I'd never given much thought to what it would feel like to be famous. It wasn't like I ever anticipated a future where I was a celebrity of any kind, and no matter how successful I wanted to be at whatever job I was going to have, that job kept me behind the cameras. For the most part.

The Heisman Trophy Ceremony was undoubtedly the closest I was ever going to get to feeling like a celebrity. Reid, his parents, Lily Lou, and I were all picked up from our hotel in a big black Suburban, where Lily Lou insisted I sit in the way back with her. I tried not to squirm too much in the aquamarine-colored knit maxi dress Reid had bought for me when we arrived at the Lincoln Center, far too aware of how unprepared I was for all of this. I'd also broken the cardinal rule of new shoes - break them in before you wear them for the first time. As picture perfect as my new white and silver strappy Gucci heels were, they hurt like a bitch.

Anybody who was important and relevant who arrived were lined up by media personnel to be sent out to the red carpet and the gauntlet of cameras, and I was almost certain the casual passerby may have confused it for the Met Gala arrivals. When I began to recognize some of the other arrivals (including but not limited to several current NFL players and previous Heisman winners, College Gameday announcers and analysts, coaches and other prominent football people), I was reeling.

I felt Reid snake his hand around my waist, lowering his head to whisper in my ear, "You look stunning. Have I told you that yet?"

Reid looked like a vision in his suit, but I could make out my uneasy reflection in the lenses of his Ray Ban wayfarers.

"About 15 times," I replied with a faint grin, reaching around to find his hand. "I'm not ready for this, Reid."

"Me either," he said through a grimace. I didn't have time to respond as a few media assistants gave us the go ahead that we were next.

Lily Lou, on the other hand, seemed to be the Donahue that was the most well-adjusted for fame. She took Reid's hand and waved at the cameras with the other, heart sunglasses still on with her matching purple sequin tutu dress, while me and Reid's parents followed behind. A few camera people called for his attention, and if he was at all nervous, it didn't show as he grinned and casually posed with a hand in his jacket pocket.

Reid lifted Lily Lou up in his arms, then pulled me to the other side of him. Cameras popped and flashed, temporarily blinding me every half a second, and I tried to smile through the uneasiness. His hand found the small of my back, and his touch alone unwound me. This was his night, and I wasn't going to let anything - even myself - mess with it.

After a few more photos, we were ushered inside. Despite having lived a stone's throw away from New York City most of my life, I'd never actually been inside the Lincoln Center. It was posh and reserved for the ballet and the philharmonic and other performing arts, but for one night they transformed the Jazz room into a shrine for the most important award in collegiate athletics. It was one of the smaller rooms at the Lincoln Center with space for only a few hundred people, but it felt like stepping into a spaceship. Everything was sleek, and the lights had been dimmed as you'd expect for an orchestra performance, except for the strips of deep golden light that lined the stage and every row. Behind the stage was a massive open window that looked towards midtown, where the twinkling lights of the city could have been mistaken for stars and comets in the clear night sky.

The Heisman was the fraternity of college football. Even as a nominee you were a part of it for life, but when you won, you became part of one of the most exclusive brotherhoods in all of sports. Every former Heisman winner attended, so they could participate in the metaphorical and literal passing off of the trophy. They organized the seating arrangements as such, with the four finalists in the front row, followed by the former Heisman winners behind them, and then any family, friends, and coaches making up the rest behind that. Reid gave my hand one last squeeze before we had to go our separate ways, and I watched him walk slowly, almost precariously, to the front of the room.

One of the main College Gameday analysts hosted the ceremony, and when he walked to the center of the stage beside the trophy, everything went silent. "Welcome to the presentation of the 2023 Heisman Trophy. New York, like everything, is ever changing, but at its core, there's constants. The energy, ambition, hopes and dreams of all those who come here to just make it. College football seems to be taking on this swirling storm of change with so many things that are going to be different in the next few years, but this..." he rested his hand on the trophy. "This is solid. It's constant in what it represents, and it's life-changing."

I felt Missy tense up beside me, and without looking I put a reassuring hand on her forearm.

The ceremony started at 8, but the winner wouldn't be announced for at least another hour. They took their time with interviews, rattling off stats for each player and why they deserved to be there. The colors of the lights would change to reflect the colors of the school the player represented.

