My high school homecoming was one random football game in the middle of October, when it was too cold to really do anything other than go to the game, drink below average cider, and watch the captain of the team and the head cheerleader get crowned homecoming king and queen. We didn't even have a school homecoming dance.

But at a school like Clemson, Homecoming (with a capital H because it was a proper noun) was a weekend long event. There were booths for student groups, entertainment segments, philanthropic efforts, a fireworks display, and more stuff that I was probably forgetting.

For gameday, the football team wore special purple jerseys that they only wore once a season, and each of the seniors walked down the hill one by one to their parents or guardians waiting at midfield to give them a single rose. It was almost poetic. People usually cried.

But that was all tomorrow. It was Friday afternoon, and I was already panicking. In the comfort of my own bedroom, of course.

I groaned and pulled off another Clemson shirt. In theory they all matched the white jeans I wore (I know you're not supposed to wear white after labor day, but this is the South, the rules were different), but nothing spoke to me, and it was blasphemy to not wear Clemson apparel this weekend.

My phone buzzed in my back pocket, and the panic persisted.

REID DONAHUE: be there in 5

REID DONAHUE: my parents already got a table

"Great," I grumbled, putting my hands to my temples and surveying the pile of shirts that had grown at the foot of my bed.

Getting dinner with Reid's parents was my idea. I wanted the Homecoming article to be more about Reid's family life, how he was raised, and what homecoming really meant to him now, in his last year. Something poignant and multifaceted.

Career girl Jo had made those plans, but she was nowhere to be found at present, leaving whatever unfortunate panicked version this was behind.

REID DONAHUE: i'm outside

I had no choice now but to figure it out on the fly. Before anything though, I had to find a shirt. Being loyal to the plain t-shirt, I decided it was better to be comfortable than stylish, so I plucked an orange baby tee out of the pile that had nothing more than a small old school Clemson tiger logo stitched into the top left of the torso. I grabbed my Marc Jacobs bag and quickly smoothed down my hair as I darted past the mirror in our entry hallway and left the apartment.

Reid's obnoxious orange truck was at the curb, and as I approached it, I noticed him fussing with his messy head of hair in the rearview mirror, but all he seemed to be doing was making more of a mess. It was too fucking endearing for me.

"About time," he told me as I climbed up into the passenger seat.

"I couldn't pick a shirt," I admitted, glancing over at his tiger printed button up shirt. I felt my face immediately flush knowing what happened the last time he wore that shirt. "I find it very hard to believe that's the only tiger-themed apparel you own."

"Well it's my only tiger-themed collared shirt," Reid said as he pulled out of my apartment complex. "And if I didn't wear a collared shirt I know I'd get an earful from my mother."

"Oh, I cannot wait to meet this woman," I grinned.

That wasn't a lie - everything Reid had ever told me about his mom led me to believe I'd get along with her. But there was a pressure to keep my cool around a woman who knew him better than anyone else and could probably see right through me and my big stupid crush on her son.

"Oh yeah," Reid rolled his eyes. "And I can't wait for y'all to bond over the various ways you two have put me in my place."

I slid him a sideways glance. "The y'all comes out when you're agitated or flustered."

"I'm not." He adamantly shook his head. "I'm not either of those things."

I feigned surprise and put my hand to my chest. "Is the great Reid Donahue actually nervous?"

"I'm not nervous," he insisted. "Sometimes they can just be a lot, that's all."

"I'm sure it'll be fine." I reached over the massive center console to put my hand to his forearm.

Why was I reassuring him? It wasn't like we were actually dating, but the intimate nature of what Reid and I were doing for these ESPN pieces made it almost more nerve-wracking than a girl going to meet her boyfriend's parents for the first time. I was exposing Reid to the world in a way nobody else had before.

"You're right," he nodded.

I shrugged. "I'm always right."

He smiled at me - the kind of smile that made the brightness of the sun look dim - and it just made any worry and doubt melt away.

We met Reid's parents and little sister at a bar/restaurant in one of the nicer hotels in town, and it was hard to miss the collective silence that fell over the entire place when Reid walked in. He was, after all, the very spectacle that half of these people were here to see, and it must have been almost jarring for some to see him outside of football attire. But as soon as we were seen with family, the idle chatter seemed to return, and people pretended he wasn't there.

