Focused

by Sorensen, Karla

  "No," I repeated. "I hear you loud and clear."

  "Good." She sighed. "Now, I have one more call to make, and if I remember correctly, you have a family dinner to get to."

  My eyebrows popped in surprise that she remembered. "I do."

  "Enjoy it. Thanks, Molly."

  "Thank you," I told her. I meant it too. Her call was a timely reminder that I needed. Noah wasn't mine to fix, no matter how he'd looked at me, and I'd do well to remember that.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Noah

  Normally, I didn't think of myself as a slow thinker. Just the opposite, in fact. A defensive player should have the ability to see possible scenarios play out before they happen, in the twitch of a finger, the shift of body position, or the pivot of a foot. But when it came to Molly Ward, I was a little slow on the uptake.

  It took me two days of actively avoiding her while we filmed to make the connection that I was not, in fact, the ignorer. I was the ignored. And because it was me, I had to mentally break down, in detail, how the hell that had happened and how I missed it.

  Three days after she schooled me on her football history, the crew was at practice, and for the two days prior, I kept my eyes off her at all time. Yes, I cataloged what she was wearing within fifteen seconds of her walking in my peripheral vision, but that was it. I did not give her a second of full eye contact as she tilted her head toward Marty's, and they discussed filming for the next day, and Marty said something that made her laugh. That tinkling, wind chime laughter that made me want to do something ridiculous, like shove my fingers in my ears so I didn't have to hear it. It was the latter part of day three when the wheels started falling off, and it was all Kareem's fault.

  They decided to haze me since I'd had over a week to get used to the rhythm of practice and let my guard down a little bit. That was when he started sending the rookies over to me—one by one—each one asking me for a selfie, an autograph, and a ridiculous question that they would've known their freshman year in college.

  About cleats.

  Then favorite stain remover for the grass stains.

  How to avoid athlete's foot.

  I was slow on that uptake too, my irritation rising exponentially with each one who approached me throughout the four hours of practice. By the fourth rookie, and his question about which jock strap I preferred to keep my balls in place, the rein on my temper snapped.

  "Jones," I roared, seeking him out between the snickering faces. "Kareem Jones, get your ass over here."

  The camera was pointed at me, but I couldn't care less.

  When Kareem sauntered over to me, wearing a wide-ass grin on his face, I had a moment when I wondered whether Molly would step in and try to cool me down.

  "How much did you pay them?" I asked.

  "Oh, watching the look on your face has been priceless enough, Griffin," he said.

  I crossed my arms over my chest. "So they get nothing out of it?"

  He wiped under his eyes. "No, I told them that if they did this, we wouldn't duct tape them to the field goal after practice."

  "I'm too old for this shit," I said, pointing a finger at him. "If you want them to earn their freedom, use someone else. I'm here to work, not run a daycare for rookies."

  He knew me too well to be fazed by my temper, but a few of the guys who didn't, rookies and veterans alike, shifted uncomfortably, their laughter dying down to throats that suddenly needed to be cleared.

  Kareem whistled, rocking back on his heels like I'd pushed him. "Hear that, rookies? I think he said the magic words, didn't he?"

  "What magic words?" I snapped. "Kareem."

  "Don't you back out now," he said, glancing carefully into the faces of everyone around us.

  Our quarterback, a young guy in his third year with a rocket arm, grinned at me, then looked over his shoulder. "You heard Jones. Get him."

  Before I could blink, every rookie on the Washington roster had me pinned, no matter how much I thrashed, threatened, or shouted. The coaches laughed. Even Logan had a wide smile on his face, and if I hadn't been betrayed by my entire defensive line, who sat back roaring with laughter, I might have thought it was funny too.

  "You nice and sweaty, Griffin?" Kareem asked as he approached.

  "You asshole." I tried to pry my arm away from where three rookies held it. I was pinned to the turf, on my knees with my hands behind my back, and I finally gave up.

