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Being a SEAL meant remaining as anonymous as possible.
And being at a football game that two of your best friends were in a professional league for wasn’t remaining anonymous.
But I’d been assured that there wouldn’t be any photo ops or coverage of either my national anthem singing, or my reunion with my friends.
Which was good enough for me.
However, I made sure to have my hat pulled low, my hoodie pulled up covering my neck and head, and a five o’clock shadow that covered everything else.
Really, no one was going to recognize me. Not unless they knew me, like my family did.
“All right, sir.” The man handed me a microphone. “You’re up in three, two…”
The announcer said, “Let’s stand for the National Anthem.”
Everyone stood, and I mentally said, ‘fuck it.’
Perry squeezed my hand and stepped backward into the dark tunnel, allowing me to have the limelight.
I winked at her, made sure she was safe where she was, then walked farther onto the field until I was standing at the 50-yard line.
“Oh, say can you see…” I sang, belting out the lyrics like I was a goddamn Grammy winner, when, in fact, I couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket. Hell, sometimes I even hurt my own ears when I got to a certain pitch.
I couldn’t help the grin that spread out on my face.
My eyes scanned the crowd of football players crowded around the Longview sideline.
I could just make out Titus’s big head, and Slone’s back, but I couldn’t see them fully because they were both faced toward the flag with their hands over their hearts.
They also had a sea of trainers and officials behind them blocking the rest of my view.
I saw Titus turn to Slone and say something, causing my smile to widen, because I just knew it was something like ‘holy fuck, this guy sucks balls.’
The last words left my lips. “And the home…of the…brave!”
Goddamn, that last high note sounded like nails on a chalkboard.
There was a moment of complete and utter silence, and then the crowd started to clap. Sparsely at first until eventually it pulled into a perfectly rounded applause. There was definitely no cheering, though.Assholes.
“Ladies and gentlemen, that was…” the announcer trailed off. “Actually, I don’t know who that was.”
I chuckled hard.
Pulling the microphone back to my lips, I said, “My friends call me ‘bruh.’”
At my actual voice filling the airwaves, I watched as both Slone and Titus paused in their retreat off the field.
I laughed as I handed the microphone back to the guy who’d been shadowing me since I’d entered the stadium.
Once he had it, I backed away from him and gave myself room.
Thirty seconds later, two two-hundred-plus pound men hit me like they were trained to do it.
And fuck me, but they were.
I hadn’t been hit like that since high school.
We squished into the tightest bro hug we could squish into, and I swear to fuckin’ God, my eyes almost pricked with tears.
