Chapter 1

Preseason

By the time Maris Donovan turned into the athletics lot, the campus was only half awake.

The sky still held that pale, washed-out blue that came right before full morning, and the air had the thick Florida warmth that made even early hours feel lived in. Most students would not be back for another week, but football had its own calendar, its own gravity. It always came first. It always came early.

She parked beside a row of staff cars and sat there for a moment with both hands still on the wheel.

The stadium rose in the distance, quiet for now, but still impossible to ignore. Even empty, it looked important. Like it knew exactly what it was to everyone around it. The place had a kind of arrogance to it, a certainty. In a few days it would be full of noise and lights and chants and people acting like the fate of the universe depended on third down conversions. But this morning it was all steel and shadow and waiting.

Maris reached for her iced coffee from the cup holder, took a sip that was more melted than cold, and checked her phone.

Three new emails.

Two group texts.

One schedule update from the athletics media coordinator, already marked urgent.

She smiled a little.

Some things never changed.

She grabbed her tote bag from the passenger seat, slung her camera over her shoulder, and climbed out into the heat. The pavement already held the sun. Her sneakers made soft hollow sounds as she crossed toward the media entrance, passing banners with players’ faces stretched ten feet tall across the outside walls. Their eyes were too sharp, their expressions too serious, their names printed in clean white letters that made them look more like brands than people.

She knew most of them now. Not well, not really, but enough to recognize the difference between who they were in a hallway and who they became once a lens pointed at them.

That was half the job.

The door opened with a blast of cold air strong enough to lift the loose hair at her temples, and she stepped inside the athletic complex feeling, for the first time all summer, like she had returned to the center of something.

“Maris.”

She looked up to see Tori Bennett waving at her from behind the front media desk, one hand full of lanyards, the other clutching a breakfast sandwich wrapped in paper. Tori was a year older, already sun-tanned from summer recruiting shoots, and somehow looked awake in a way that felt genetically unfair.

“You’re late by seven minutes,” Tori said.

Maris glanced at the clock on the wall. “That is not late. That is dramatic.”

“For media week, that is late.”

Maris walked over and took the badge Tori held out to her. “I was on time in spirit.”

“That does not count in this building.”

“It should.”

Tori snorted and took a bite of her sandwich. “You say that now. Wait until Coach Duvall starts asking for vertical practice clips by noon and then changes his mind and wants them horizontal for recruiting edits.”

Maris slid the lanyard over her neck and leaned against the desk. “Did anyone die while I was gone?”

“Not yet.” Tori swallowed. “But Mason already sent out a revised shot list for media day, and I think half the department is pretending not to see it.”

Maris groaned softly. “Of course he did.”

Mason Hale, assistant director of athletics communications, believed in sending three versions of every plan before eight in the morning. He also believed in phrases like brand identity and athlete storytelling and content verticals, all of which Maris had learned to translate into actual work months ago.

Tori looked her over. “You look rested. I hate that for me.”

“I am not rested. I just had less to do in July.”

“That is resting.”

Maris smiled and glanced past the desk toward the corridor that led deeper into the building. Even nearly empty, it had a low hum to it. Rolling equipment cases. The faint squeak of shoes against polished floors. A burst of laughter from somewhere out of sight. Football season had not started officially, but it was gathering itself. Stretching. Breathing.

She loved this part more than she admitted.

Not because it was calm. It was not. It was the opposite of calm. But there was something about returning before everyone else, before the student crowds and game day outfits and packed tailgates, that made her feel like she had access to the real thing. The machinery underneath the spectacle. The raw version before it got polished and blasted across screens for everyone to consume.

Or maybe that was only what she told herself.

“Did you hear me?” Tori asked.

Maris blinked. “No.”

“I said Mason wants us in the content room in ten.”

“That soon?”

“It’s media week.”

Tori said it like that explained everything, which, in this building, it kind of did.

Maris pushed off the desk. “Fine. I’ll put my stuff down first.”

“Good luck finding space. They’re already stacking boxes in there like we’re covering the Super Bowl.”