Cade was as arrogant as ever, leaning on the fact that since he won last year and his stats have improved this year, it would stand to reason that he won again. Chris Thompson, the wide receiver from Alabama, was the only non-quarterback and non-senior nominee, and he seemed even more nervous than Reid did, blushing the same color red as the hair on his head as he rambled on.

Reid was just Reid. Maybe it was just because I looked at him as if he hung the moon, and hung it just for me, but he could do no wrong in my eyes. I know that sometimes people who deserve things don't always get them, because life isn't always fair, but if there was just one time one person could get something they truly deserved, I wanted it to be this for Reid.

At some point Lily Lou had grown restless, and during a planned commercial break I walked her to the bathroom. I'd opened up Instagram earlier to see a slew of content about how Reid Donahue's little sister "stole the show" at the Heisman ceremony arrivals, and as funny (and true) as it was, part of me was also relieved.

"What happens if my brother doesn't win?" she asked as she stood on her toes to reach the sink and wash her hands.

"Nothing, really," I replied with a shrug. "It'll suck, sure, and you should give him the biggest hug in the world, but nothing bad will happen. Winning is great, but it's not everything. At the end of the day, it's just a trophy."

I could only hope I still felt like that by the end of the night.

"When did you get so wise?" she asked me with a sideways grin.

"Learned from you, obviously." I gave her a wink.

When Lily Lou and I returned to the Jazz room, they were just about to get ready to announce the winner. The host had come back onto the stage, along with any of the previous Heisman winners standing behind him.

"I think one of the most important things that I know I've taken away from this night, and always have taken away from this ceremony for as long as we've been doing it, is that there is always a genuine love of the game that you can see in these young men. Yes, you guys are basically professional athletes at this point, but as it's been said time after time, if you play for the joy and the love of the game, great things can happen."

He took out a navy blue envelope from his suit jacket pocket, and the sound of him ripping it open felt atomic in the silence.

"Alright, we've made these guys wait long enough," he chuckled. I think I'd stopped breathing. Missy reached over and held my hand. "It's my honor to present the 2023 Heisman Memorial Trophy to..."

They say your life flashes before you when you die. I wasn't sure if how fast my heart was beating would kill me necessarily, but my life with Reid had flashed before me nonetheless. From the first time he looked at me to the last time we kissed, he had been slowly and yet so surely becoming a part of me, until he was in my bones, twisted up in my DNA. I wanted this for him maybe even more than he did. That was what it felt like to love someone like this.

"Reid Donahue, Clemson University."

There was an thundering of cheering and applause as Missy and I leapt up from our seats and embraced. I hugged Charlie too, then lifted Lily Lou up so she could watch her brother make his way up to the stage. She waved at him giddily, and he pointed right up at us.

The host placed Reid right behind the trophy, where he loomed over it red-cheeked and bright-eyed. "Before we hear from you, this is yours now. Take it for a test drive."

As was customary, he lifted up the trophy over his head, and the applause continued.

I watched his hands tremble as they directed him to the podium. Reid swiped a few locks of hair out of his face, then fumbled around with the microphone on the podium to raise it up to his height.

"I got a C- in my public speaking class my freshman year, so this may not be great," he started with a dry chuckle, patting the pockets of his suit jacket. That got a few laughs. "But I wrote some things down on a napkin on the flight up here, just in case...if I can find it. If I can't, this is probably going to be the shortest speech in the history of the Heisman."

He produced the napkin from his inside jacket pocket, and I grinned. He looked down at it for a moment or two before starting.

"I, uh...well, there's a lot of folks I'm really grateful for. My mom, my dad, and my sister, you guys are my best friends, and winning, losing, football, or no football, I know we have each other until the end of the world if that's what it comes to. I know as a quarterback you first and foremost thank your offensive line for getting me here in one piece. I know I'm difficult and unpredictable sometimes and I don't like to slide, but you guys are the best. My coaches and my teammates for dragging me through some really dark times as a football player, and...there's so many more people I know I'm forgetting in the moment because I'm nervous and emotional and I didn't have enough room on this napkin, but...you know who you are." His eyes found mine, just as they always had, and I gave him a nod and smile, just like I always did.

