At Jay's house, Andrew was sprawled across the enormous living room couch, his legs resting on the coffee table.
A few feet away, Haley sat cross-legged on another couch, scrolling through her phone. She smiled and quietly chuckled to herself at what she was reading on the screen.
In the armchair, Alex sat with her legs crossed, reading a small book and turning pages rhythmically every few seconds.
The game had ended about thirty minutes earlier.
The entire family had ended up gathering at Jay's house after the game. They had ordered several pizzas and devoured almost all of them. Especially Andrew, who hadn't eaten in hours.
With his stomach full, the wave of adrenaline had finally subsided, leaving the living room in a pleasant state of collective laziness.
"Oh, God, they're destroying USC and Barkley on Twitter," Haley said with a mischievous little laugh as she read the brutal comparisons and endless memes that kept appearing.
She looked up from her phone and pointed at Andrew. "You've already passed him. And we're only in Week Three! You're definitely moving into the Top 2 or Top 3 of the Heisman Watch."
Andrew smiled faintly. He understood Haley's excitement perfectly.
The Heisman Trophy was the most important award in college football.
The trophy that recognized the best player of the entire season.
The dream of virtually every college football player, including himself, even if his focus had always been on the team first.
There was no official NCAA ranking for the Heisman race before the final vote in December. Instead, the major sports networks created their own "Heisman Watch," a weekly ranking assembled by panels of journalists and analysts evaluating what had happened each Saturday.
The most influential were those from ESPN, Sports Illustrated, and CBS Sports.
It was essentially a weekly gauge where a panel of experts and journalists voted and assembled a Top 10 of the favorites based on what happened the previous Saturday and each player's overall statistics up to that point.
Andrew's name had appeared there from Game One, much to everyone's surprise.
That was no small thing.
The Heisman was probably the most iconic and visually recognizable individual trophy in all of football. Even people who didn't follow the sport could identify the famous pose of the statue.
In terms of cultural notoriety, very few individual awards could compare.
Although, of course, from a purely sporting perspective, winning the NFL Most Valuable Player award remained a considerably more prestigious and difficult achievement.
What amplified the entire conversation many times over was the fact that Andrew was a true freshman.
No freshman had ever won the Heisman.
Not a single one.
For decades, college coaches had avoided handing the keys of their offenses to players fresh out of high school. The usual path was for freshmen to spend a year learning the system, developing physically, and watching from the bench before competing for a starting role.
Especially quarterbacks.
The most complex and demanding position in the sport.
UCLA's own history was proof of that.
In more than a century of college football, a true freshman had never been named the Bruins' starting quarterback for the season opener.
Until that year.
Until Andrew.
It wasn't that talented freshman quarterbacks had never existed. They had.
Cade McNown, considered one of the greatest quarterbacks in UCLA history, managed to become the starter as a true freshman. But not from Game One. He had to wait until the fourth week of the season before earning the starting job.
Barkley at USC had been an extraordinary exception, winning the starting job from the very first game as a true freshman.
He and Andrew belonged to a very exclusive club.
That was why the idea of a freshman winning the Heisman felt so far removed from reality.
It wasn't even a common discussion among fans or journalists. There wasn't a constant:
"When will the first freshman finally win it?"
The perception was much closer to: that's not going to happen.
And if any freshman was going to break that barrier, most people assumed it would be a redshirt freshman.
That was the logical path.
A player who technically remained a freshman in terms of eligibility, but had already spent a full year inside a college program. A year learning the system, training alongside older athletes, developing his body, and adapting to the level of college football.
A true freshman, on the other hand, arrived on campus only a few months before playing his first game.
The closest example had been Adrian Peterson in 2004.
As a true freshman at Oklahoma, Peterson put together one of the greatest seasons ever recorded by a college running back. He came close to two thousand rushing yards, dominated elite defenses, and carried Oklahoma all the way to the national championship game.
It was such an extraordinary season that many believed he would break the barrier.
Even so, he did not win the Heisman. He finished second in the voting.
