All this flashed through my head in the split second that my eyes met Becca’s.
Coach’s voice shook me out of my thoughts. “Dorsey? You’re up.”
“No, sir. Put Jarred in.” The words tumbled out before I could stop them.
He glanced at me. “Sure, son?”
I nodded. “I’d rather not take the chance. It f**king hurts, man.”
He peered sideways at me, glanced at his clipboard, then nodded, clapping Jarred Fayson on the back and pushing him toward the field. “Good choice. Go sit.”
Fayson ended up making a game-winning touchdown. I went home with my wife and son rather than party with the rest of the guys. They expected this from me already, though, and a few guys ribbed me about being pu**y-whipped, but they all respected me for it.
Becca showed me how proud of me she was that night, using just her sweet mouth and soft hands in ways that had me groaning with pain-tinged bliss.
EIGHTEEN: Our Forever
Becca
November
Jason had his arm around me, and beyond him were six of his teammates and their wives and girlfriends, all of us crammed into a roped-off section of the club. The boys were rowdy and the girls loud, most of them having been drinking in the limo we’d all ridden in together. Jason and I were nursing beers, the first either of us had had since before Ben’s birth. My parents had come down to visit us in New Orleans, and they were watching Ben so we could have a night out together. Ben was seventeen months old, walking and talking and charming everyone he encountered. He reminded me all too often of his namesake, my brother, in the way he laughed, in his smile and certain angles of his face.
The stage lights dimmed and the crowd in the bar quieted a bit as an MC strode on stage, a mic in his hand trailing the black thread of a cord. “Hey y’all. Welcome to Circle Bar. I’m Jimmy, and it’s my great pleasure to introduce tonight’s act. Some’a you may know ’em, but after tonight, you’ll all love ’em, I can guaran-damn-tee you that. Please help me welcome…Nell and Colt!”
The entire bar rose to their feet when Nell crossed the stage, a guitar slung over one shoulder to hang at her side. Cheers filled the bar, shaking the floor beneath our feet. Colt was right behind her, his guitar held by the neck in one hand, no strap. They sat side by side on stools, settling their guitars on their laps and adjusting the microphones.
“Hey y’all,” Colt said, shifting the mic closer so his voice boomed over the fading applause. “Am I allowed to say that? I’m not from the South, but it’s okay, right? Cool. So yeah, I’m Colt, and this is the love of my life, Nell.” He turned to face her, keeping his mouth near the mic. “Say hey, babe.”
Nell smiled at him, then addressed the crowd. “Hey, guys. Thanks for having us here. I guess we’ll get started, huh? This first song is a cover that Colt and I got permission to rearrange. It’s called ‘Breathe Me’ by an amazing artist named Sia. I hope you like it.”
She strummed a few chords, paused to adjust her tuning a bit, and resumed strumming, finding a rhythm. Colt waited a few beats, then began picking a counter-melody, filling in the spaces around her rhythm with a more complex tune. After a few bars, Nell began singing. The song was at the upper end of her register, but it fit their sound perfectly.
I’d never seen Nell perform before, and I was in awe. When she’d mentioned, so long ago, that she was going to a school for the performing arts, I’d been stunned and not a little skeptical. She’d never expressed an interest in music before, never shown any particular talent or enthusiasm for performing. Her declaration then had come out of left field for me. It showed me just how out of touch with my best friend I’d been. When she’d left the hospital after her miscarriage, she’d talked about going back to New York with Colt and playing some gigs with him, but she’d never played anything for me. We’d hung out nearly every day for over a month while she recuperated and took some time to find her equilibrium emotionally. She’d told me more about her relationship with Colt, how they’d met and the integral role music had played for them.
She’d eventually gone back to New York with Colt, and we’d seen little of each other over the next year. She’d come to my wedding, of course, but had to go back pretty much right away for a series of shows she and Colt were playing in the New York area. I’d heard from her off and on since then, and she’d emailed me links to articles written about her and Colt highlighting their rising fame as a singer-songwriter duo. They had a knack for covering songs in a unique and unforgettable way, the articles all said, and they would cover anything from classic jazz and swing numbers to indie folk songs, as well as some of the more popular rock and pop radio-play songs.
Nell and I had made plans over and over again to meet up, but after Jason got drafted by the Saints, our lives had entered a whirlwind period of frenzied activity. We’d moved to New Orleans, and I’d applied to and been accepted into LSU’s speech language pathology graduate program. Sports media had followed Jason’s every move for the months leading up to his first game, and then he’d made that spectacular catch. The subsequent injury had placed him even more directly in the public’s eye. He’d sat out two games and then gone back to playing, and he’d been absolutely on fire, scoring multiple touchdowns in every game, setting a pace which would, by the end of that season, shatter club records for most receptions and most receiving yards in a single season.
Nell and Colt, meanwhile, had been rocketing to fame themselves, issuing a self-produced debut album of original material and a few of their more popular covers. They’d gotten numerous offers from studios, but they’d turned them all down, preferring to stay independent, recording and producing a second album at a friend’s studio, issuing that album less than a year after the first.
They’d received more and more press as the months went by, and eventually had been featured on the Late Late Show with Jimmy Fallon, a spot which had garnered them national attention.
Now they were at the tail end of a tour of the East Coast and several cities along the Gulf Coast. They’d specifically included a stop in New Orleans so they could see Jason and me, and our son Ben.
I watched Nell perform and found myself quietly crying with pride. She’d come so far, endured so much, and now she was on stage in front of hundreds of people every night, singing in a sweet, clear voice I never knew she had. Nell shone—there was no other word for it. She was captivating, her gray-green eyes sweeping the audience, her voice rolling over us with hypnotic beauty. Colt, too, was stunningly talented. He had a way of weaving his voice around hers, matching her in magnetic harmony that underscored the beauty of Nell’s voice. Colt was a truly talented guitar player, and together they had the crowd spell-bound.