"Oh my gosh, aren't you precious." Reid's mother pulled me into a hug the moment she saw me, and the thickness of her southern accent took me by surprise. She pulled away and smiled at me, crinkling the skin beside the same warm brown eyes Reid had.

"Nice to meet you, Mrs. Donahue," I returned her smile.

"Please, call me Missy." She pushed a loose curl of brown hair off of her forehead, the rest of it piled up on top of her head. The same color as Reid's hair.

"I'm Charlie," Reid's father introduced himself next, his accent more subtle, like Reid's. "Don't worry, we're huggers."

He pulled me into a similar hug, and the smell of petrol came off of his jacket that was probably permanently embedded into it. I remembered Reid telling me once his father was a mechanic.

"And this is Lily Lou," Reid gestured to the little girl who stayed sat at the table, her arms folded over her chest. Her blonde hair was darker than the lone photo I'd seen of her, and even though she was wearing a pair of purple heart sunglasses, I could feel the apathetic gaze, akin to a celebrity that didn't want to be recognized.

"Pleasure." She draped her arm across the table to give me her hand, trying to mask her cute southern accent with some kind of posh English one.

I took her hand and grinned. "Pleasure's all mine."

"She's going through a phase," Reid leaned over and whispered to me before we sat down at our table. Reid draped his arm over the back of my chair, and I couldn't tell how intentional it was.

"Oh honey, you need a haircut desperately," Missy said to Reid, gesturing to his head.

"It's my winning hair," Reid scoffed. "I can't cut it until we lose. You know, like those Dothraki guys in Game of Thrones."

"Oh, I could not stand that show," she threw her hands up. "Too violent."

"And yet you watched every single season with me and Dad." Reid chuckled. "Right?"

Charlie nodded. "Although I do think she watched most of it through her fingers with her hands up on her face."

We all shared a laugh, and the ease of the conversation unwound whatever nerves had bundled up in me. These were the kinds of people who were impossible to be uncomfortable around.

As expected, Missy Donahue fascinated me, but maybe not in the way I expected. I found out she was originally from rural Georgia (which explained the heavy but still charming accent) and was the only daughter of a high school football coach - which explained both the move to South Carolina and where Reid got his love of football, despite the fact that Missy tried to dissuade him from it.

"You know, he could have kept on with soccer," she told me. "Although I think he took too much of a likin' to slide tackling."

"Still does," I added with a chuckle, and Missy smiled at me.

She was polite, almost to a fault. She said yes ma'am and no ma'am everyone, including our young waitress, despite the fact that she was clearly flustered by Reid's appearance when she came to take our order. It was obvious where Reid got his manners and togetherness from. Charlie was a little more subdued, but every so often Lily Lou would lean over to him and whisper something, and he'd listen intently like whatever secrets she had were from the damn Pentagon. All while wearing her sunglasses, of course.

Then Lily Lou very confidently tried to order a Pina Colada before Missy swooped in and clarified that it should not have alcohol in it. But it was cute and endearing from a 10 year old.

"If you couldn't tell, she..." Reid said to me as he pointed at his little sister. "...is the favorite."

Lily Lou shrugged innocently. "The oops children somehow always are."

"Oops child?" I asked with an arched eyebrow.

"Oh I was totally supposed to be an only child, and yet, there she is." Reid pointed at Lily Lou again, who gave him a shit-eating grin that she no doubt picked up from Reid himself.

"Reid Allen Donahue," Missy scolded him, and it took everything in me not to cackle at her use of his full name. "That is so improper."

The intentional emphasis she put on the word improper only made it funnier.

"Well thank god you're not an only child," I chimed in, trying to stifle my laughter. "I can't even imagine what you'd be like if you were one."

This time everyone laughed, and Reid slid his arm out from behind my chair to wrap his arm around my shoulders.

"You think you're funny, do you?" he grinned as he leaned his head over.

"I'm hysterical," I replied, grinning back.

He held my gaze for just a moment, but it was clearly a moment too long for my heart as it began sprinting in my chest.

"So wait, I'm confused," Lily Lou chimed in. "She's not your girlfriend?"

"Lily Lou, you nosy little girl!" It was her turn to be scolded by Missy.