If a player capable of producing nearly two thousand yards, leading a national title contender, and becoming an immediate sensation had failed to convince the voters, that perfectly explained why most people considered the idea of a freshman lifting the trophy extremely unlikely.
However, that year the conversation had started to change as early as January because of Andrew.
A quarterback and a true freshman. Not a redshirt, nor a position like RB or WR.
When Haley had just said that he would probably move into the Top 2 or Top 3 of the Heisman Watch after tonight, it meant he was already part of the elite tier of that list, since it was impossible to climb to such heights out of nowhere.
Andrew had already been firmly entrenched in that national conversation since Week One. His debut against the Rice Owls had been such a dominant performance that the media found it impossible to ignore: he accounted for 5 total touchdowns, generated more than 400 yards, and completed 72.9% of his passes.
That was why he had ended up winning national awards such as the Walter Camp National Offensive Player of the Week, Pac-12 Offensive Player of the Week, and more.
From that moment on, expert panels were forced to break traditional molds and immediately place him at number 10 in the Heisman Watch rankings. Seeing a true freshman appear in that media barometer with only a single college game on his résumé was already a historic anomaly.
There had been hype around Andrew because he was the most anticipated debut of a prospect coming out of high school, but he had exceeded expectations.
Even the painful loss to Nebraska in Lincoln failed to slow the momentum of the conversation. Analysts appreciated that, despite UCLA's defeat, Andrew had stood his ground against a Top 25 defense, scoring 3 touchdowns and surpassing 300 total yards in one of the most hostile environments in the country.
Far from disappearing from the rankings, Andrew actually climbed in the voters' eyes and settled into the number 7 spot.
That was when the entire country seriously began to wonder whether they were witnessing the first freshman capable of lifting the Heisman in New York.
The media fascination only increased, mainly because Andrew wasn't even benefiting from the advantage of being a redshirt who had already spent a year adapting to college football. He was a pure true freshman.
That was what truly blew people's minds.
Now, after the dramatic victory over Oregon State and another monstrous statistical performance against a ranked opponent, imagining him making the leap into the Top 5 seemed like the logical next step.
Especially because on the very same night Andrew rescued the Bruins, Matt Barkley, who had entered the season as the nation's unanimous number one candidate, suffered a catastrophic collapse in Palo Alto against Stanford's defense, finishing with a disastrous stat line of two interceptions and no touchdowns that dealt a near-fatal blow to his campaign.
Andrew didn't pay much attention to rankings that changed every week. Obsessing over that in September served no purpose.
To keep improving and winning, he needed to stay level-headed and avoid fantasizing about holding the Heisman Trophy.
But if someone analyzed only the production from the first three weeks, there were very few players in the entire country who could argue against his place on the podium.
The leading candidate was Geno Smith, West Virginia's quarterback, who was probably the only quarterback in the nation capable of matching Andrew's numbers without feeling at a disadvantage thanks to his efficiency, which exceeded 80%.
Beyond Geno, a pure statistical comparison favored Andrew over almost every other heavyweight contender.
That was why what Haley was saying wasn't exaggerated at all.
'Manziel still hasn't appeared...' Andrew thought.
In his previous life, Johnny Manziel had been the first player to break that barrier, becoming the first freshman in NCAA history to lift the Heisman Trophy, although he did so with the advantage of being a redshirt freshman.
However, after three weeks of competition, his name had not even appeared on the national Heisman Watch radar.
Andrew, who possessed this future knowledge, closely followed the progress of the Texas A&M Aggies, the university he had nearly chosen before ultimately deciding on UCLA.
The Aggies' schedule had been slightly out of sync. They had only played two games because their Week One matchup had been postponed due to the threat of a hurricane.
Manziel had started the season as the team's starting quarterback. His official debut was a narrow 17-20 loss to the Florida Gators, who at the time were ranked number 24 in the nation.
He delivered a solid but fairly modest performance: just one rushing touchdown and 233 total yards.
This past Saturday, things had been different during Texas A&M's trip to SMU, where the Aggies steamrolled their opponent with a dominant 48-3 victory.
