“Watch what?” I tucked my beloved candy into my Storm hoodie front pocket and watched the field to see what I was apparently missing.
Ravi and Michele did the same.
“He’s going to score a touchdown.” She stood on her chair as the people in front of us rose too. “It’s the last minute of the game. He told me when it got to the last minute, he was going to score.”
The Storm had the ball, but they were sixty-five yards away from their end zone with less than a minute on the clock. They were already ahead by ten points, so all they had to do was keep the Hawks from getting the ball and they’d all be adding a big, fat ring to their fingers soon.
“Charlie, it’s a long ways to go. The clock’s almost out.” I wound my arm around her back, so she didn’t fall. “I know your dad will try to do it, but don’t be disappointed if he doesn’t, okay?”
Charlie blinked at me like she couldn’t believe what I’d just said. “He promised.”
The roar in the stadium picked up yet again. I should have brought earplugs like Grant had insisted Charlie wear today. “He promised?”
“He. Promised.” Charlie pulled on her cherished foam finger and started whipping it around overhead. “He’s going to score a touchdown. Dad keeps his promises, you know that.”
I stared at the field, smiling at number eighty-seven. Charlie was right. There wasn’t a promise he’d made that he hadn’t kept. As ambitious and unlikely as they might have been, he kept them. “I do know that.”
The moment the quarterback had the ball in his hands, Grant took off. A couple of the Hawks players marked him but couldn’t keep up. I don’t think I’d ever seen him move so fast—it didn’t seem possible for a man his size.
“He’s going to do it. He’s going to do it,” Charlie chanted, her eyes frozen open as we watched him glance back over his shoulder when he reached the twenty-yard line. The quarterback had already launched the ball, sending it high and deep. A little too deep.
I stopped breathing as the world slowed down and every sound drowned out besides the sound of my heart beating in my eardrums.
Grant kept hauling, faster still, but he wasn’t going to make it. Not unless . . . he leapt into the air at the two-yard line, his body suspended for what felt like a lifetime, before the ball dropped.
Into one of his hands.
Jumping up onto my chair beside Charlie, I watched the ball bounce out of his hand. Just when it looked like it was about to fall to the ground, his other hand came over the top and curled it to his body.
I couldn’t believe what I’d just seen. I didn’t think Charlie or anyone else in the whole stadium could either. No Storm fan dared pretend they’d just witnessed that kind of one-in-a-million touchdown. At least not until we all saw six points added to the Storm side of the scoreboard.
The stadium rocked with noise as fans cheered or cried, depending on where their allegiances lay. Beside me, the biggest Storm fan screamed her guts out, ringing one of her arms around my waist as we leapt up and down in unison.
“He did it! He did it! He did it!” she kept cheering, as both of us cried the best kind of tears. The happy ones.
Everyone was on their feet and so much was going on that I didn’t notice Grant was running across the field, the ball he’d just made a career catch with tucked under his arm.
“What’s he doing?” I said as I stopped bouncing. “What’s he doing?” I said a little louder, hoping someone else had a different answer than the one I’d arrived at.
“What do you think he’s doing?” Ravi shouted, motioning at where Grant was literally climbing the barricade, putting himself in the midst of the spectators. “He’s being Grant Turner.”
Fans started chanting his name as they noticed what was going on. I even noticed some of the Hawks’ fans joining in. People held out their hands or clapped his back as he jogged up the stairs, but no one blocked his path. No herds of fans swarmed him like I thought they would have. Instead, they seemed happy to be able to share in this moment, letting him pass so he could continue his journey.
The closer he got to where we were, the more heads started turning our way. When he had one more flight of stairs to go, Charlie leapt down from her seat and dove out into the aisle, pulling me with her. I’d barely managed to set my feet down on solid ground before Grant’s large arm wound around me, pulling me close as he tucked Charlie into his other side.
“A new one to add to your collection, kiddo,” he said, and Charlie clutched the ball like it was priceless. “To always remind you that anything’s possible.”