Epilogue
SPRING, TWO YEARS LATER
“Where’s the girlfriend?” The student production assistant yanked off his headphones, tripping over a cable and nearly face-planting on the twenty-five yard line. “I need the girlfriend next.”
“The fiancée,” Caleb said, offering a hand. “The whole point of this shot is to show off the ring, remember?”
“They told me she was a girlfriend, kid.”
Caleb stood straighter and towered over the man with the camera who had been full of snide remarks and underhanded ‘advice’ since they started filming hours before. Nicksy stood at his right shoulder, Jags at his left.
“Kid?”
The man looked up. “You guys aren’t seriously trying to scare me, are you? Just get your girl for the shot. Where is she?”
In fitted performance gear, Nicksy flexed his biceps as he faked a yawn. Jags pretended to stretch, showing off the results of Caleb’s prescribed upper-body workout.
“Where is she? ”
Caleb cleared his throat.
“Where’s your fiancée, Mr. Fields?”
“She’s in with hair and makeup in one of the media rooms. She’ll be out as soon as they’re done.”
“Can you tell her to hurry? We’re going to lose the sun when the weather rolls in.”
Jags stared at the spring sky, cloudless and blue on an April afternoon, the sun barely trudging to the western horizon. “My dude, if you think?—”
The assistant stomped off.
“I’ll clobber that weasel with the trophy if we don’t finish this damn commercial in the next two hours,” Nicksy said. He lifted the edge of his shirt and polished an imagined smudge from the sleek golden arc. “He’s been a shit to us all day, acting like we don’t know how to pose with a goddamn football. No respect for the national champs just because we didn’t go to the art school. It’s still our school.”
Caleb waved at the executive producer and beckoned her over. “Can we finish the shots with my buddies now while we wait for Shannon? Nicksy’s got a hot date tonight, and I think he’s a little anxious about something.”
“It’s so shiny,” Elouise teased, pretending to be blinded by Shannon’s ring.
“Well, it had better be.” Shannon flicked her left hand and the oval-shaped diamond cast rainbows on the walls of the hair and makeup room. “It’s supposed to represent life and hope, you know. At least, that’s what the art director said when he told me I could be in the commercial. Life and hope are sparkly.”
“I wonder if they’ll be able to work the best part in there.” Delilah lifted Shannon’s hand and squinted at the platinum setting. Underneath the basket holding the diamond, tucked away where the light only hit it from a certain angle, one red ruby glimmered like a drop of ink from a fountain pen. “This was so thoughtful, and so beautifully subtle.”
“Very sweet when nobody’s looking, just like him.” Shannon grinned. “I doubt you’ll be able to see it on film. But it’s Caleb’s first commercial, and probably his last. I’m just tickled I get to be in it at all. We’re making this our big engagement announcement to our families, too. We haven’t told anyone but a handful of people here.”
Paige Beckett flopped into a chair next to Elouise and inspected Shannon’s makeup. “You’re glowing,” she announced. “And I’m over here going full raccoon on that ring. I want to try it on again. Gimme.”
“Nope. I just cleaned it for the shot. Go get your own.”
Paige blushed. “I saw Evan out there.”
“So did we.” Elouise smiled wickedly. “Is it just me, or is he bulking up and looking awfully good these days? Maybe there’s a ring in your future, too.”
“He’s packing on weight for the draft. A ring could be years away, so cut it out.”
“I’ll never be done giving you crap about that darling man.”
“Let’s get you one of your own to shut you up.”
Elouise tossed her hair. “Don’t even try to set me up with a lunkhead football player so we can double-date. I’m immune to these men and their charms by now.”
“I met a very sweet tennis player in my rec league the other day, Elle,” Delilah said, tucking a tiny braid of blue and blonde hair behind her ear. “I could see if he’s got a single friend.”
Shannon caressed Caleb’s cheek, attempting to stick to the instructions for a ‘small, knowing smile’ instead of breaking into a broad grin when the afternoon sun hit the facets of her engagement ring. A camera swung around them and a drone buzzed overhead.
“I’m doing my best,” she said, trying not to move her lips.
