"There's definitely dust," I agreed. "Very dusty bar. Known dust hazard."
On screen, one of the sharks leaned forward, asking a question about profit margins. Rhett answered without hesitating. Hog stood there, radiating supportive boyfriend energy so hard it was almost visible.
I watched my team watching them.
Jake, with his head tilted against Evan's shoulder. Juno wiping her eyes while still somehow keeping the camera steady. The booster club contingent clutching each other's arms. Coach pretending he wasn't crying while very obviously crying.
And Hog's knitting, abandoned on the corner booth table—a half-finished something in Storm blue and white, needles still stuck through the yarn like he'd dropped it mid-stitch when the countdown started.
This is my family.
The thought landed without warning, heavy and warm.
Messy. Loud. Ridiculous and real.
The shark leaned back in his chair.
We all held our breath.
Rhett clasped his hands in front of him, steady as stone. The silence stretched like taffy, pulling thinner and thinner until I thought it might snap—
"I'm in."
Two words. That was all it took.
The Drop detonated.
Beer sloshed. Someone's hat flew. One second I was on the footrail, the next I was somehow three feet to the left with my arms around Desrosiers, screaming directly into his ear while he screamed directly into mine.
The noise was enormous. Apocalyptic. The kind of sound that should have structural consequences. I heard glass shatter somewhere—probably a casualty of over-enthusiastic gesticulation—and somebody's chair fell over. Biscuit barked in a high, confused register.
On the TV, Rhett and Hog shook hands with the shark, but nobody was watching anymore. The celebration had become a separate event, untethered from the source.
Jake grabbed Evan by the front of his flannel and kissed him like they'd just won the championship. Like the buzzer had sounded and the ice was theirs, and nothing else existed. Evan raised his hands to cup Jake's face—gentle, careful, holding something precious—and Jake melted into it, all that chaos going quiet for as long as it took their lips to meet.
When they broke apart, Jake was grinning so wide it looked painful.
Evan's ears were red.
Juno had the camera pointed at them—of course she did, she was a professional—but she was crying, actual tears streaming down her face while she narrated in a wobbly voice: "—and this is the moment, folks, this is what it looks like when your community shows up, when your people—" She broke off, laughing at herself. Her girlfriend reached over to wipe her cheek.
Coach had given up on pretending. He was crying openly now, shoulders shaking, one hand pressed over his heart like he was trying to keep it inside his chest. When someone clapped him on the back, he declared, "Allergies."
Nobody called him on it. Some lies were sacred.
And then Hog was here with us, pushing through the crowd. He held Rhett's hand. Rhett must have been watching from somewhere nearby, some secret location we hadn't known about.
Hog pulled his boyfriend into his chest and squeezed.
I heard Rhett's back crack from ten feet away.
"You did it," Hog said, or something like it. I couldn't quite read his lips.
Rhett said something back.
Hog kissed him to shut him up.
The bar roared its approval.