“We act like we are every year.”

“That’s because around here, football is the state religion.”

Maris gave her a quick salute and headed down the corridor.

The content room sat just past the editing suites and across from a wall lined with framed action shots from previous seasons. She had walked this hall enough times that she barely registered them anymore, but on mornings like this they caught her eye. Bodies suspended in motion. Mouths open in victory. Stadium lights glowing behind them. Every frame designed to immortalize one second and make it stand for something larger.

Maris slowed at the door and stepped inside.

The room was exactly as chaotic as promised.

Tripods leaned against one wall. Cases of batteries and microphones were stacked beneath a whiteboard covered in scribbled names and arrows. Two student workers she vaguely recognized were untangling cords near the back table. At the front of the room, Mason stood with a tablet in one hand and a coffee in the other, already talking.

“Good, you’re here,” he said the moment he saw her. “I need your eye on player feature cuts this week. Tori’s on interview clips and graphics support. We also need fresh behind-the-scenes coverage for the preseason rollout. Last year was too polished. This year I want cleaner, but more human.”

Maris set her bag down by an empty chair. “Define human.”

“Less posed. More candid. I want intensity, routine, little moments. Not just helmet shots and guys walking in slow motion.”

“So still staged authenticity.”

Mason pointed at her with his coffee cup. “Exactly. See, this is why I like you.”

She hid a smile and pulled out her laptop. “You only like me because I understand what you mean when you say impossible things.”

“That is one of your better qualities.”

Around her, the room continued filling. Screens came alive. Someone cursed quietly at a dead battery. The air smelled like coffee, plastic equipment cases, and overworked air conditioning.

Mason launched into assignments, pacing as he talked. Practice coverage. Player arrival content. Short form video ideas. Photo rotation. Compliance reminders. He spoke fast enough that everyone either adapted or got left behind. Maris typed as he talked, already arranging the week in her head. Which clips would perform best. Which players gave the camera nothing and which ones leaned into it too hard. Which coaches hated being filmed. Which moments would feel spontaneous enough to pass.

By the time the meeting ended, she had a color-coded schedule open on her laptop and a fresh knot of adrenaline tightening pleasantly in her chest.

This was what she had missed.

Not just the work itself, but the feeling around it. The sense that everything mattered more here than it did anywhere else. That one sharp clip or one perfect post could become part of something people talked about all day. That there was always movement, always urgency, always another story taking shape if you were paying attention.

It made the rest of life feel slower by comparison.

The student workers cleared out first, followed by Tori and one of the photographers. Mason got cornered by someone from compliance in the doorway. Maris stayed where she was, reorganizing folders on the shared drive and plugging in a portable hard drive she had brought from home.

A shadow crossed the table.

“Donovan, right?”

She looked up.

One of the football operations interns stood there holding a clipboard. He wore team-issued gray and had the slightly panicked expression of someone sent to deliver instructions he did not fully understand.

“Maris,” she said.

“Right. Sorry.” He checked the paper. “Coach wants extra footage from QB drills today. Tight shots if possible. Footwork, release, all of it. Someone from offensive staff is supposed to meet you there.”

“Coach wants it for social?”

The intern shrugged. “I think for review.”

That caught her attention. Usually when coaches wanted footage, it came through official internal channels, not through someone wandering into the content room looking half lost.

“Who from staff?” she asked.

“No idea.” He handed her the paper. “Field in thirty.”

Then he was gone.

Maris looked down at the note. It was scribbled with practice times and one line in rushed block letters:

QBs. ALL REPS IF POSSIBLE.

She folded the paper and slipped it into her pocket.

Quarterback drills on the first day back meant one thing. Stellan Cross would be on that field.

Not that she cared. Not exactly.

She had seen him plenty last season, of course. Everyone had. It was hard not to. He was the face on half the banners outside, the name in every season preview, the one people spoke about with a kind of anticipatory reverence, like they were all just waiting for the rest of the country to catch up to what they already believed. He was talented enough to justify the attention, which only made it worse.

