Chapter 35
NADINE
I’m sweating. My custom Founders jacket is long gone, leaving me in only a tank top and jeans. The curls I put in my hair are forgotten about since I pulled most of it up into a quick knot on the top of my head, trying to keep cool. But none of it’s worked.
My nerves have not let me sit down once since the teams took the field, but I don’t think any of the fans here in New Orleans have either.
The constant roar of the crowd has become background noise, and I grew accustomed to the tumbling avalanche in my stomach around the third down of the first quarter.
The halftime show was cool, though.
Not enough to keep me from feeling like wanting to puke, but a nice reprieve, nonetheless.
San Francisco has put in the work, and we’ve been trailing them the entire game.
After a completed lateral pass from Erik to one of the receivers who was taken out at the fifty-three-yard line, I cheer at the first down, and while the refs move the chains, I glance around at the faces in our box.
All of us are here: Mom, Dad, Felix, Emmaline, Benedict, and a few friends, as well as Paisley, Ava, and her family, whom Camden flew in from Iowa for this.
I shake out my hands as the Founders set up for another play. A loud chant of “De-Fense” picks up from San Francisco fans, while I can hear random shouts from Philly fans about “Shove it down their throats!” and “Punch ’em in the nuts, Ship!”
Kenyon Shipley is an outstanding and formidable offensive lineman, and since he often blocks for my brother’s rushing yards, I agree with the sentiment, screaming out, “Take them out, Shipley!”
On the jumbo screen, I watch Erik give the signal, then take two steps for a pump fake, only to streak down the field, gaining twenty yards. Another first down and that much closer to the goal.
“I’m so nervous,” Paisley signs to me, hopping up and down on her toes. She and Ava spent all day yesterday making bracelets, and every single one of us in this suite is wearing one of their woven good luck charms. Erik has one too, on his right wrist, his throwing arm.
“They’re in shotgun,” Benedict says from behind me.
“They’re going for a pass.” He makes his way down to my side.
My youngest brother and another NFL hopeful, though he unfortunately doesn’t have the height of his peers, but he works hard to make up for it with his speed as a receiver.
“Look, look.” He points to the field. “Bet they’re gonna go to Long. ”
“Really?”
Erik threw to Camden in the first quarter, and it was picked off.
That’s what set the stage for this battle, and I worry about what’s going on in my boyfriend’s head.
Hoping that he’s staying focused and in the moment and not letting anything else cloud his concentration.
Including a chant of “Flounders! Flounders!” from the San Francisco fans.
“You’ve got nothing, Rivera!” someone shouts, followed up with, “You’re nothing, Long.”
Benedict physically restrains me from crawling out of the box to go confront that motherfucker, and Molly holds my hands to keep me in place as Erik does indeed drop back for a pass.
That hits number 88 in stride.
Camden doesn’t stop.
He runs the last few yards to the goal and then keeps going. All the way to the padded wall underneath the stands.
I scream so loud and long that I almost choke.
On the field, the Founders jump and dance, celebrating the touchdown.
Camden spends a few seconds doing his usual thing before he looks right at the camera and signs his nickname for me.
Then he spins around until he finds the suite we’re in and holds up thumb, index, and pinkie fingers to sign “I love you.”
All of us in the box repeat the gesture, but it’s Paisley’s grinning face on the jumbotron that receives the biggest cheer.
The referees bring everyone back, and the Founders go for the conversion. For the first time in the game, they finally pull ahead.
I spend the rest of the half holding my breath, praying for the kick to go wide when San Francisco lines up for a field goal, but it sails between the posts, and I groan audibly with all the other Philly fans.
So with the Founders only one point away from winning the whole damn thing, my father starts praying the rosary, and I squeeze Molly’s hand tight as we watch our men line up for one final drive down the field.
Erik is sacked on the first play, and I can imagine how all the players’ adrenaline is sky-high. From here, I can see one of the coaches on the sidelines repeatedly batting at the air, palms down, as if ordering the team to settle down. Philadelphia needs to score here and run out the clock to win.
I’m dying inside.
My legs are barely able to hold me up.
Behind me, my father starts praying in Spanish.
Emmaline’s stopped drinking, and Felix is holding Mom up against the railing, like she might fall at any given moment.
And I get it.
“Here we go!” Benedict shouts through cupped hands. “You got it!”