“We can talk. They said to act natural. I think it’ll just be music or a voice-over during this scene.”
“I don’t normally walk around petting you.”
“Maybe you should.” He bent forward and kissed her. “How’s that?”
“Much more natural. Are you still set on keeping this secret until the commercial airs?”
“It’ll only be a few more weeks,” he said. “We’ll turn off our phones when the commercial starts and our families will go nuts, and we won’t hear a thing.” He pressed his cheek to hers and held her close like they were dancing. “Away from the noise, just you and me.”
“Your brothers will scream. Big, girly screams.”
“Oh, they’ll be furious that I didn’t tell them. It’s not so bad being the one in the spotlight once in a while, I guess. On my terms.”
She eyed him. “I don’t suppose a little sibling rivalry motivated your timing with Luke getting engaged.”
Caleb took her left hand and brushed his lips over her fingers. “You want to know the truth?”
“Of course I do.”
“Even if it makes you do a big, girly scream? ”
“With all the cameras on us right now? Absolutely.”
“I almost beat him. I’ve had the ring since Christmas. I was all set to do it after the championship, but I chickened out a few times.”
“Caleb.”
“And it’s nothing to do with us being too young or moving too fast. I never doubted this.” He kissed her hand again. “I never doubted us together. But after I got hurt in that game and I thought my career was over before it began, it took away so many of the dreams we talked about. We had our lives all mapped out.”
“Stop!”
The production assistant stomped off the sidelines and turned them to face the opposite end zone. “You’re getting into shadows. Go.”
Caleb snuck an arm around her waist and pulled her close to his side, then smiled when she lifted her left hand to his shoulder and made her diamond scatter rainbows.
“I spent a bunch of football money on that ring, thinking I’d have plenty more where that came from. I wanted to ask you to marry me, but it felt like offering you what we thought we’d have, and at the same time asking you to settle for so much less.”
“Caleb, I’d marry you if you quit tomorrow. Today, tomorrow, next year—my dreams are with you, not the game or the protein bars or whatever else you put your name on. We’ll be a thousand times better off than most kids coming out of college, thanks to you.”
“And I know that. I knew you’d be all over the change of plans with a million ideas, and I was right. It just took me a little time to come to terms with all the things that will change when I’m done playing. That’s what will make my brothers really scream, you know. I had better announce my retirement from halfway around the world or they’ll try to beat me bloody.”
She stroked his shoulder, lightly tracing the scar from his recent surgery. The injury benched him at halftime of the championship game. “You’re going out on top, remember? After football, we’ll make our own adventures, and we don’t need a highlight reel to make it worthwhile.”
He drew her close. “Our life in Sauganac won’t be very glamorous.”
“I prefer that, really.”
“You prefer being the high school football coach’s wife? Married to the nepo baby who came home to work at Dad’s company?”
“As long as you don’t mind me putting him out of a job and running the show myself. He’s incredibly inefficient, and your mother and I have plans.”
Caleb grinned. “You have notes and a flowchart, I’ll bet.”
“I have everything I need.”
The Commercial
Caleb narrated over a few seconds of home-movie footage with his brothers tossing a toy football, followed by a drone shot of the university campus and adjoining medical center.
“I come from a football family. My brothers were my favorite teammates and my biggest rivals, but in the clutch, when our dad needed a life-saving surgery, I was the only one who could bring it home. I’m Caleb Fields, safety, national champion from The Ohio State University, and I’m a kidney donor.”
On the field in game day gear and swipes of eye black with Nicksy and Jags, they tossed a football in a scene cut with game day highlights.
“Kidney donation is more than man-to-man coverage. New player safety standards and gear can protect against injuries like my dad got during his playing days, and new opportunities in organ transplant can help more renal patients than ever before. Donors and recipients can match up paired kidney transplants where each donor agrees to help a person they don’t know, in exchange for someone else donating to their loved one.”
He threw the football to Nicksy. “If I couldn’t donate to my dad, maybe my buddy could, and I could donate to someone he knows.” He caught the ball when Nicksy threw it back, then immediately chucked it to Jags. “It can work two, three, or as many ways as the paired donors can match up. ”
“I could save my brother’s life, even by donating to someone else,” Jags said. He threw the ball over his shoulder to Nicksy.
