“I knew you would,” I tell him, kissing him back. “Now go get that trophy - you earned it.” With a wink and a smile, he gets down onto the field again, and assumes his position for the mandatory five seconds left.
The MILFs try to make a miracle, but it’s too late for them. The referee call it in, and everyone goes completely crazy. I wave my Nailers’ flag up in the air, grinning like crazy as the whole Nailers team congregates in the middle of the field, two big guys grabbing Danny and carrying him on their shoulders.
The Nailers comeback is one for the history books - they took a mighty beating during the first half of the game, and then they completely destroyed everyone in their during the last twenty minutes. And all thanks to whom? Danny Manning, of course - the best player in the league, and my man.
Working like crazy, the stadium workers set up a stage in the center of the field, and a parade starts as the Nailers line up on the stage, eager to get their hands in the big prize. Two scantily clad women bring the trophy onto the stage, and they head straight to Danny.
I can almost see the excitement in his eyes as he curls his fingers around the trophy’s handles. He raises the trophy into the air and the crowd roars once more, chants of Danny! Danny! echoing through the stadium.
Someone shoves a mic into Danny’s hands, and the chants die a little as everyone wants to hear what the Nailers’ savior has to say. Do you want to know what his first word is?
“FIONA!” He cries out, looking straight toward me. “Get down here!” He says, and the cameras focus on, my confused face showing on the Jumbotron. “Get down here,” he repeats, and Kim pinches my arm.
“Go,” she whispers, and Cody pushes me up to my feet. I climb down the barriers clumsily with the help of two police men, and then I start making my way toward the stage, suddenly feeling as if I’m at the center of the universe, every single pair of eyeballs in the States watching me.
The moment I’m close enough to Danny, he laces my waist with one arm and pulls me into him. “This here,” he raises the trophy in their with one hand, “I owe to this woman.”
The crowd claps and shouts, and it takes almost a minute for the commotion to die down.
“But you know what?” Danny continues. “Although I wanted this trophy for a long, long time… Now that I have it, I discovered that I had already won the big prize - Fiona’s heart.”
He passes the trophy to one of his teammates and then turns to me, looking me straight in the eyes. I look back at him, not knowing what to say - or how to say it -, and then he does something I wasn’t expecting at all.
He goes down on his knees.
“Will you marry me, Fiona?” He asks me, his words echoing through the stadium as someone hands me him a small velvety box. He snaps it open, and an enormous diamond ring gleams inside.
The whole stadium has gone silent, and the only thing I can hear right now is the steady pulse of my heart. I open my mouth to speak, and I feel salty tears rolling over my lips. God, I’m crying.
“Yes! Yes, I will!” I cry out, going down to my knees in front of me and kissing him. “I will marry you, Danny Manning…” I whisper, trying to choke down a sob. I don’t think I’ve ever been happy enough to start crying, but here it is - I’m a whimpering mess of happiness right now.
The stadium erupts in a chant, the sound so deafening I can’t even make out what everyone’s screaming. Right now, the whole States - if not the world - is seeing Danny propose to me and slip his diamond ring into my finger. And now the whole world also knows that I’m the happiest woman on Earth.
“Let’s get out of here,” Danny tells me, going up to his feet and picking me up from the floor. I place one arm around his neck and just hold tight onto him as he walks down the stage.
“Where are you going? You need to be here for the celebration, Danny!” The league’s commissioner starts to say, rushing down the stage and following after us. Without even bothering to slow down, Danny’s reply is a quick one.
“We’re going to do our own celebration,” he says, looking back over his shoulder at the commissioner.
“I love you,” I tell him as he walks inside the stadium’s tunnel entrance.
“I love you too,” he whispers, the long shadows inside the tunnel wrapping themselves around us.
Happy endings - the hype is real.