“I think your relationship will continue to grow. You always have been a daddy’s girl though. I was, too. I loved sports.”
“And my mom couldn’t throw a spiral pass to save her ass.”
“My mom took me dress shopping for my eighth-grade graduation. Wanted me in something pink and blinged out.”
“And you got a daughter who loves bling.”
“Yes, I did—two of them. Seems Emers is going to follow in Haley’s footsteps on that,” she says with a laugh. “And I’ve learned to like a little bling myself. Although Haley hasn’t talked the boys into doing any of these with bling.” She holds up one of the shirts on the table.
I take it from her and study it. “This is really cool. I like the font and how the One Eleven is placed inside a circle. It’s so simple, but perfect. Who designed it?”
“Haley. She’s got a natural talent for this. Has been studying how to make graphics and doing research on everything from athletic to designer brands. And it’s really cool for all of us to be able to support both boys in one shirt. Pick one out to wear tonight. There are three designs to choose from. A football-jersey style with their combined numbers, a Shock and Awe design, and the One Eleven logo you’re holding,” she says. “I’ll be right back. I need to run out to the car.”
I hold the shirt in my hand, and instead of seeing the cool logo design, my mind is playing back a memory from our summer at the lake.
“Speaking of college,” Damon said, “where are we all going?”
“Are we all going to college together?” Haley asked.
“I hope so,” Damon replied. “It’s going to suck if Chase and I don’t get to play college ball together.”
“Mom wants me to go to college on one of the coasts,” I said. “Has she said anything about that to you?”
“No. She knows better than to try and manipulate me like that,” he said.
“What do you mean?”
“You know Mom,” he said with a sigh. “I love her and all, but she has different life priorities. She wants you to go to a school on the coast so that you won’t end up stuck, living next door to your best friends. So that you will expand your world.” He said the last three words in a voice that sounded freakishly like Mom’s.
“And you don’t think expanding our worlds is a good thing?”
“Sure it is, but we can travel and meet people lots of different ways. Chase and I met a ton of cool guys playing seven-on-seven ball this summer. We traveled to four states to play and saw the sights. We go to California often. We’ve made friends there. We have a private jet basically at our disposal, for goodness’ sake. But then, I don’t have to land a man in college.”
“Damon,” Haley chastised, “neither do we. We’ll be there to get an education, so we can get good jobs so that we don’t need a man. Of course, that doesn’t mean we don’t want one. It just means we’ll be able to support ourselves financially either way.”
I raised the dark beer sitting in front of me in the air. “Hear, hear.”
I noticed that Chase had been pretty quiet during this conversation so far. He opened his mouth to speak but then picked up his still-full beer.
He set it back down without taking a drink and said to me, “The question wasn’t where your mom wants you to go to college, Dani. It’s, where do you want to go? You’ll be the first of us.”
“As a kid, I always imagined myself going to Nebraska.”
“Me, too,” Haley said.
“Me three,” Damon added.
“And where do you think you’ll commit?” I asked Chase since he didn’t say, Me four.
“A lot of schools have been watching both of us since we were in middle school,” Damon said in response. “Nebraska is just one of them. And even though it’s where we want to go, we have to think of what’s going to be best for us. Where do we have the best chance of playing, of starting, of winning, of getting drafted?”
“You have one more year before the schools can officially recruit you, right?” Haley asked.
“Yeah, start of our junior year. How did you know that?” Damon asked her.
“They were talking about it on my elite volleyball team,” she replied. “A lot of the girls I play with are older. And the camps they go to are sponsored by colleges as a way to recruit before they can actually be recruited. I’ve never told anyone this, but I think I might like to do that. Play college volleyball.”
“You have a killer serve. That’s for sure,” Damon said. “Oh shit. Actually, you could be part of my and Chase’s brand.”
“Your brand?” both Haley and I asked.
“Yeah, I know you both think we sit around, playing video games all the time, but we are actually making plans for our future. Take our brand, for instance. Chase is going to major in business and eventually get his law degree.”
“So you can be your own agent?” I asked him. Why did I not know that?
“It will be nice to understand the legal side of that, of course, but we’ll need it for our business. We’ll be doing contracts with other athletes,” Chase explained.
“And I’m going to major in marketing and sports management, so I’ll understand the other side of it.”
“What is your brand going to do?” I asked.
“Oh, it will be an athletic line. Sportswear. Football first, every other sport to follow,” Damon said.
“Should we tell them the name of it?” Chase asked Damon.
Damon fist-bumped him and said to Haley and me, “Only if you promise not to tell anyone. We don’t want someone to steal it before we get the chance.”
“We promise,” Haley and I said.
“It’s called Hierarchy. Our logo is going to have a crown on the bottom and our name on the top. And, of course, in the crown, there will be diamonds.”
“Run faster. Jump higher. Ball harder,” Chase said. “That’s our slogan. Or sales pitch thingy.”
“I love it!” Haley said. “And I want in. I’m going to major in design. I’m just not sure if I’ll go architectural or interior, like my mom, or into clothing and fashion.”
“Wouldn’t that be amazing?” Damon said. “We could all work together.”
“What about you?” Haley asked me.
“I’m going to be a sportscaster,” I said out loud. It’s the first time I’ve told this to anyone other than Chase. But it feels right.
“Which would be sweet,” my brother said. “You could get us even more contacts and could wear our stuff on TV. Just so we all agree, we’d love to go to the same college together, but if it doesn’t work out to be what’s best for us, we’ll still end up working together.” He started to pick up his glass, like he was going to toast to it, but seemed to think better of it and held out his pinkie instead. “Pinkie swear.”
“Pinkie swear,” we all said, hooking our fingers together.
“As long as I’m top dog in the hierarchy,” I said with a laugh. “I am the oldest.”