There, Manziel finally unleashed the electric and chaotic style that would soon turn the entire nation upside down, shredding the opposing defense for a staggering 418 total yards and 6 touchdowns.
With a 1-1 record and considering that SMU was historically a weak opponent, the impact of his breakout performance had not yet spread beyond Texas.
His media coverage remained purely regional. He would probably win SEC Freshman of the Week for those six touchdowns, but to ESPN analysts, the Texas A&M kid was little more than a footnote in tomorrow's highlights.
The real attention of college football was focused on Los Angeles, on Andrew's rise and Barkley's fall.
"The next game is against that Texas team, right?" Alex asked without looking up much from her book.
Andrew nodded. But before he could answer, Haley cut in.
"Be more specific, little sister. There are like twenty universities in Texas."
"That's true," Andrew said, sitting up slightly on the couch. "We're not playing one of the Texas giants. We're playing the Houston Cougars."
If they had to face one of the Texas powerhouses, their schedule would be brutal.
"The Houston Cougars are nowhere near the rankings," Andrew continued. "They're probably somewhere between the eightieth and ninetieth-best team in the country."
Across the country, there were 124 programs competing at the highest level of college football. Making the Top 25 meant belonging to the national elite.
"Are they really that bad? Worse than the Rice Owls?" Haley asked.
"Yeah, they play in the same conference. Conference USA. It's not a Power Five conference. In theory, this should be straightforward."
If you had to place the Rice Owls somewhere among the nation's 124 teams, they would probably be around fiftieth to sixtieth.
"What's their record?" Alex asked.
"0-2. Their defense has allowed eighty-six points in two games," Andrew replied.
"They suck," Haley immediately declared.
Andrew let out a small laugh. "More or less. You should never get overconfident. But yeah, we should win."
And the reality was that simply winning wasn't enough.
If UCLA wanted to stay in the national conversation and keep climbing the rankings, it needed to do so convincingly.
Voters looked at results. But they also looked at how those results were achieved.
A close win against a weak team could cost you spots in the rankings.
A blowout, on the other hand, could propel you upward.
"Are you traveling to Texas?" Alex asked.
"Yeah. We leave on Friday," Andrew nodded. "We'll be playing at Robertson Stadium. It holds about thirty-two thousand people. There are rumors it's going to be demolished at the end of the year..."
That caught Alex's attention. Andrew had a habit of knowing absurdly specific facts about every opponent.
This time, though, the difference was truly noticeable.
Thirty-two thousand spectators.
Compared to the ninety thousand people at the Rose Bowl or the more than eighty-five thousand who had packed Nebraska's stadium, it almost felt like a venue from a different tier.
The environmental pressure would be minimal. Houston also had a very different reputation from the traditional powerhouse programs.
Many students commuted to campus only for classes and then returned home afterward.
That greatly weakened the university culture surrounding the team. There was no tailgating culture comparable to that of the Big Ten, SEC, or Pac-12.
There were no human tides occupying parking lots from the start of the day.
The atmosphere tended to be much calmer, more family-oriented, and more dispersed.
A very different reality from what UCLA had faced in Nebraska just a week earlier.
In fact, Andrew suspected that UCLA's visit might become part of the game's main attraction.
The Cougars were coming off a historic 13-1 season. But everything had changed. They had lost their head coach and their star quarterback.
Much of the momentum the program had built seemed to have disappeared along with them.
Now they arrived with an 0-2 record and a defense that was being punished week after week.
On paper, there were no excuses. They had to destroy them.
At that moment, Haley's phone began to ring. She glanced at the screen and smiled.
"Oh, look who's calling," she murmured.
She accepted the video call and extended her arm so everyone could see it.
"Hey, ESPN loudmouth."
Steve's face immediately appeared on the screen. He still looked like he had the adrenaline of the game coursing through his body.
"Hey!" he replied. "First, I didn't say anything that wasn't true. Second, are you guys coming or what?"
"The party, right?" Haley asked.