The ball is snapped, and as the seconds tick down, Erik scrambles, evading a tackle, only to pitch it over to Camden, who is tackled out of bounds. Enough for a first down.
Molly closes her eyes, bouncing Kai in the carrier on her chest, muttering, “Please, oh please, oh please…”
For the next minute and a half, the Founders slowly but surely move the ball up the field, a few yards at a time, not risking any long passes that could be intercepted. Until they’re within field goal range, and Thad Reise jogs out onto the field.
His percentages have been amazing this season, but my muscles are clenched so tight as he lines up that my toe begins to cramp.
For how raucous this stadium was the whole game, it’s quiet now, tension rippling around the stands. Every single person is either hoping he’ll miss or make it.
The ball is snapped, put in place, and then lifted into the air. End over end over end and through the uprights.
That’s it.
Game over.
And I just about burst open with joy. The Founders have won the whole damn thing!
I scream and cry until my voice is hoarse, hugging and kissing every single person in the box before we are escorted down to the field, where it is utter pandemonium. Confetti covers every last inch. Hats, shirts, and towels with the Founders logo and championship title are distributed. It’s chaos.
But Camden finds us. He lifts Paisley and me up at once, each of us under an arm, and I think he might be able to move a mountain right now for how he’s feeling.
He gives each of us a kiss on the cheek then sets us down, placing a hat on Paisley’s head.
Tears spill down my cheeks as Paisley signs to her big brother that she knew he could do it, and he, in turn, tells her that he did it for her.
Then he pivots to me, a grin splitting his face, and bends to wrap his arms around my thighs, lifting me up in the air, so I can reach him better with his pads on. I brush his sweaty hair back from his brow, drag my thumbs across his flushed and damp cheekbones, wipe a smear of dirt off his jaw.
“How do you feel?” I ask, and he shakes his head as if he can’t even find the words.
“Like I’m floating.”
I wrap my hands around his head, kissing his mouth, knowing that for the rest of my life, I will remember the smell of sweat and the taste of tears that accompanied this euphoria.
As soon as he sets me down, a reporter approaches him with a camera and microphone, and I step away, but he holds tight to me, keeping me next to him as the reporter interviews him about the game and the touchdown that was basically a redo of last year’s game.
“Do you have any statement you want to make to your naysayers?”
“Yeah.” He smirks, and I know that look. “I’m still here, and I told you, you can’t bring me down. And Lionel Barry? You can—”
I slap my hand over his mouth, keeping him from finishing that sentence, which I’m sure was “go fuck yourself.” The reporter laughs good-naturedly, flicking his gaze between Camden and me, clearly wanting to ask about us, yet not.
Instead, he says, “What about the people who’ve helped you this season?
How have they brought you to this moment? ”
Camden licks his lips, taking his time as he formulates his answer, his fingers wrapped around mine the whole time.
“The coaches, the staff, my teammates, they’ve all not only stood behind me when I needed them, but next to me.
I owe this entire season to their support.
Rivera is not only my quarterback, but he’s my best friend, my brother.
He walked every step with me on this journey, and while I wouldn’t wish my experience on anyone else, I hope everyone has a sibling by choice in their life, because their love is not born but given. It’s really special.”
He pauses to smile at Paisley and to clear his throat of the rawness in it before he continues.
“My sister made me this bracelet,” he says, showing it off, “and it’s my good luck charm.
Her faith in me has changed my life. This win is for my family, my sister and my parents.
I hope they’re watching over me now and that they’re proud. ”
I swipe the back of my hand over my cheeks, blinking away my blurry vision in time to see Camden staring down at me.
“And, of course, I would never have made it here without the love of my life. She has held me up and continues to every day. I’d never have this comeback without her convincing me that there was one to be made. That I could be redeemed.”
Then in front of the reporter, camera, and all of the world, he yanks me to him and kisses me.
Someone—I think Emmaline—shouts, “Hell fucking yeah!”
Someone else—I don’t know who—adds, “Now that’s what I call a kiss!”
And I laugh against his mouth because everything they say about Camden Long is true. He’s one of the best tight ends to ever play professional football, an arrogant asshole, and the sexiest man walking God’s green earth.
Then again, I’m biased, and maybe it’s just me.
The only one who can bring the King of Football to his knees.
Literally.