Page 34 of After the Snap

“He around today?”

“He was in the training room earlier, but I think he’s already left.” JJ gestures toward the disabled camera. “Better survival instincts than me.”

Coach Quinn raises the breakfast sandwich in warning. “Monday. Both of you belong to me.”

“He gets dramatic before he eats,” JJ mumbles the minute Coach Quinn turns away.

“I heard that,” Coach Quinn calls over his shoulder before disappearing into the hall.

I glance back to find JJ studying the camera from the floor this time before I catch up with Coach Quinn. I keep waiting for the moment when my arrival changes the room, when somebody remembers I’m the quarterback they traded for instead of the guy standing in front of them.

Coach unwraps his sandwich as we approach a frosted-glass door marked COMMUNICATIONS. “Rachel Montgomery runs PR. She’ll tell you what the reporters are likely to ask, and which answers will turn into tomorrow’s headlines.”

“I’ve done media before.”

“I know.” He takes a bite and pulls the door open. “That’s why I’m leaving you with her instead of sitting in.”

A woman at the conference table looks up from three open laptops, a yellow legal pad, and a row of printed articles spread in front of her.

“He’s all yours, Rachel,” Coach Quinn says.

“Denise finally made you eat?”

Coach Quinn points toward me as though I’m responsible for rescuing him from the conversation. “Jubal, Rachel. Rachel, Jubal. Try not to let her convince you that every reporter is waiting outside with a knife.”

“Only half of them.”

Coach Quinn gives me a nod that feels less like a dismissal than permission to handle the next part myself. “I’ll see you before you leave.”

Rachel waits until the conference room door closes before sliding a folder across the table toward me. I open it and find newspaper clippings, printed articles, and highlighted interview transcripts, but she covers them with her hand before I can read more than a headline.

“Don’t worry about those. Nothing you say this morning is going to change what people printed in the papers yesterday.”

“That’s comforting,” I grumble, running a hand through my hair.

“It should be. Most of them are asking the same three questions. They’re hoping to get lucky, and you’ll answer one of them differently than the last quarterback they interviewed.”

“I’ve done this before, you know.” I glance toward the legal pad resting beside her laptop.

“Which is exactly why I'm going to ask you not to.” A knowing smile crosses her face. “Most veteran players spend twenty minutes trying not to say the wrong thing instead of answering the question they’re actually asked.”

“And what’s the right answer?”

“The truth. If you don’t know something, say you don’t know. If you need a second to think before you answer, take it.” She closes the folder and stands, moving slowly around the table toward me. “The only thing I don’t want out there is the polished version of Jubal Duvall that spent the last decade learning how to survive press conferences.”

I hold her gaze, waiting for the catch. Every organization eventually reminds you whose logo is stitched across your chest. Rachel never does.

“And who do you want instead?”

“The guy Coach Quinn traded for.” She opens the conference room door and steps into the hallway, glancing back over her shoulder with an easy smile. “Come on. They’re waiting.”

I follow her down the hall to the media room at the end of the corridor. The steady noise of the building gives way to ‌low conversation before we reach the doorway, where a cameraman is already adjusting his position to get a clear shot of the Valor backdrop behind the podium.

“I’m giving them twenty minutes.” Rachel slows just enough to keep us side by side. “I’ll step in when time’s up.”

My shoulders loosen, and the version of myself that’s survived more press conferences than I can count quietly takes over. He knows which answers reveal nothing, which smiles end uncomfortable questions, and how to walk away without giving anyone a headline.

“Jubal.” Rachel touches my arm before I can walk past her. “You don’t have to win the room.”