"It's a gathering, not a party. Much calmer and more private," Steve corrected, glancing toward Andrew, who had moved closer to Haley to look at the screen.
Steve didn't want his friend bolting the moment he heard the word party.
Originally, Steve had wanted to organize something at the apartment to celebrate the victory.
But Andrew had refused almost immediately.
Not because he didn't want to celebrate.
He simply had no intention of waking up the next day and finding cups everywhere, food on the floor, and probably complete strangers sleeping in different corners of his apartment.
To everyone's surprise, Steve had accepted the argument and moved the gathering to his mother's house.
More space and fewer chances of Andrew wanting to strangle someone the next day.
"Is this really still happening?" Andrew asked with a yawn.
"Of course it's still happening!" Steve exclaimed as if the question were absurd. "We just won the best game of the entire football weekend! We have to celebrate!"
He paused dramatically, "We're heroes!"
Andrew made an expression that showed very little enthusiasm.
"Besides, it'll be a lot calmer than one of those fraternity parties," Steve added, as if tossing out bait.
That caught Andrew's attention slightly.
It was true. At that very moment, the fraternity was probably organizing a massive party. Even bigger than the one that followed the debut against Rice.
The victory had come on the final drive, there had been several spectacular plays, and enough material to fill sports shows for the entire week. UCLA was hot.
When a major university put together a night like that, students found any excuse to turn it into a massive celebration, even if it was only a victory and not a championship.
Andrew had already received several invitations. Some direct. Others through teammates. He had even heard that certain fraternities were practically competing to see who could throw the best party of the night, and for that they needed him to accept their invitation.
But he had turned them all down. Not because he had anything against going out or having fun, but because he simply didn't feel the need to do it every two weeks.
Once in a while was fine. After all, he was also an eighteen-year-old college student. But turning every victory into a monumental party was starting to seem excessive to him.
A gathering at Steve's house with friends and familiar faces sounded considerably better.
"Howard, Leonard, Monica, and Rachel are coming," Steve continued, counting on his fingers. "Also Amari, Jordan, Andrus, Thomas, Alexander... Some friends from Palisades and Notre Dame."
Andrew raised an eyebrow. That was already quite a few people and knowing Steve, there would probably end up being even more.
"It'll be fun," Haley said immediately. "I'm going."
She didn't even need to think about it. It was Saturday night. She still hadn't started classes.
Haley had absolutely no intention of wasting one of the last free weekends of the year sitting on a couch.
"Great!" Steve celebrated.
Then he tilted his head to one side.
"Alex, you're invited too. I know you're there. If you tell people at your school about it, you'll be popular."
Alex didn't even look up from her book, "Not a chance," she muttered to herself.
"And you?" Steve asked Andrew.
Andrew thought for a second. Then he nodded.
"Fine. I'll go. I'll grace everyone with my presence."
Steve's smile immediately widened.
"Show-off," Haley scoffed playfully, giving him a light punch on the shoulder.
"Great and if you have people to invite, invite them. Don't be shy," Steve said before hanging up.
"Who would've thought he'd enjoy organizing events?" Haley commented with amusement as she started typing messages on her phone, inviting a few friends.
"When he sets his mind to something, he does it properly," Andrew said, giving his friend that much credit.
Then Andrew pulled out his phone and started typing.
Haley watched him for a few seconds, "What are you doing?" she asked.
"Inviting people," Andrew replied without taking his eyes off the screen.
"Who?" Haley asked curiously.
Even Alex lowered her book slightly.
It was a reasonable question.
Steve had already invited practically all of Andrew's usual group: Leonard and Howard. Even Monica and Rachel.
Also Amari, Jordan, Andrus, Thomas, Alexander, and several of the team's freshmen with whom Andrew and Steve had grown closer since arriving at UCLA.
His childhood friends like Archie, Reggie, and Kevin were no longer available. They had left weeks earlier for their respective universities.
That was why both sisters found themselves trying to guess who on earth was still missing from the list.
Andrew finished typing the messages, put away his phone, and answered casually.
"Pippa and Willa."
