, and then it was time for the actors to go to makeup.

“He will not put a gun to the back of my head,” David said.

“It has blanks in it,” Zak argued.

“That didn’t help Laurent Vance. He accidentally killed himself trying to make that very point to me,” David said, not budging.

“That one actor accidentally killed someone when the prop gun had live rounds in it,” Kendrick said, finally becoming helpful.

“How about we do the scene with an empty gun and add the sound effects afterward?” Abigail said.

“I’ll check the gun to make sure it’s empty and keep it in my possession until the scene so it’s safe,” Cassidy said.

“I’ll agree to that,” David finally said.

Thirty minutes later, they were ready to go. David talked quietly with Abigail and Cassidy about how he would like the scene to go.

In the scene, the entire main cast was at Vic’s place, hanging out. David’s character, Mick, had brought Kirsten, played by Bec.

“We’re doing this in one take,” Abigail announced. “Make sure you hit your marks.”

The scene started with everyone sitting around, talking.

“And then—” Nicki was interrupted as Zak’s character, Kody Franklin, burst into the room, waving a gun.

“I knew it! You’re cheating on me with this asshole?!” Zak yelled and looked down his nose at David.

“It’s just sex,” Mick said.

“Kody, don’t do anything stupid,” Kirsten said as she tried to get between Mick and Kody.

Kody pushed his wife aside and brought the gun up to point at Mick’s chest. A gunshot rang out, and Mick jerked and slumped over. All the girls screamed in surprise as Forest yelled for someone to call 911. When Mick went down, blood began to pour all over the floor, and it was total pandemonium.

“HOLY CRAP, DUDE!” Kody screamed. “I didn’t mean it!”

“And ... cut!” Abigail called out.

The whole room suddenly froze. A moment later, David sat up with his shirt covered in fake blood and asked, “Was I believable?”

Then he explained what they’d done. Cassidy had fired a blank off-screen, hoping everyone would react as they had, and the stunt team had placed a blood bag under his shirt to be broken remotely. The demand for one take was because if the cast knew it was coming, they would have reacted differently. Abigail didn’t want them to act; she wanted a genuine reaction.

Zak was not amused and had to be given an Ativan to calm down. He’d believed he’d killed his friend. Even when David sat up, very much alive, Zak’s mind told him he was a murderer.

Abigail played it back and did a fist pump when she saw they’d captured it on film. David agreed that it looked realistic.

It would cause the show’s fans to erupt, similar to when Game of Thrones killed off one of their leads early on. People lost their minds, and the reactions were all over social media. Of course, that was why Game of Thrones had been so popular. You never knew what would happen next.

Before David could leave, they had one last shot of him in a coffin as the lid closed. It would be used when they filmed his funeral. With that, he was done with the soap.

Coach Mason had sent over the plays he wanted them to practice for the Notre Dame game. Two of them harkened back to David’s high school days: the onside kick and the multiple-option play. He was surprised they hadn’t included going for it on fourth down.

Coach Hope had gotten the idea from his staff. They’d found a high school coach in Arkansas who had the unorthodox approach of never punting and made extensive use of multiple-option plays. In twelve years of coaching, the man had taken his team to the state championship game six times, winning it five. He had a career record of 152–24–1 using this system, even though his team often wasn’t the most talented on the field.

Attempting to convert every fourth down might not be the norm, but Coach Hope had his assistants research it, and the numbers backed it. They’d sprung this approach on a national powerhouse, Broadview Academy. It had been a nationally televised high school game on ESPN, with Lincoln High a two-score underdog. The Bulldogs had won the game easily.

‘Multiple option’ referred to a play with more than two people touching the ball. An example might be the quarterback pitching the ball to the tailback and following the play upfield. Before the tailback was tackled, he would toss the ball back to the quarterback, the team’s best ball handler.

This caused two enormous problems for the defense. They designed their schemes to stop one player. It was why the flea flicker was such a potent trick play. That was where they handed off to the running back, causing the defense to rush forward to stop the run. Then the running back stopped and tossed the ball back to the quarterback, who would throw deep to a wide-open receiver.

At Lincoln High, they took it a step further and would have David trail the play and be the man the running back tossed the ball to. That gave the defense a second problem: the quarterback—the team’s surest ball handler and possibly their best runner—was then loose in the secondary. David could keep the ball, toss it to another running back, or throw a backward pass to a receiver across the field.

The Bulldogs had discovered that the more times the ball changed hands, the more likely they’d score.

The guys took to the new approaches with gusto. Everyone was reminded of sandlot football when they were kids; it was all about having fun. But David warned them they would have to practice the new plays for them to work. He had to talk to Coach Stackhouse to get the kicking team to work on onside kicks, especially Alex, who’d never attempted an onside kick. He also warned that they couldn’t unveil any of this until they played Notre Dame, or the Irish would have time to prepare counters to this approach.

Coach Thomas asked David to stop by before he went home for the day.

“My younger brother coached against the guy in Arkansas who made those lateral plays popular. He said it was a nightmare to defend.”

“I didn’t know you had a brother in coaching.”

“I’m the oldest of three and the third generation of coaches. My grandfather was a defensive coordinator at Army for many years. Dad was a high school coach, which got me and my brothers all involved in coaching,” Coach Thomas shared.

“Is your son going to be a coach?” David asked.

“Mikey is five and wants to be Stryker.”

David shook his head at having another fan.

“I can get you a signed poster, if you’d like.”

“That’d be great, thanks. In all honesty, I hope he doesn’t become a coach. Coaching has turned into a full-time gig. Back in the day, we would get time off to spend with family. I’m seriously considering taking some time off or retiring after the season. I’m not sure I want to pack up once again and move my family.”

David could understand that. Once his kids got into school, he hoped they could find some stability and not have to move. How he was going to accomplish that was a plan in progress.