Reid removed his arm from me so quickly I thought one of us was going to get whiplash. He cleared his throat. "No. No, no. She's, uh...she's not."

"I'm not," I added, shaking my head.

"Adults are so weird," Lily Lou muttered to herself, propping her chin up on her hands.

I was sure I was imagining it, but I swore Reid scooted his chair just a fraction of an inch away from me.

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I'd forgone my usual gameday rituals and responsibilities to spend the morning tailgating with Reid's family and pick their brains a little more for my next ESPN piece. I hadn't actually been able to enjoy the pre-game festivities yet this year, so it was nice to immerse myself in the sea of purple and orange tents in the massive parking lot in front of Memorial Stadium. People started pulling in as early as 7 AM despite the noon start time for the game, immediately firing on their portable grills and setting up their TVs under their tents or in their flatbeds. There were no rules on gameday - people carried around mimosas (or even just beer) and busted out wings for breakfast. It was just one big party and everyone was having a good time.

Although I didn't miss the second-hand anxiety of watching someone try and park their super duty pickup truck into their designated tailgating spot while the two spots beside them were already full of people and chairs and god knows what else. But these people were experts, and they always figured it out (sometimes with help from their parking spot neighbors).

"So Reid told me you're quite the cook," Missy said to me as she poured us two orange juices. I did eventually have to go back to my job, so I couldn't indulge in liquor for breakfast.

"I'm good at reading directions," I clarified with a faint grin. "I'm not like...clever or inventive."

"Well honey I'm gonna teach you a few things today," she told me with a smirk.

Charlie was chasing around Lily Lou up and down the small hills that lined the edge of the parking lot, so it was just the two of us for now. Reid had lent his parents his truck, and Missy pulled a large Yeti cooler out of the backseat, along with what looked like a small pressure cooker.

"I do this chicken bacon ranch dip a lot and it's super easy, but it's best to just make it here the day of because if you just let it sit, the cheese and the bacon fat kind of just...coagulates."

"Oh delicious," I said with a grin.

"Oh hell, where's my mixing spatula," she grumbled to herself. "I'm always misplacing this thing."

She produced uncooked chicken and bacon from the cooler and walked me through how to season them and in which order to put all the ingredients in the pressure cooker. Honestly, I could have listened to her talk all day. It wasn't just her voice, but the way in which she spoke - like you were the most important person in the room.

Eventually, I had to get back to the stadium to prepare some things for the senior walk, which included Reid and his family, but I was almost sad to leave them. They made me feel more important and included than my own family did sometimes.

Normally I would have given Mara the job to photograph the senior walk, but as the senior on the media team, it kind of felt like my senior day too, so I wanted to be involved. Each senior walked down the hill on his own to first hug Coach Riley, and then meet his family members at midfield, where they were given a rose.

While the crowd clapped and cheered for everyone, when Reid came down the hill on his own, the purple of his jersey vivid in the afternoon sun, the stadium exploded. It wasn't often I saw him wear such a bright, genuine smile on the football field, but he did this time.

I had to remind myself I had a job to do as I began snapping pictures of his hug with Coach Riley before he jogged over to Missy, Charlie, and Lily Lou standing on the paw emblem at the center of the field. Reid lifted Lily Lou, still in her heart sunglasses, up onto his shoulders the way he had in his high school senior night photo, and she waved at me excitedly when she saw I was the one behind the camera.

After I'd taken their picture, she came running over to me and hugged me, which took me by surprise.

Over the noise of the crowd, I could barely hear her as she reached up and whispered in my ear, "If you wanted to kiss my brother I would be okay with that."

"Come on, Jo's gotta get back to being very important," Reid said as he walked over and put his hand on Lily Lou's shoulder.

With my heart practically in my throat, I looked up at him, and the bright afternoon sun casted a halo around his head, like the gods were reminding us that he was one of their favorite creatures. So badly I wanted to just fling my arms around him, to feel his warmth and kiss him like Lily Lou said I should.

Instead, I swallowed my heart back down and gave him a soft smile. "Good luck today."

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protect missy donahue at all costs!! she was hugely inspired by one of my favorite tiktokers Hannah Taylor (who i named reid's sister after lol) - and if you've never seen her before, please look her up and she will absolutely make your day.