Chapter 49
FORTY-NINE
reeve
I don’t win the Heisman.
It hurts, but it doesn’t crush me. Because even though I didn’t get my wish, I get to fly home from New York with something better.
After the winner is announced, Jade does her best to be sympathetic, but she hasn’t deflated in the slightest. She walked into the ceremony puffed up and glowing like she couldn’t be prouder of me, and she walks out exactly the same.
I can’t match her enthusiasm, but the sting of the loss is dulled just a little by it.
When it’s all over, Cam and Lorenzo and Cash find me in the lobby and greet me with subdued smiles.
“Celebratory drinks in twenty minutes,” Cash tells me. “We already scoped out the spot.”
“Celebratory?” I shake my head. “Come on, man.”
“You’re at the fucking Heisman ceremony, stud. Yeah, celebratory.”
I get that I’ll be proud of this someday, but today’s not the day, and I don’t have it in me to pretend like I’m in the mood to celebrate. I want to sit alone in my hotel room for a couple of hours and feel like shit and then get over it. “We can’t save that for tomorrow?”
Cam squeezes my shoulder. “We’ll give you ten minutes to go fuck up the pillows in your hotel room, and then you and your shitty mood are coming out with us. No excuses.”
Jade and I go upstairs to change. I take off my suit, and she comes up behind me to wrap her arms around my chest. “I’m sorry you’re sad, baby,” she murmurs against my shoulder.
“Yeah. It’s not what I hoped for.”
“But you know I don’t feel bad for you, right?”
I laugh in spite of my mood. “Why’s that?”
“Because all the winner has is a trophy.”
“And?”
“And you have everything.” She presses her soft lips to my back.
I watch in the mirror as she gives me a smile. She’s never been more right.
The next morning we’re all a little hungover when we show up to the brunch Minnie organized, but even though Minnie’s never shown up anywhere looking less than fresh as a daisy, I think she might be hurting as bad as us.
Cam says she’s got some man friend in the city who had his heart set on showing her the sights last night.
We order food; then Cam gives a toast that has all the women in the group tearing up.
After he finishes, I look around the table at Minnie and my friends and my beautiful girlfriend.
They might not make as much noise as a packed sixty-thousand-person stadium, but they’re here to celebrate me on the day someone else made the headlines.
When they say family is forever, this is who they’re talking about.
As Minnie starts in on a story about the first time Cam brought my foulmouthed teenage self home to the Forrester house, Jade squeezes my hand under the table.
Her touch is like a salve on a day like today, when life is more bitter than sweet.
My shoulders sag as I let out a deep breath, not fighting the pain and disappointment that wash through me—I think they’re going to be around a little longer—but finding they’re shallow. Underneath, I’m rock solid.
I get why people will go to the ends of the earth for love. It’s the same reason I’m sitting here with a genuine smile instead of crumpled on the bed in my hotel room like I would have been if this had happened just a few months ago. I’m stronger than my losses. Because of her.