Go on, I mouthed to him.

Reid blew out a breath before continuing. "It's not a secret that this time last year, I wasn't entirely sure I'd be playing football again, like at all. Especially not at this level, for this team and this school. Standing up here was not something I was even allowing myself to fantasize about. It felt that out of reach." His voice cracked at the end, and he shook his head, dabbing at the corners of his eyes. Another round of applause came.

"So, there's a song that I like that I started listening to a lot this season. It's actually kind of a silly song and it's got a silly name, but I remember dancing with my cousins to it when we were little during family holidays, so I have some pretty fond memories of it. The chorus has just two lines, and it goes I get knocked down, but I get up again. You're never gonna keep me down. Simple, but effective. It's in our nature as football players, we do it without even realizing it. We get tackled, hit, knocked down? Okay, get up and onto the next play. It's just what we do. But I realized that that line can be applied to other aspects of life. If something bad happens to you, that doesn't mean that you're down and out. You will get knocked down in life somehow, some way - that's almost a guarantee - but you always have a choice to get back up again. Always. Thank you."

The applause was explosive this time, and we were finally allowed to go down there and join Reid as he stepped off the stage. After hugging his parents and his sister, he found me, and I could feel the thundering of his heart through his shirt and the dampness of a few tears lingering on his cheek.

"That was perfect," I said to him as I held his face in my hands.

"You're perfect," he beamed at me. "And I couldn't have done it without you. I don't think you understand how much of my confidence you helped me get back. I love you, Jo."

Winning isn't everything, but for just a moment, it's the only thing.

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There was an after party in a more spacious room of the Lincoln Center for anyone who'd attended the ceremony. It was too late for an actual dinner, but fun appetizers and hors d'oeuvres were being passed around with champagne. Missy, Charlie, and Lily Lou kept me company while Reid did his Heisman Winner thing, shaking every single hand in the room and entertaining a few more ESPN and radio interviews. A few people had even come up to our table and congratulated Reid's family, for "raising such a resilient and strong young man."

By 10:00, Lily Lou was asleep in Charlie's arms. Missy gave me one more hug, and this one lingered, along with the scent of her flowery perfume.

"Be good," she said to me before kissing me on the cheek.

"I will." I nodded and watched them leave, disappearing into the crowd. I had no idea where Reid was at this point, but I wasn't about to attach myself to his hip. It was better for him to relish this as himself, without having a nameless girl lingering at his side.

When I went up to order another drink, I slid up next to a tall, dark-haired guy in a navy suit with an ESPN media badge. He couldn't have been a year or two older than me, but when he noticed me beside him, he squinted down at me, as if I was familiar to him and he couldn't quite place it.

"You help him with his speech?" he asked with a chuckle.

"Surprisingly not," I replied with a wry grin. "Wait, why would you ask me that?"

"I recognize you," he continued. "You're Josephine Lawrence. You wrote those articles on Reid Donahue for College Gameday. They were great."

"Oh," I perked up, trying to hide the surprise in my voice. "Thanks."

"Assuming you'll pick that up full time after graduation?" he asked.

"Not sure," I told him with a thin smile. "I enjoyed it though."

The bartender put the guy's drink down. Vodka soda of some kind. When he took it, he aggressively squeezed the lime into the plastic cup, sending juice everywhere.

"I'm almost jealous," he continued after he'd taken a sip. "You've really got the hookup with Donahue. Clemson made the playoffs, now he's the Heisman winner, and he's probably going to be the number one overall pick in the draft."

Even though I could read between the lines, for some reason part of me thought I'd just misheard him. He had after all paid me a nice compliment 10 seconds before. "I'm sorry, what?"

"Hey no shame," he held his hands up in defense. "My uncle knows a guy in HR, he made a call and got me my interview in the first place. It's hard to get anywhere these days without connections, ya know."

I gave the guy a stony look. "There's no shame here, because I got the internship before I was..." I paused and carefully considered my next words. "...involved with Reid."

