Page 161 of The Play

Grant walked up to the podium, trying to keep his breaths even and composed.

If he lost it now, he’d never make it through.

“Funny,” Grant said into the microphone after he’d set his notes on the podium. “Nicole said it was an important day, and it is, undeniably. But I think Deacon and I shared a much more important day, many months back.”

He took another deep breath. Composed himself.

“As many of you are aware,” he continued, “Deacon and I met in college. Deacon hired me to be his tutor. But after college, I started InTech, and we lost touch. The second time we met was at Mr. Gonzalez’s estate in Miami, when I had put forward a bid to buy the Condors. Deacon was there as a representative of a coalition of players on the team who wanted things to improve. I didn’t know it at the time, but I would get to know those gentlemen not just as faceless complaints, but as players on my team and then as friends. Beckett West. Jeremiah Knight. Carter Maxwell. They were just names to me then, in a way that Deacon wasn’t. In a way he’d never been. But that evening we met, it struck me, even more than it had in college, just how much this man cared about those guys. They were his guys, and he’d come, volunteered really, to make sure that they’d be taken care of going forward. But not for him—because he’d already decided he was done, and retiring. Obviously I convinced him to change his mind. I told him I wanted to give him the legacy he deserved. To buff it to a bright shine. They weren’t just words I was saying; I meant them. It was one of the reasons I’d bought this team. There were others, of course, but he was at the center of all of them. But back then, the thing I did not know, the thing I could not possibly know or understand, as I was still getting to know Deacon again as a fully grown man, was that he didn’t need me to polish his halo.” Grant paused. Swallowed hard.

“I promised him,” he added, the audience chuckling, “that I would keep the tear-inducing comments to a minimum, but I will say this and only this. Deacon never needed me to save him. By coming to meet me, by demanding the very best that I could bring to the table, and because he never, ever stopped fighting for what was right, he proved that if he’d retired that day, or any day after, he would still be the incredible man and the incredible football player that he is. Ladies and gentleman, Deacon Harris.”

Grant stepped back from the podium and only had a moment to compose himself before Deacon was enveloping him in a huge hug.

“You asshole,” Deacon murmured in a choked, broken voice. His fingertips dug into Grant’s sides and he didn’t let go. “You promised.”

Grant tried to surreptitiously wipe his eyes. “And here I left out all the ways you make me a better owner, a better partner, and a better human being.”

“God,” Deacon groaned.

“Save that for later, baby,” Grant teased, and that was the thing that did it. Deacon pulled back, letting him go but not letting him go far. His dark eyes were shining with tears, but he was smiling.

“Asshole,” Deacon repeated.

“Your asshole,” Grant reminded him and then took a step back. Let Deacon have the spotlight entirely to himself—because he deserved it.

Because all these people were here not for Grant, but for Deacon.

“Thank you for coming today,” Deacon said, leaning into the microphone. He sounded a bit stilted. Nervous. And of course he was. “I’m incredibly honored that you’d travel here to Charleston during your off-season to help me celebrate this day. And yes, we are celebrating.” Grant could see Deacon pinning everyone in the audience with that intense dark-eyed stare of his.

The one that back in college had made everyone flock to him, hoping for just a little of that special Deacon Harris magic.

Nothing had changed, not significantly, unless you counted the fact that Grant was the only one getting Deacon’s magic these days.

“I know these are always the speeches where the retiring player cries, and everyone cries along with him,” Deacon continued. “I’m not saying that won’t happen, but I came here today intending to make this a celebration, not a funeral. This isn’t the end. It’s a beginning. I’ll probably be around more than anyone else is thinking I will, and not just because of who owns this team.” He shot a sly glance back at Grant.

“But while yes, this is the end, officially, of my time as a player for the Charleston Condors, there’s nothing that can take those years I spent playing away. Nothing can take away that I’ll be a Condor for life, and that the men I played with, that I laughed with and cried with and bled with, will be my family, now, and for the rest of my life.”

Deacon’s hands gripped the podium. Grant could see his knuckles turning white, but he kept it together. Kept talking.

“And while yes, this is the end of the road for me as a player, it’s not the end of my life. Instead, it feels like the beginning.”

When Deacon glanced back now, there was an undeniable love in his eyes as he looked straight at Grant. “This year has been one of the most special of my time in the NFL. We changed a hell of a lot of minds. We turned this team around. We became something I—and all of us—could be proud of. But more than that, I fell in love, and I discovered that there’s something more important than what’s on the scoreboard at the end of a game. That a muddy field doesn’t define me. It’s created me. Changed me. But it doesn’t own me. It’s just part of who I am, a part I’m forever grateful for, because of who it brought to me. My teammates, who more than ever before, are like my family, because we went through those trenches together. Nothing will ever change that. Especially not whatever paper I sign today. But because today’s for me, there’s one last thing I need y’all to do for me. One last thing as my brothers-in-arms, as my family.”

Deacon paused and then gestured to Grant.

He didn’t want to go up there, because this was Deacon’s time, but if Deacon wanted him there, with him, who was he to say no?

This was the man he loved, and he’d follow him anywhere. Lead him wherever they needed to go.

“Ready?” Deacon asked, and the audience nodded. “Alright. Fly, Condors . . .”

And the resounding “Fly!” that echoed through the audience was enough to bring tears to Grant’s eyes.

Deacon’s too, as he reached out and gripped Grant’s hand hard enough to hurt.

“Thank you,” Deacon said, leaning in and kissing him briefly.

“For what?” Grant asked stupidly. In the end, what had he really done? He’d meant it. Deacon had saved himself. In fact, Grant wasn’t sure a man like Deacon Harris had ever needed saving.

“For everything,” Deacon said firmly. Solemnly. “But most of all, for loving me, just as I am, and for giving me this.”

He spread his arms out, like a Condor, and also like a blessing, and the applause was deafening.

“Maybe,” Grant said, leaning in so Deacon could hear him over the noise of the crowd. “But I didn’t save you. Maybe what we did was save each other.”

Deacon smiled then, through the tears. “You’ve never been more right.”