Page 193 of Just One More Thing

“Ten years?”

He shrugs, grinning. “It was memorable.”

I laugh harder.

Then the sound around us swells again, and I realize it never actually stopped. If anything, it’s louder now.

Jake glances up.

I follow his gaze.

The jumbotron.

Oh no.

My black streaked, tear soaked, red nosed face is approximately sixty feet tall.

“Jake,” I say slowly. “We’re on the jumbotron.”

Wayne and Ryan come barreling toward us from the center of the field, both of them laughing.

“Before you start dirty talk,” Wayne says, “you might wanna lose the mic.”

I go wide eyed. “The what?”

Jake mutters, “Oh shit.”

He reaches under his jersey and yanks a wire free from his shoulder pad.

I look at it.

Then at him.

“You were mic’d?”

He winces. “Yeah.”

My stomach drops straight through the turf. “Everything I just said?—”

“Went through the stadium speakers,” Wayne says.

“And probably the broadcast,” Ryan adds.

I close my eyes.

Of course it did.

Of course my emotional breakthrough had surround sound.

“I just told an entire stadium that I love you and that I was too stupid to know it.”

Jake’s mouth twitches. “You did.”

I cover my face with both hands.

I am going to die right here in the end zone.

Both ironic and iconic.