She doesn’t reply, just squeezes my hand.
I press play, and our football field appears in practically life-sized form on the massive movie screen in front of me.
“Okay, here,” Dani says, “you can see that I’m on the sideline with my squad. We just finished our workout, and we are now stretching and catching up.” She takes the remote from me. “I think I need to control this, or we’ll miss something and have to rewind. Anyway, I knew that I should have been listening to what they were saying, but my eyes were on you. Can you see that? The love in them? I was looking at you, Chase. You can’t see yourself right now in the video, but I remember it so vividly. You were wearing the red jersey that reminded the team not to hit you, and you had been working with Damon on his favorite route. Do you remember?”
“Yeah. We were doing the fly route. And actually, it’s both me and Damon’s favorite play.”
“Because he loves running fast and you love throwing long.”
“Exactly.”
“I was also studying your form—and I’m not talking about your sexy body. I could tell that you’d been to camp. Your throwing motion looked better, as did your wrist follow-through.”
“It’s really cool how you notice all that,” I tell her. “I know you want to be a reporter, but you’d probably make a good coach, too.”
She takes a deep breath. “Okay, here we go.”
“How was your summer vacation, Dani?” her squadmate Brandy asks on the screen. “Family trips kind of suck. Especially with no phones. Seriously, I don’t know how you survived.”
“Actually, it was pretty amazing. We had a lot of fun, doing family activity things together.”
“Sounds kind of lame,” her friend Shaylie says.
“It sounds better than my summer,” one of the sophomore girls pipes in. “We didn’t go anywhere. Had a staycation, which basically consisted of arguing over what pizza toppings and movie we wanted to watch on our family fun night.”
“If I have to hear about your family fun night again,” Brandy says in a voice that says she’s over it.
“Was there anyone cute there?” Megan inquires. “A hot surfer maybe?”
“We went to the Ozarks.” Dani laughs, shaking her head. “It’s a lake.”
She hits pause again. “So, what comes next is what I thought was my opportunity to ease them into the idea of you and me being in a relationship. Like we’d talked about.”
“Actually, I have something to tell you guys. Chase and I got sort of close this summer.”
“Close?” Shaylie scrunches up her nose.
“Yeah.” Dani smiles—beams really—and it makes my heart happy for a moment. “I’m not exactly sure how it happened. We’ve been friends for so long—” she starts before being interrupted.
“Wait. It?” Megan stares at her blankly. “You’re not saying that you hooked up with Chase, are you?”
“I wouldn’t call it hooking up—” Dani insists.
“Oh my God, you did!” Megan gasps, covering her mouth. “Was it hot?”
“Well …” Dani smiles at her, but when her cheeks flush, my stomach drops.
I eye the shot glass and let out a deep breath as I squeeze her hand. She hits pause.
“You blushed there. Were you embarrassed?”
“I was embarrassed because it had come out wrong or she had taken it wrong. I didn’t want her to think we were just a hook-up. In fact, this was the point where I decided that easing into it wasn’t going to work. I was going to tell her we were dating. That we were in love.”
“Really?” My heart feels like it’s going to beat out of my chest. “But I thought—”
“I know you did, Chase. That’s why we’re watching this. So you can know. I tried to tell you after, but you were so upset that you wouldn’t really listen.”
I pick up the glass and take just a sip. “Okay, keep going.”
“Uh, it totally was,” Megan says, shaking her head. “Wow. Who knew getting stuck in the Ozarks would end up being so much fun? I thought you’d go there and die of boredom.”
“No, actually, my trip was, well, in one word, amazing.”
“Okay,” Megan says slowly, her eyes narrowed. “But wait. You don’t have, like, feelings for Chase, do you?” And she’s looking at Dani like the answer should be no. And it makes me understand a little of the pressure she felt.
“We got close this summer,” Dani reiterates.
“Yeah, we heard. But come on. I mean, a summer fling is one thing. And don’t get me wrong, Chase is cute. He’s a great quarterback. But he’s your little. Brother’s. Best. Friend. Besides, I thought you were talking to Hunter. Although how were we to know? No phones and all. Anyway, look!” Megan says, pointing to Hunter, who is now on camera, walking toward Dani.
Brandy jumps up off the turf and smiles in Hunter’s direction. Almost like she expected him.
“Diamond,” Hunter says to Dani, giving her the kind of cocky smirk that makes me want to go punch the screen. “Come here.”
“Uh …” she says.
“Go,” Megan urges, pushing her shoulder.
“Why would I want to talk to him?”
“Because he’s the hottest senior,” she says.
“Who blew me off,” Dani mutters as she pulls herself up off the ground and marches over toward Hunter.
“What were you thinking here?” I dare to ask because what I thought—that she was happy about him asking—isn’t showing on her face.
She looks pissed at him.
“Honestly, I wanted to punch that smug smile off his stupid face. I couldn’t imagine what he would have to say to me. He was supposed to call me every day. And he had, like, once. In three weeks? And now, he wanted to talk to me?”
“That’s the take-no-shit Dani I know and love,” I say with a smile even though tears are prickling my eyes.
She takes a sip of her shot. “It’s hard to watch. I know. I’m sorry.”
“I think maybe it’s me who should be sorry. Were you really going to tell them that you were in love with me?”
She closes her eyes and nods. “I was. What we had—it was special, Chase. And I know that I was nervous about it, about telling everyone. But when push came to shove, I wasn’t going to let some stupid, vapid girls stand in the way of what I wanted.”
I lean over and press my lips against hers. It’s just a soft kiss. But one I have to give her. When I lean back, her eyes look like mine, shimmering with tears.
“Maybe we don’t need to watch the rest,” I tell her. “I get it.”
“No, I think we do,” she says. “Remember how I said we weren’t ready? That we included you. And I don’t want us to make the same mistakes again. I want to get it all out. Then put it behind us. Learn from our mistakes.”
“Okay,” I say as she starts the video again.