  "I'd close my eyes if I were you." That was the only warning I was given before they proceeded to dump black and red glitter down the front of my shirt, then snap my shorts away from my waist and dump it down there too. The cleaning crew would hate them, and I'd be planning retribution for the rest of my life, but from the tear-inducing laughter from every person present, it must have been worth it.

  Behind the camera, Marty wiped at his face, and as I stood, shaking as much excess glitter as I could from my body, that was the first that I noticed Molly was avoiding me.

  If she’d watched what had happened to me, she wasn't watching the fallout. She wasn't approaching me with that big, bright smile on her pink lips, trying to suss out how I felt about what they'd done. She wasn't eyeing me curiously through my anger. She wasn't eyeing me at all.

  It crossed my mind, as I showered off the mess and changed into clean clothes after practice, that I'd forgotten to return her call from the day before. She had invited me to dinner at Logan's house, a message I hadn't received until hours later because I often didn't check my cell while it was charging. By the time I saw it, by the time I'd listened to it, it was well after eleven, and I wasn't sure what to say.

  Thank you, but your brother would sooner poison my dinner than have me show up with you.

  I don't know how to do family dinners, so I'd sit there like a freak.

  Their family was big and loud and had probably only gotten bigger and louder in the years since I lived behind them. Not my scene, even if I'd wanted to go.

  Molly had made no attempt to hide that she was puzzled by the way I acted with the people around me. That "The Machine" was a moniker she didn't deem appropriate, even if everyone else thought it was. I’d had glitter down my ass crack to prove how appropriate the rest of my team thought it was.

  But Molly wasn’t wrong either.

  If I was well and truly a machine, with no pulse or heartbeat or complex emotions, it wouldn’t have bothered me that she wasn’t speaking to me.

  Which was why I sent her a text, late on day three.

  Me: I apologize for not returning your phone call. It was late when I got the message. Thank you for inviting me, though.

  An hour or so later, I received my reply.

  Molly Ward: No problem, it's fine.

  A reply like that from a person such as her was telling, and it still didn't click in my head that something was wrong.

  Day four was no better, and that day had been free of pranks, free of tempers, free of anything that could have upset her. Even the fact that I was still pondering what I might have done to inspire this type of reaction in her should have been a warning sign.

  I lifted weights, had a meeting with the coaching staff, and watched some film. Between those things, I talked with Rick, giving them something they could use later for voiceover work. And Molly stayed placidly behind the camera, face either pointed at her phone or at the back of the camera screen.

  In fact, she was doing such a good job of not looking at me that I was now an expert in the top of Molly's head.

  Rick cleared his throat, and I looked back at him. There was a knowing glint in his eye that made me want to punch him.

  "Does glitter make you feel like part of the team?"

  "Yeah, it's really magical that way."

  He smiled. "You weren't too happy, though?"

  The tip of Molly's pencil slowed as she was writing, and something warm flashed bright inside me. She was still aware; she just didn't want me to realize it.

  "Would you like to be held down by seven footba
ll players and have them dump glitter all over your sweat-soaked body?'

  "No."

  I rubbed my jaw. "No, I wasn't happy." I paused and started thinking about what Molly would have asked me if she wasn't doing a such a good job of ignoring me. She'd want me to flip up the lid on why I felt that way, why my anger at that moment was so hot and so high, instead of being able to laugh it off like a lot of my teammates would. "It's probably a control thing," I admitted slowly. "Why I got so mad."

  Her pencil stopped moving over the surface of the paper. Her whole frame froze, to the point where I wasn't even sure she was breathing.

  "Everything about switching teams reminds you how little is in your control in this league." I propped my hands on my hips. Trying to unearth the right words for what this reminded me of when I was little and used to dig in the dirt around this bush in our yard. I'd find something that felt small, that I could pull up easily, but inevitably, it was part of a larger, more stubborn root. I'd tug and tug, and only a little bit would give way before I needed to stop. "I can't control my teammates, no matter where I am. My coaches. My opponents. None of it."

