“Shut up, Phillip,” Danny tells him.
Thank you!
Danny looks over and grins at me, “Well, I guess that'll teach me to kiss you.”
Phillip, the comedian again, slams us both by saying, “I would've thought you'd learned that lesson by now.”
But don't worry all you Nebraska fans out there.
Danny was in tiptop shape for the game on Saturday.
I still didn't feel that great, so Phillip stayed home with me and watched the game on TV.
Thank God we won, 17-6, otherwise I would have the whole state mad at me, instead of just Phillip.
But since I live with him, it's almost as bad.
Actually he isn't really mad at me, he's just pretending.
He can never stay mad at me.
One day in early April, Danny surprises Phillip and me by asking us to help him pick out an engagement ring for Lori. We go to the jewelry store, where he shows us the stone he's already picked out. It's a lovely 2 carat marquis cut diamond. Danny is stumped on what to do for the setting. He's bound and determined to present her with a ring, not just a diamond, so we shop around and talk to the salesman.
None of the settings seem right to me, so I get frustrated and draw what I think the setting should look like on a piece of paper.
It's a platinum band, that's not too wide, with 3 baguettes coming out from each side of the solitaire, like a shooting star.
“I love that,” Danny says. “Do you have something like this?” He shows my drawing to the sales guy.
“No,” says the eager to please salesman, “but we can make it.”
While we are waiting, for what seems like forever, for him to write it up, Danny turns to me and says, “So what's your idea of a perfect ring, Jay?”
I nearly say I've never really given it any thought, but I'm bored, and well, what girl hasn't given it at least the teensiest of thought? So I draw up my perfection. A 2-carat emerald cut diamond in a platinum setting. From each corner of the solitaire are baguette diamonds that form an x on each side before intertwining and becoming one at the back.
Incredible, if I don't say so myself!
“Wow. That's cool too. Danny studies it intently. “You know, it looks like you.”
I smile.
This from a guy who never gave a diamond a second thought, unless it had something to do with baseball. Now, he thinks he's an expert.
Afterwards, we head to the bar to discuss Danny's plans for popping the big question. Danny and the team did bring the National Championship home to Nebraska, just like he always planned.
GO HUSKERS!
We all went to the bowl game and had an incredible time. Danny graduated in December and will be going though the NFL draft later this month. He's hoping the draft goes well and is excited to know which team he'll be playing for when he asks Lori to marry him. He's planning to propose on the anniversary of their first date, May 23rd. His plan is to take her on what seems to be an impromptu picnic, one that will be quite elaborate, thanks to our help, and propose to her then.
It sounded like the perfect plan, until Lori came crying to me because she just got another candle.
Lori and I are sorority sisters, and I'm proud to say that Danny finally broke out of his SSE rut. (Simple, Smooth, and Easy)
You didn't think I'd ever let him forget that, did you?
He begged me to set them up, after meeting her at a party last year.
Lori's a great girl.
Smart. Premed. Sky high GPA.
She has a wicked sense of humor, which I love, and which is a surprise from someone who looks so straight laced.
Really, I was sorta joking when I told Danny he should marry Phillip, but personality wise, Lori is just that. A girl version of Phillip.
Probably why her and I get along so well, we're complete opposites. She's the responsible to my reckless, the organized to my chaos, the calm to my manic, and the serious to my flippant. Plus, the girl can seriously party, so we have had a lot of fun over the years.
She's a natural beauty and is just gorgeous both inside and out. She has long strawberry blonde hair, a sweep of cute little freckles across her nose and beautiful brown eyes. She's 5'7” and weighs 120 pounds on a fat day.
And although she does have Danny's prerequisite C cups, she is nothing like the girls he used to date.
One: She has a brain.
Two: She's never been a cheerleader.
Three: She knows zero about football.
Four: There is nothing simple or easy about her.
Five: She didn't fall all over him when they met, in fact, she ignored him! She knew who he was, sure. I mean, you can't live on campus and not know who the Husker quarterback is. But she had heard me talk about him enough to know that a guy like him, who dates so many different girls, really wasn't the kind of guy she was looking for. She pictured herself with someone serious. She figured she would meet a guy in Med School and they will be brilliant doctors together. She seriously, had NO desire to date him.
REALLY!
Which is what I think really intrigued him.
She was his first real challenge.
And really, once I begged, and quite possibly, bribed, her to go on a date with him, she could see what the fuss was all about. So she decided, what the hell, I know he never takes a girl seriously, so I'll have a little fling with him. But for the first time in his life, Danny made a girl wait. He told her she was different, special, and after a month of him dating NO girls but her, she finally drug Danny in his room by his ears and said, If I'm so special, lets get to it. And I guess they did.
And they have been pretty much inseparable ever since.
They make an adorable pair and get along quite well in spite of their differences. He tries to teach her about football, and she tries to teach him Latin.
The thing about her that amazes me is how she always looks dressed up. Even in a T-shirt and sweats, she looks dressy. She just has this class about her, and fittingly, she is president of our sorority.
In our sorority, whenever someone gets promised or lavaliered, pinned or engaged, they pass their candle.
It sounds sort of weird, but goes like this.
Basically the whole sorority stands in a big circle with the lights dimmed. We sing songs and when the candle has gone around the circle the right amount of times, the girl who is one of those things blows out the candle as a way of making her big announcement. When you are the girl who needs to pass your candle, you try to keep it a secret until the ceremony. The tricky part is you have to get your candle to the President. Sometimes, if it's a younger girl, she just tells the President. But most of the upperclassmen are more secretive because they want to surprise her too.
Today, Lori got a candle in her house mailbox, and she doesn't know who it came from.
She plops down on my couch and says, “It's just not fair. Ever since I saw my first candlelight ceremony, I dreamed that one day I would get to do it. And since I met Danny, well, I just assumed it would happen. I was so sure that once he got drafted, he would pop the question.”
Danny was the second pick in the first round of the draft. To my delight, he drafted higher than the cocky running back who won the Heisman trophy.
Sorry, but Danny totally should have won that.
He's going to be playing for the Kansas City Chiefs, and Phillip and I are so excited, since we'll be able to go to lots of his games.
“But instead, he's gotten so he won't even talk about our future together. We used to talk all the time about where we hoped he'd go, how we'd want to live, how many kids we'd have.” She starts gesturing big with her hands. “And Jade, I bought it all. Now I don't think he wants to marry me anymore.” She sighs. “I think he just wants to be some rich, single, pro player. KC's most eligible bachelor. Whatever. I'll probably end up married to a boring doctor, and I'll see Danny on an episode of MTV Cribs. He'll be in a huge house. A house with no furniture, except for a pool table, a big TV and a stripper's pole. There will be nothing in his frig but beer and Gatorade. How pathetic will that be?”