The silence was immediate.
Haley froze.
Alex blinked once. Then again. As if she were waiting for Andrew to add some further explanation, but he didn't.
Out of all the possible combinations of names that could have come out of his mouth, those two probably occupied the very bottom of the list.
Pippa.
His ex-girlfriend.
And Willa.
The girl whose presence had created much of the tension in that relationship, even if Andrew had never had anything with her and had never even come remotely close to doing so.
"What?" Andrew finally asked after noticing the looks they were giving him.
"Why would you invite your ex-girlfriend and the friend you're currently giving the cold shoulder to?" Haley asked.
"To the same party," Alex added, narrowing her eyes. "That doesn't seem like a particularly intelligent combination."
"First, I'm not giving Willa the cold shoulder, I simply have a lot of things to do," Andrew replied. "Second, they're both old enough to move past problems that happened years ago."
Andrew didn't understand why they kept acting as if he were inviting two mortal enemies to the same place.
Pippa had matured a lot and had never had a real confrontation with Willa.
It wasn't as if they hated each other. The tension had always been subtler than that. More related to jealousy and insecurities.
Even so, tension was still tension, and that was why Haley and Alex were reacting that way.
As for Willa, well, there they might actually have a point.
When Willa had started dating her new boyfriend, things had changed quickly.
Andrew noticed how, little by little, she had started disappearing from plans.
Not because she wanted to. But because her boyfriend felt uncomfortable with how close the two of them were.
And Willa had eventually given in.
Andrew didn't argue or ask for explanations. He simply took note of it.
He had endured similar situations from the other side. When Pippa had felt insecure about his friendship with Willa, Andrew had never pushed Willa out of his life.
He had tried to balance both relationships, and when it became Willa's turn, she hadn't done the same.
It hadn't destroyed the friendship. But it had changed it significantly.
Technically, they were still friends, but not as close as they once were.
They had lost the trust they had shared for a time.
The funny thing was that, for the past few months, it seemed Willa had broken up with that boyfriend and had almost immediately started trying to reconnect through messages, invitations to hang out, and suggestions to catch up.
Andrew hadn't rejected her outright. But he hadn't made things easy either.
He came up with excuses and didn't allow the relationship to return to what it had once been.
That was why Haley called it the cold shoulder. Willa and Haley had been friends for years.
It wouldn't surprise him at all if they had talked about it.
"And?" Haley asked, fully activating gossip mode.
Andrew remained silent for a few seconds before finally answering.
"When we lost to Nebraska, they both texted me. They seemed worried. I told them I was fine and that if the opportunity came up, we could see each other."
The week of that loss, he had received more messages than he expected.
After the defeat, during the first few days, he had barely replied to anyone.
He wasn't in the mood for anything.
It was enough effort just maintaining a façade around his family. But the messages kept coming.
His childhood friends: Reggie, Archie, Kevin. Former classmates from Palisades and Mater Dei.
Even his old coaches, like Rick and Bruce.
Nancy, his ex-girlfriend from Harvard. Even Jade, which had surprised him quite a bit.
People who were no longer part of his daily life and yet had still found the time to message him and show concern.
When the sting of the loss started to fade, he began replying.
"And this is the opportunity?" Alex asked.
"Exactly. Besides, Pippa will probably come with Cara, Zach, and the rest," Andrew said.
Haley and Alex exchanged a glance and eventually shrugged.
"And why aren't you coming?" Andrew asked, looking at Alex.
Alex raised an eyebrow, "Do you really think Mom would let me go to a college gathering at midnight?"
Andrew reflected for a few seconds, "Good point."
"Oh, come on!" Haley protested. "Mom isn't that bad."
Andrew slowly turned his head toward Haley.
Then he placed a hand on her shoulder with a solemn expression, "I'm proud of you."
Haley blinked, "What?"
"You've grown so much. A few years ago, you would've described your mother as a military dictator, and now you're defending her voluntarily," Andrew replied.
Haley slapped his hand away, "Don't exaggerate."
