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“Great game. You’ve had a tumultuous season. What’s the reason for the turnaround?” she asks.
“Being happy. I almost lost someone so special, and I lost someone too. It puts things in perspective… to enjoy basketball because it won’t be here forever. But hopefully, my relationships will be.”
“While I have you here, we’ve been asking for years why you wear number eleven. Are you ready to tell us?”
I pause as I lick my lips and then bite into the bottom one, then I sigh. This is the time.
“It’s simple really. At age eleven, I beat my father for the first time in a half-court game. That’s when I knew I would be my own man. Make my own name. Unfortunately, I let him manipulate me, and it nearly cost me everything. Thank you, if you’ll excuse me,” I say quickly as I jump over the first row of seats. Lettie leaps into my arms, with her legs pretzeled around me.
She whispers in my ear, “Nice shot. Not smooth but nice. Maybe you need to let your hand rest.” She giggles and kisses me on the cheek.
“Maybe I do.” I peck her on the lips and join my team in the center of the court to celebrate the win.
We’re in the locker room for the Stallions football team, which has been transformed into a staging area for the last three performers and the visiting locker room for the first three. Lettie gave the band four popular songs representing the phases of our life that we’ve known each other.
“Are you ready?” she asks.
“More than ready. Although singing at a New Year’s Eve concert wasn’t a dream of mine, I’m excited to be doing it together.”
“Me too. Let’s go.”
“Please welcome to the stage, Dane & Lettie.”
As we walk on stage, concert goers fill the football stadium’s field and lower level. The drums thump behind us, and the guitarist plays a riff while the crowd shows its appreciation. Lettie waves, wearing black leather pants, a long-sleeve shirt, and my jersey knotted high on her hip covered by a thick, royal-blue, wool coat.
We’re singers, not performers, but Lettie takes the microphone, raises her arms over her head, and claps to the beat of the band. I watch her in awe at how completely comfortable she is in the spotlight. She used to be my sidekick, and now I’m hers, which is fine with me. We roll into the first song and straight into the second.
The crowd chants, “Lettie,” during the fifth song when she hits and holds a high note for ten beats.
Then I surprise Lettie and the crowd. “She’s amazing, isn’t she?” The audience continues their screams. “Lettie, I have something for you. Look at the video screen.” There’s one behind us, and also in all four corners of the stadium. The words display on the screen:
The best day of my life was when I was six years old—the day I met Lettie Scott.
When the crowd lets out a collective “Aaah,” she twists around, with her mouth open and eyebrows lifted in surprise. She looks like an angel with the backlighting outlining her body. I feel she was put on earth for me. We have our very own angel looking out for us now, and it may sound narcissistic, but I only mean that we were made for each other.
The band plays the instrumental version of a Luke Combs’ song “Better Together.” Images of Lettie smiling as she’s showing a frog to me plays on the screen. Lots of photos from our childhood and Halloween when we were Lilo and Stitch. The audience laughs. Guess who was Stitch. Of course, there are several of us riding horses, fishing, birthday parties, and holidays.
One of my favorites is when Lettie won the county math bee in sixth grade, and I’m standing beside her like I won the gold medal, with an ear-splitting grin. I remember her saying, “Do you know how much this would be worth if it was real gold?” Then she went on to tell me the price of gold per gram, times the weight, and the ultimate value. I’ve always loved how smart she is.
The video moves into our high school year: photos at bonfires, hanging out at football games, or pictures of me in my uniform after basketball games. But the best picture of all is when we won the science fair together. Her hair is a mess, and at this point, I’m awkward as hell, tall and lanky, and she looked at me like I hung the moon.
The same way she’s looking at me right now.
She reaches for my hands and threads her fingers through mine.
Pictures flash on the screen with Lettie and me holding a handmade sign that says, “First day of college. We’re Stallions.” Grans made us take it and print it out, and it’s still on her fridge four years later.
Now they’re chanting, “Stallions,” on repeat. They roar when our fellow Stallions, Logan, Reed, and Hagan stand beside us at a cookout earlier this year. One from Timber Thrills pops up, before Nick was made to exit. But when the crowd sees us kissing after her equestrian competition, the stadium thunders like a herd of Stallions running wild on the field.
“I can’t believe you did this,” she mumbles as she squeezes my hand.
I had asked Presley and Flynn to put this together for me, I realized couples only have pictures of when they were together and happy. So, I decided if I was going to show this to thousands of people, they had to know that we’ve been through some tough times. I had them include videos of me missing shot after shot and of being benched at one point. And a picture of Brooke in the hospital. I hope she doesn’t hate me for showing that one.
A picture from Christmas at Grans and Paps, sitting on the old couch they picked up on the highway. I think it’s my favorite one of us. We look so natural and happy. It fades, then the video flashes each image faster like one pic for every half second, and it lands on the picture from Christmas Day again right as more words show on the screen.
Through good and bad, I have always loved you. I promise to always love you.
If the crowd is yelling, I can’t hear them. I’m lost in Lettie’s eyes that churn with emotion. I slip my arms around her waist, staring at the only girl who has ever meant anything to me as more than a friend, but yet she’s still my best friend.
