Chapter 68: Downpour

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Nolan pulled open the curtains and did not see the sun he expected.

The sky outside was a flat sheet of gray.

Rain was coming.

At breakfast, he saw the Mannings again. All four wore athletic clothes and looked as if they had just returned from training. Archie had likely taken his sons out early for conditioning.

The gifts people admired in the Manning boys did not come from blood alone. They came from years of discipline repeated until it looked natural. With that kind of household, producing a weak quarterback might have been harder than producing a good one.

The other players were not lazy either. The hotel gym had been crowded early every morning, and even Pat Barrett, Nolan’s newly acquired bad influence, trained when it mattered.

Nolan might have been the exception.

Not because he did not work.

His work simply looked different.

As the East players boarded their bus, their head coach, Robert Davis, greeted Archie Manning with professional warmth. Compared with Ladouceur, Davis’ resume looked just as strong, maybe stronger. He had won multiple state titles and national recognition, and outside coaching he held serious administrative roles in Georgia high-school football.

The East team left first.

The West players came out more slowly. Ladouceur had not put much pressure on them, and the mood showed it.

Pat threw an arm around Nolan’s shoulders as they walked outside.

Nolan looked up at the heavy clouds covering Orlando like a lid.

On the bus, Ladouceur reminded everyone to wear hard-rubber cleats suited for wet grass.

He asked Nolan directly, "Have you played in heavy rain before?"

Nolan had shocked the quarterbacks in testing and, because of the selection rule, would play the fourth quarter. That made him important to the outcome. It also made his lack of bad-weather experience a problem.

Nolan shook his head.

Ladouceur did not lecture him. He told Pat to explain the basics.

Inwardly, though, the coach regretted the way he had set the selection rule. He had expected Nolan to choose the bench or a safer slot after feeling the gap. Instead, the younger quarterback had won the test and taken the fourth quarter.

The West had already been the weaker side on paper.

Now the weather had turned against them too.

Half an hour later, the Florida Citrus Bowl was roaring.

The old Orlando stadium had opened in 1936 and held tens of thousands of fans. It had hosted college football, bowl games, the old Orlando Thunder, and, in the 1990s, the Arena Football League’s Orlando Predators. Every year, the Citrus Bowl game brought SEC and Big Ten power into the city.

For the All-Star Game, the organizers had turned the venue into a spectacle. The crowd started waves under the direction of the stadium announcer. Smoke and flame machines fired in rhythm, lifting the atmosphere before the players had even appeared.

NBC was carrying the event’s first national broadcast in this timeline, and the setup dwarfed an ordinary high-school game. Sideline cameras, high angles, specialty shots, and roaming operators were all waiting to catch every useful detail.

Before the players ran out, the East and West cheer groups performed.

For the West, Twin Creek took the field. Allie stood near the front in a polished All-Star cheer uniform, makeup done carefully, posture bright and confident.

"Let’s welcome the West All-Stars!" stadium announcer Tom Hammond called, his voice cutting over the crowd.

Hammond was a professional sports voice, with Olympic work behind him and NFL and college football in his regular orbit.

Back in Los Angeles, Mia looked up at the television hanging from the grocery-store ceiling.

"Seventy-five dollars and twenty-three cents," she said to the customer. "Cash or card?"

At the same time, Katherine lowered her pencil.

"Break."

Jennifer blinked beside her, still trying to digest the math they had been reviewing.

"Oh no," Katherine said, checking her Casio. "The game is starting."

"Then let’s watch," Jennifer said. "Football is pretty good, right?"

She opened a drawer by habit and pulled out a bag of cheese Doritos.

Katherine’s nose twitched.

At BHHS, Flea and several Normans had skipped afternoon practice and hidden in the locker room to watch Nolan’s All-Star appearance. Snacks, fried chicken, barbecue, and a suspicious number of beer cans crowded the space.

The door opened.

Coach Thomas walked in.

"Of course this is where you are."

The players scrambled to hide the beer. Thomas had strict rules against daytime drinking.

He looked at them for a long second.

"That said, today is a good day. An exception will not kill anyone."

He sat down among them and held out a hand.

"Give me one."

Some games were better watched with the team.

In Orlando, Nolan stood in the front row with the quarterbacks and led the West through the tunnel.

The sound that hit him was nothing like Nickoll Field. A few thousand voices at home could shake his chest. This was a wall. The roar seemed to move through the air and into his skin.

Everywhere he looked, there were people.

For one brief moment, Nolan felt as if he had stepped into the center of the world.

He liked it.

Being watched. Being wanted. Being cheered by thousands.

His eyes closed for half a second.

"They’re waiting on us," Pat said, tugging his jersey.

Nolan snapped back to himself and realized the entrance ceremony was over. He jogged to the sideline.

"It looks like the youngest player on this year’s All-Star roster, Nolan Callahan, is still adjusting to a professional-sized football stage," analyst Cris Collinsworth said on the broadcast. "A crowd like this can swallow a young player for a moment."

"Completely understandable," Hammond replied. "The Citrus Bowl is loud today. The one concern is weather. Fans may want those rain ponchos ready."

The East players entered to an even louder cheer.

Nolan felt the pressure in his ears.

After the broadcast build-up, the game kicked off as scheduled.

The East offense started first.

Peyton Manning looked like a commander moving pieces through a battlefield. He leaned on quick, high-frequency short passing that forced the West defense to adjust again and again. From the sideline, Nolan could feel the difference. The speed, contact, and precision were all far above anything he had faced in the playoffs.

It was dizzying.

It was also thrilling.

After two minutes and ten seconds, Manning opened the scoring with a passing touchdown. The drive already carried the early shape of the two-minute drill that would define so much of his future style.

Then the West offense took the field.

Tommy Fraser, starting the first quarter, used his trademark running attack on second down. His path was a fullback-like charge through the middle: direct, punishing, and successful enough to move the chains.

Watching from the sideline, Nolan saw that Tommy’s central lane was different from the route he had learned from Monst. It was a new ground path, a way of attacking the defense that Nolan had not considered.

He closed his eyes and stored it.

Another route added.

The method had costs. It relied on physical collision, stiff-arms, and repeated body contact. It chewed through stamina and invited punishment. Most quarterbacks would avoid using it too often.

That fit what Pat had said about Tommy: he was spending his future early.

Manning, by contrast, played smart. He rarely stepped out of the pocket. When a linebacker closed and the play was dead, he sometimes went down on purpose rather than invite a hit.

He protected himself.

Yet the East offense barely slowed. Manning found defensive windows that existed for fractions of a second and delivered the ball before they closed.

Nolan suspected he was not even using everything he had.

The West claimed this was only an exhibition, but Tommy Fraser and Brad Ott both pushed hard in the first half, showing their best rushing and deep-passing tools. Even so, the West entered halftime down one touchdown.

East 21, West 14.

"Your fourth-quarter job," Pat said at halftime, laughing as if to hide the pressure, "is to not lose too badly."

"Then do not leave me too far behind in the third."

The third quarter belonged to Pat.

By the time Nolan returned to the field, rain was falling in sheets. Water poured from the edge of the bench roof like a curtain. Visibility dropped. The grass turned slick. One player nearly slipped just stepping onto the field.

Nolan tested a throw and felt the ball change in his hand. Rain altered speed, angle, grip, everything.

Bad weather had entered the game.

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