  "What can you control?"

  For a second, I stared at the top of Molly's head, her shiny hair, and willed her to look up at me. But she didn't, and the pencil in her hand shook for a second before she started writing again.

  "I can control how prepared I am," I said. My eyes moved back to Rick. "I can control how in shape I am. What I eat. How I sleep. What I allow as a distraction.”

  “That seems like a pretty good list,” he commented.

  I laughed humorlessly. Normally, I’d avoid dwelling on this at all because even that felt like wasted energy. Energy I could harness elsewhere.

  It was a trait I inherited from my dad. If it didn’t serve my goal, it was a waste of energy. Keeping the door closed to things I couldn’t control was the best way to protect myself.

  Slowly, day by day since I’d gotten here, this ragtag group of people had turned the knob, but I was the one who had to do the rest of the work. Conversations like this were because I was opening that door.

  “If I had a normal job, that list would go further. In this league, doing what we do,” I said, “it’s a fraction of the whole picture. There are a million things that are out of my hands.”

  “Like your teammates pouring glitter down your shorts.”

  “Like that,” I agreed dryly. “Even if it’s meant as a joke, it’s hard to be reminded of the fact that, at the end of the day, the only thing I can control is me.”

  "A flawlessly working machine," he said quietly.

  I nodded. "Yeah."

  "Makes sense."

  "That's why I almost never stop working on those things," I told him. "Why going out is less important to me than watching film. Why eating right is more important to me than drinking." I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "Perfecting my craft is the best way for me to spend my time."

  "You're good at it, so you're doing something right."

  The only way I could explain why I shifted the subject, with a camera aimed at my face, was that part of my personality that refused to back down from a challenge. I allowed one side of my mouth to hook up in a quick smile. "Someone smart told me recently that I could be better, though."

  Her pencil froze again.

  Rick glanced at her, then back at me.

  "So I'm gonna try yoga," I announced.

  The pencil fell out of her hands, and her head snapped up.

  For the first time in four days, Molly's eyes were on mine. How was it possible that I'd forgotten that color already?

  Her mouth gaped open, and I saw Marty smile behind the camera.

  "Yoga?" Rick repeated.

  "Yup. I like a challenge." I held her astonished gaze until she blinked. "Do you think you could help me find an instructor? You said you'd come with me, right?"

  Molly snapped her mouth shut, just then realizing that Rick, Marty, and I were all staring at her.

  Then the strangest thing happened. I expected a smile, a laugh, maybe even a joke about a guy like me actually trying yoga. But as she studied my face, I saw her pull down the hypothetical shutters.

  Her expression was blank, and the brightness of her blue, blue eyes dimmed.

  "I can send you a link for a YouTube video for beginners. You'll be fine on your own."

  She nodded at Marty and mumbled something about a meeting, then Molly fled like the hounds of hell were nipping at her heels.

  My eyes narrowed on her retreating figure, and to someone like me, she'd just thrown down the most irresistible kind of gauntlet. Something had changed in her head when it came to me and whatever tenuous friendship we'd started forming, one that had been undaunted by my mood swings and prickly nature.

  "Uh-oh," Rick said under his breath. "Trouble in paradise?"

  I gave him a look, which made Marty snicker.

  "Just … trying to figure out what I did to piss her off."

  "Good luck," Marty said with a chuckle.

  I didn't need luck. She was about to find out just how stubborn Noah Griffin was when he wanted something, and just then, I wanted to figure out what was wrong with her.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Noah

  It took a lot for me to get nervous to make a phone call. But there I was, pacing the length of the apartment as the phone trilled ominously in my ear. I should’ve made the call as soon as Rick agreed to do this in the first production meeting. But I’d waited until right now.

  "Hello?" the voice barked.

  "Hi, Grandma."

  Silence.

  "I think I've finally lost my mind."

