Chapter 8 #4
“That is exactly what she tells everybody.”
The laughter grew, then softened with his expression.
“But she also loved me before anybody cared how fast I could run.”
Mrs. Jones stopped smiling.
“She loved me when I was just her greedy little boy eating everything in the refrigerator. Loved me when people started knowing my name. Loved me when I got hurt and didn’t know what the hell I was supposed to do with myself.
And she never once made me feel like I had to be strong enough not to need somewhere soft to land. ”
Mrs. Jones wiped beneath her eyes.
So did I.
Damn him.
Dre looked down for a second before continuing.
“AWU gave me people like that too. Coaches who moved me around until they figured out where I could help the team. Professors who made sure I understood eligibility was not the same thing as education. Friends who didn’t care how many yards I ran if I was being stupid.”
Malcolm nodded solemnly. “Important work.”
Dre laughed, then lowered his head for a moment.
“When I got hurt, I thought a lot about what survives after the thing everybody knows you for is gone. And I’m still figuring that out. I don’t have some perfect answer. But I know this much. What survives is what was real before the applause started.”
His eyes moved across the ballroom.
For one second, they found mine.
“Family. Friendship. Community. Work that feeds more than your ego. The people who knew you before the world decided what to call you.” He paused, and something in his face changed.
“And sometimes, if you’re blessed and brave enough to tell the truth, you learn that a first love doesn’t always die just because life got too loud for two people to hear it. ”
My chest went tight.
His gaze held mine a beat longer than it should have.
“Some love survives the noise. The distance. The years. It waits under everything you thought you lost until you’re grown enough to recognize it again.”
Then he looked back to the room.
“So thank you. For this award. For this school. For every coach, professor, teammate, friend, auntie, uncle, donor, classmate, and person who poured something into me before you had any proof it would come back. Thank you for giving a kid who thought he only had one dream enough room to find out he had more life than that.”
People rose again before he finished.
The applause came hard enough that Dre stepped away from the microphone and shook his head like he didn’t know what to do with that much love when he was not wearing pads.
I stood too.
My eyes were wet, my heart too full, my body still behaving without an ounce of decorum.
I wanted him.
Badly.
The tux and diamonds did not help. Neither did the beard, the voice, or the way he held that award like it still surprised him to be honored for anything that did not involve a scoreboard.
But it was him.
The man he had become. The way he loved his parents without embarrassment.
The way he stood in front of a room that had once celebrated what his body could do and admitted he had been scared when it stopped doing it.
The humor. The gratitude. The confidence without pretending he had built himself alone.
I had always been attracted to Dre.
This was different.
This was grown-woman lust tangled with admiration, history, tenderness, pride, and a hope I had no business naming in public.
Dre made his way back toward the table through applause, stopping twice for hugs he couldn’t avoid and once for an older woman who grabbed his face and said something that made him laugh. Mrs. Jones was crying openly now. Mr. Jones had one hand at her back, his own eyes suspiciously bright.
When Dre reached us, everyone at the table was still standing.
He hugged his mother first.
“My baby,” she whispered.
“Mama.”
“You made me cry.”
“You were crying before I got up there.”
“That is irrelevant.”
Mr. Jones pulled him in next. “You did good, son.”
“Thank you, Pops.”
Something passed between them that needed no audience.
Danielle got him next. She wiped beneath one eye before he could say anything and wrapped both arms around him.
“Don’t say shit about my lashes.”
Dre laughed into her hair. “Wasn’t gonna say nothing.”
“Liar.”
He kissed her temple before she let him go.
Then Dre turned to me.
The room was still clapping. People were still standing. His name still moved around us, wrapped in applause and pride and everything AWU believed he represented.
But Dre looked only at me.
His expression had changed. The public charm was gone, or at least set down for a moment. What remained was quieter. More exposed. A little uncertain in a way that moved through me deeper than confidence ever could.
I didn’t know what to say.
Maybe he didn’t either.
Then he reached for my hand.
His fingers closed around mine, warm and firm, the award still held in his other hand. The crystal caught the light. His diamonds gleamed. His eyes stayed on my face.
And in the middle of that ballroom, with everyone still applauding Andre Jones, he stood in front of me like my hand was the place he needed to land.