Andrew smiled as he settled back into the couch. Deep down, it genuinely amused him.
For years, he had watched Haley and Claire clash over absolutely everything.
Sometimes over more serious reasons.
Most of the time over ridiculous ones.
It was nice to see how much the mother-daughter relationship had improved and how they no longer argued nearly as much.
"Anyway," Haley continued, ignoring him, "It'll be fun. It'll be the usual crowd. You've had fun with us before."
She left a few seconds of silence before adding, "And if you get drunk, I promise I won't record you or anything."
"That doesn't help," Alex said.
"Come on, it'll only be one night. We'll have a little fun, and then I'll take you home," Haley insisted.
Andrew was almost getting emotional again. Haley was making a genuine effort to include her younger sister.
Not because she was obligated to.
Not because anyone had asked her to.
Simply because she wanted Alex to have fun.
'What is this?' Andrew thought, placing a hand over his chest. 'Family pride?' he wondered.
Alex fell silent for a moment and then remembered something.
Or rather, someone.
Lily.
A conversation from early September. She remembered perfectly the expression on her cousin's face while watching her study on a Saturday night.
Basically, the little girl, with a tongue far sharper than should be possible for her age, had told her that it was sad she was spending a Saturday night studying when she was in her final year of high school.
Alex still remembered how badly she had wanted to throw a book at her head.
Remembering that made her grimace. Then she decisively closed her book.
"Fine! I'll go."
Before Haley could celebrate, a new voice was heard.
"Where are you going?"
All three turned their heads at the same time and saw Claire entering the living room with a mug in her hand.
Haley immediately began explaining to Claire where they were going, why she should let Alex go, and all the protocols they planned to follow. No alcohol, no coming home late, no older college guys trying to get close to Alex. And, of course, constant supervision.
Andrew watched the negotiation from the couch with an amused smile.
As the conversation continued, Andrew's phone vibrated.
He expected to see a reply from Pippa or Willa responding to the invitation.
But no.
The screen displayed a different name.
Andrew raised an eyebrow when he read it, 'Gloria?' he thought, confused.
His grandmother was literally in the same house. Which made the message even stranger.
He opened it. It was short and direct:
[Come to my room.]
Nothing else. No explanation. No context.
Andrew glanced back toward the group.
None of the three were paying attention to him. Haley was still trying to convince Claire. Claire was still laying down conditions. Alex was still trying to convince both of them that she didn't need a babysitter and was old enough to take care of herself.
With his curiosity now fully awakened, Andrew stood up.
"I'm going to the bathroom," he murmured.
No one replied.
He wasn't even sure they had heard him.
He left the living room and walked down the hallway. When he reached Jay and Gloria's bedroom, he found the door slightly ajar.
He gently pushed it open and stepped inside.
The moment he crossed the threshold, Gloria appeared from behind the door and quickly shut it behind him.
Andrew flinched slightly. Not because of the door. Because of Gloria's expression.
She looked nervous.
And Gloria rarely looked nervous.
"Did anyone follow you?" she asked in a low voice.
Andrew shook his head, "No. What's going on?"
"Are we pulling a big prank on Grandpa?" Andrew asked, a smile forming on his face. "Because if that's it, I'm in."
Gloria rolled her eyes.
Andrew and Gloria shared a hobby that Jay knew far too well. Pranks and not small ones.
Claire completed that dangerous combination.
The three of them formed a sort of informal alliance dedicated to occasionally tormenting the rest of the family every April.
"Not yet," Gloria replied.
Andrew's smile disappeared.
Gloria pointed at the bed, "I have some news to tell you. Sit down."
Andrew obeyed. Now he was truly intrigued, "What's going on?"
Gloria took a breath. She looked like she was gathering courage. Which only made him more nervous.
"Don't make a scene..." Gloria began.
Andrew frowned.
Then Gloria said it, "I'm pregnant."
For a full moment, Andrew simply froze.
He blinked once. As if his brain needed a few extra seconds to process the words.
Finally, he managed to and when he did, his eyes widened.
"What!?" he exclaimed.
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