  A reluctant smile ghosted over my lips. "You haven't, I promise."

  "I must have. Because I used to have a grandson who loved me and called me regularly, but that grandson just texts now, like that's good enough."

  At the sound of her voice, my pacing slowed, and the nerves settled. "I'm sorry. I'm not …" I scratched the back of my head. "I'm not the best at making phone calls."

  "No shit, Sherlock."

  A laugh burst out of me, and the muscles it used to make such a sound were so atrophied from disuse that it almost hurt.

  "How are you, half-pint?"

  "Good. Busy."

  "Eh, busy is used as a badge of honor these days," she grumbled. "Doesn't impress me much. I want to know how my grandson is doing in this thing we called life."

  Before I knew it, I'd sprawled back on the too-small couch to soak in the sound of her voice. My grandma Pearl, my dad's mom, was one of my favorite people on earth, and the fact that I'd gone months without talking to her made me feel like a giant sack of shit. Yeah, I was busy. So what?

  "I'm playing in Washington again," I told her.

  She hummed. "I heard that on SportsCenter last week, I think."

  I smiled again. "You watch that?"

  "How else am I gonna find out what's going on? My son has the conversational skills of a yo-yo, and you're not much better, half-pint."

  The nickname she gave me at three had stuck this long, and even if I gently reminded her that I was a foot and a half taller than her, she'd still use it.

  "Well, I'm hoping I can make up for my lack of phone calls."

  "Yeah? How so? You gonna buy me another house?"

  It was the first thing I'd done when I cashed my signing bonus from Miami. I flew to South Dakota and paid cash for the place I knew my grandma'd had her eye on for a couple of years but would never be able to afford on her own. She hated that I’d done it. And she loved the house. She'd cried the entire time we walked through after she got the keys. Anything I'd sacrificed for this game was worth it at that moment. Every-fucking-thing.

  "Mind if I come visit my investment?" I asked her.

  She was quiet, but I heard the quick, sharp inhale of surprise. When she spoke, her voice wobbled just enough that I knew she was fighting tears. "After the season? Or sooner than that?"

  "Thi
s weekend, actually. I have a couple of days off before preseason."

  It was quiet. Then she sniffed. And sniffed again.

  I shook my head. "Come on, Grandma, don't cry. I'll think you don't want me to come."

  "I'm not crying, you dingbat," she said in a watery voice. "Just caught a frog in my throat."

  "Is that a yes?"

  "I think I could have the guest room ready," she answered.

  "Good." I blew out a breath. "I'll, uh, have a couple of people with me, if that's okay."

  "A woman? Oh Lord, please say it's a woman. Or a man. I don't care who, as long as it ends with me having a great-grandchild before I die, which is probably going to be soon."

  Molly's face flashed through my head, there and gone in the same breath, and it occurred to me that introducing her to my grandma was a big deal. A really big deal. Because the only conclusion I'd been able to come to in light of the realization that she was ignoring me was that it bothered me that she was ignoring me. And it bothered me because, in my head, Molly and I had started forming a tentative friendship. Besides Kareem and his glitter bomb, I didn't have any friends in Seattle. I didn't want her silence or her professional distance. It quickly went beyond wanting to know why she was doing it to wanting to fix it.

  I explained the Amazon documentary to Grandma, who immediately fussed over the fact that her home would be on film, and simply because it was easier, I glossed over Molly's role in the weekend.

  "There will be four of us. Me, the producer, Rick, the camera guy, Marty, and someone who works with me here in Washington. She kind of oversees everything."

  "She your boss?"

  The smile was there again, imagining pint-sized Molly bossing me around. To the rest of the world, she probably wasn't so pint-sized, but she was to me. "Not my boss. Just a coworker, I guess."

  Grandma hummed. "Okay. I'll put you in the basement room since you don't need impressing. The camera guy and the producer, you said? Yeah, Marty can go in the bunk room across from mine, and what's her name?"