“Sounds complicated,” Nicksy said, pretending to bobble the catch. “Break it down.”
A transplant surgeon from the university medical center filled the screen with a slate of risks and warnings while footage of the national championship game played behind her, highlighting Caleb’s interception and touchdown just before the injury to his shoulder. After the surgeon finished, he resumed the narration.
“While all surgeries come with risks, I had no complications with my procedure or recovery, and I’m still playing in one of the most competitive football programs in the country. The time it took me to save my dad’s life didn’t even break my stride.”
The frantic game film gave way to a wide-angle shot of the happy couple on the field alone, zooming in slowly on Shannon’s ring. “If I hadn’t been a match for my dad, I’d have looked for a paired donor kidney transplant to make it happen so he can dance at my wedding next year and meet his grandkids one day. Whether you donate directly or through a paired donor exchange, a living donor kidney transplant is gifting someone a future with you.”
He kissed her hand and turned so his championship ring caught the light with her diamond. “A future they wouldn’t have without you.”
“Hey, do you know that guy?”
Heads turned.
“Oh, that’s a pretty look.” The corrections officer snickered as he paused the television in the middle of the commercial break before the third pick and leered at his charge. “You know him, and you don’t like him.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Sure you do, Hamilton. We can all read his shirt. That was your school, mister quarterback, and you look ready to jump through that screen and kill him.”
“Whew, don’t give him any ideas,” another officer said. “I don’t want this smug little shit around here any longer than the federal government says he has to be, and we’re already stuck with him for two more years at least.”
Fuming, Hayden stared at the television, paused on a frame of Shannon smiling up at Caleb, her blue-tipped hair decorated with streaks of green to align with the colors for the Donate Life campaign.
“Who’s she?” the first officer demanded.
Hayden didn’t answer. Men around the room murmured their annoyance.
“You can tell us or tell the warden when we walk your ass down there to explain why you’re disrupting everyone’s nice evening, including his. I think you’ve got a bad attitude today, Hamilton.”
“Everyone loves watching the draft,” the second officer piped up. “And they do not love you, rich boy. Any of your old teammates going pro tonight?”
Nudging him with his boot, the first officer twisted the knife. “Fresh off a national championship, I bet we’ll see a lot of your old buddies get drafted this weekend. Who’s she, though?”
Hayden threw up his hands. “She’s just a girl I knew, and I guess she’s with that guy now. I knew a million girls. So what?”
They waited. One officer whistled at the ceiling and the other shuffled his feet.
“He was my teammate, obviously. And she’s my… ex-girlfriend.” His voice trailed off.
The officers nodded in silence as Hayden found his voice again.
“She’s a vengeful, scheming bitch, and he’s Caleb fucking forty-seven Fields. ”
They watched Hayden clench his teeth, veins bulging at his temples as he stopped minding his words.
“He broke my nose and was a witness to my alleged crime in Ohio. She dragged him into this mess and made a bunch of noise, got all the bigwigs involved, screwed my future in football, kicked me in the head, and trapped me into saying stuff that got me in trouble with Massachusetts. Now I guess they’re getting married.”
The officers glanced at one another as whistles and mumbles arose from the crowd. “You should have known better than to piss off a woman like that,” one man called in Hayden’s direction.
“She used to be normal,” Hayden said, and didn’t make eye contact.
The man didn’t let up. “Pretty boys like you think normal is when they let you walk on them. What did you do to make her so mad, huh?”
Hayden was silent.
“Everyone has a breaking point, Hamilton,” one officer said. “Don’t be surprised what a woman can throw at you when you push her just a little too far. I bet you were a lousy boyfriend, and I think she and her man paid you back in spades,” he said, a tinge of admiration in his smile as he pointed at the screen. “We should call those kidney people and see how to send them something nice for the wedding.”
“Agreed. They seem like nice kids with a good cause.” The second officer clapped his hand on Hayden’s shoulder. “Let’s watch the commercial again before they come back for the next pick.”