The guy's cheeks went siren red. "Oh. Sorry, I just assumed..." he gulped. "Please don't take it personally. It's just what I've heard around my network. But I'm in ESPN's NFL division, they're not nearly as tapped in as what goes on on the college level, so don't worry too much. I'm sure it'll blow over eventually."

The room was starting to spin, and it wasn't from the champagne. Nobody would have ever gone up to him and assumed he got his job because he was sleeping with someone, so what did he really know? That was the worst part of it - there wasn't malicious intent in his words, it was just the common way of thinking.

"Okay. Sure," was all I could force out past the knot in my throat. I took my champagne from the bar and walked away without another word.

"Congrats again!" He called after me.

I saw Reid talking with a few NFL players and knew there was no point in burdening his perfect night with whatever Twilight Zone thing just happened to me. There was a small balcony on the other side of the room that looked out over Central Park in the distance, and I needed some fresh air before I suffocated. My dress was sleeveless and I didn't have a jacket, but I was hoping the cold would wake me up and snap me back to the reality of how good this night should have been.

Instead, things seemed to get worse as the last person on the face of the earth that I wanted to see appeared beside me, as if he'd materialized out of the cold, nighttime air. Cade leaned on the railing in his crimson red suit, looking down at me like he was ready to devour me.

"Fancy seeing you here," he nudged me with a grin.

I didn't look up at him. Instead, I white-knuckled the cold metal railing. "The fact that there are witnesses is the only reason I am not pushing you over the edge here."

"Woah hey," he held his hands up, spinning so that his back was against the railing. "I just wanted to congratulate you."

"On what?" I scoffed. "I didn't win anything."

He slid me a slimy but exceedingly self-assured grin. "On getting whatever it is that you want."

"Excuse me?" I finally looked up at him, just so I could glare and hope it was burning enough to turn him into ash.

He brought his head down close to mine, and the feeling of his breath on my ear made my spine shudder. "Well, I'm sure that fucking Reid Donahue will get you whatever job it is you want when the time comes. So...like I said, congrats. I'm sure I'll be seeing a lot more of you."

He walked away still grinning, and it felt like he actually had taken a bite out of me.

I wandered inside shortly afterwards, feeling like I was in some kind of trance. All the sounds were muted and muffled, and people's faces were blurry and far away. Part of me wanted nothing more than to find Reid and leave, but this was supposed to be the best night of his life. I refused to let the sudden onset of assholes ruin that for him. I swallowed it down, hoping it would stay down for at least the rest of the night, for his sake.

When I made it back to our original table, he was already sitting there, his cheeks pink and his shirt untucked.

"I was looking for you," he said, grinning up at me.

"Well, here I am." I sat down and put my hand on his knee. "You okay?"

He hiccuped in response. "Great. I'm great. Fucking fabulous."

"And you're also drunk," I chuckled.

"Well I guess all the celebratory shots and toasts added up," he heaved out a breath. "Apparently I won something, did you know that?"

I reached over and brushed a lock of hair off of his forehead. "Yes, I know. We can talk all about it tomorrow...when you're sober."

"Are you okay? You look a little..." he wearily pointed at my face. "Well, I might just be seeing double."

I ached like I'd been thrown out of a moving car. Here he was, smiling and perfect and endearing even when he was more drunk than I'd ever seen him, and yet I was being forced to ask myself - what was it going to cost me to make him mine?

Reid groaned and rubbed his eyes. "I think we need to go."

"Are you sure?" I asked, hoping he'd say yes. "It's your party."

"And I'll leave if I want to," he replied in a sing-song voice.

So I ordered a car to get us back to our hotel, swiftly directing Reid out so we didn't get hung up for another half hour saying goodbye to people who really didn't mean all that much to us. I held his hand in the car, but I kept my gaze out, watching the city breeze by. I thought about the song I'd been listening to on the plane ride up here, not realizing how much it would hit me. The chorus went, I climbed to the sun, and fell in a concrete jungle. Reid was the sun, and I'd reached him, but I'd somehow stumbled and fallen in this god damn concrete jungle.

━━━━━━

it's not their exact outfits (it's actually jo's dress from the acc kickoff in ch 13 lol) but alas, the manip felt very necessary after this chap.

5 more! how are we feeling? thoughts/predictions/concerns? <3