Maris had filmed interviews with him before. Shot sideline clips. Edited him into postgame reels. But those moments had always been crowded, managed, public. He belonged to the camera so naturally it almost made her suspicious.

She packed up her charger and camera batteries, checked her settings twice, and headed for the practice field.

Outside, the heat had settled in fully now. By the time she crossed the service path behind the facility, a thin layer of humidity had already gathered at the back of her neck. The practice fields stretched bright and aggressively green under the sun, lines painted so clean they looked unreal.

A few staff members moved along the sidelines setting up equipment. Graduate assistants carried bags of footballs. Two videographers were already stationed near midfield. Beyond them, players began filtering out in clusters, helmets in hand, pads not yet strapped on, voices carrying easily through the open air.

And there it was.

That shift.

That strange, immediate change in atmosphere the second they stepped onto the grass. As if everything around them snapped into sharper focus. Even walking, even joking, they seemed to generate attention. Or maybe everyone else simply gave it to them without meaning to.

Maris lifted her camera and began shooting warmup footage. Receivers stretching. Linemen talking near the sideline. Coaches pointing at clipped sheets. The familiar rhythm came back fast, almost bodily. Frame. Adjust. Refocus. Move. Catch what happens between the obvious moments.

A whistle sounded from the far side.

Quarterbacks.

She angled toward the drill area just as another voice behind her said, “You’re with us today?”

Maris turned.

The man standing there wore a team quarter-zip with the sleeves pushed to his forearms and a laminated practice script folded in one hand. He was taller than she expected, dark-haired, serious-faced, and familiar in the vague way staff members became familiar before you ever really spoke to them. She had seen him in the press box once or twice last season. On the sideline too. Usually near the quarterbacks, never saying much.

Then she placed him.

Rowan Mercer.

Assistant quarterbacks coach.

“You’re the one who wanted the drill footage?” she asked.

His eyes flicked to her camera, then back to her face. “Requested it. Wanted is a strong word.”

Something about the dryness of it almost made her smile.

“I was told Coach wanted it.”

“He probably does now that I said something first.”

There was no arrogance in his voice. Just matter-of-fact calm.

Maris shifted her tote higher on her shoulder. “What exactly are you looking for?”

He stepped beside her, glancing toward the field where players were beginning to line up. “Release points. Dropbacks. Anything that shows timing cleanly. If Cross starts drifting on his left plant again, I want it.”

She looked at him. “You can tell that from social media footage?”

“I can tell a lot from footage people think no one’s looking at closely.”

That one landed a little differently.

He did not say it like a flirtation or a challenge. More like a general truth. But it sharpened her attention anyway.

“Well,” she said, adjusting her lens, “good thing I’m not people.”

A pause.

Then, very faintly, one corner of his mouth moved.

“Good,” Rowan said. “Stay tight on the first few reps.”

He stepped away before she could answer, already focused back on the drill setup, and Maris found herself watching him for half a second longer than necessary.

Then a burst of noise went up from the next field and she turned just in time to see Stellan Cross jog into position.

Even from a distance, he had the kind of presence that reorganized a space around him. Helmet off, dark blond hair damp at the temples already, shoulders loose, easy confidence in every movement. A couple of other quarterbacks followed him into line, but no one looked at them first. The eye went where it always went.

To the star.

Maris lifted her camera and zoomed in as he took the first snap. Dropback. Plant. Release.

Clean.

Again.

Clean again.

He moved with the kind of precision that made even repetition look cinematic, which was probably part of the problem. Some people looked ordinary until edited carefully. Stellan looked edited already.

She tracked him through two more throws, then shifted lower for footwork, remembering Rowan’s note. Left plant. Timing. Tight shot.

When she looked up again, Stellan was already glancing toward the sideline.

Toward her.

It could have meant nothing. Players looked everywhere during practice. Coaches. Teammates. Water stations. But his gaze landed on her just long enough to feel deliberate before he turned back to the drill.

Maris adjusted her grip and kept filming.

Nothing about that mattered.