Focused

by Sorensen, Karla

  Promotion. Test. Whatever.

  Logan smiled. "That's great, Mol."

  "Seriously great," Paige said. "What is it?"

  I swallowed more wine. "She got Amazon to agree to include Washington in one of their All or Nothing documentaries."

  Paige whistled. "No shit." Logan pushed the swear jar in her direction, and she pulled a five from her purse and dumped it in. "There, I'm covered for the night."

  Logan eyed me again. "We weren't told about that. Who are they filming?"

  "They're still deciding. I guess Allie and Cameron knew about this," I said, referencing the team owner—Paige's best friend—and the longtime COO. "So does Coach, but they're holding a meeting tomorrow to tell the rest of the coaching staff before they decide which players to film."

  My brother was quiet as he processed that, and Paige smiled encouragingly at me, even as she knew her husband would be pissed that something like this might interrupt practice. We were less than a month away from the start of preseason, and while late roster changes weren't out of the ordinary, it was still stressful for the coaching staff.

  The Wolves hadn't won a championship since Logan played, even though their record had stayed strong. We'd won our division but failed in the past few years to make it past the playoffs, despite a tough defense and young offense.

  "That's big money for Washington," Paige said, "to land something like that."

  "It is. And a huge opportunity for more, when you consider merchandising." I set my glass down. "It helps in just about every facet—community relations, social media exposure, and new sponsorship opportunities. Players get exposure to a new crowd that may not know much about them other than their field stats. It's exciting."

  Logan nodded. "I get it. I don't have to like it, especially if cameras are tripping my players up during practice."

  "They won't, I promise."

  His smile was small. "Yeah? You gonna be in charge of them?"

  "Sort of?" I grinned. "I have to take a day or two to think about it, but you're looking at the official special projects liaison. I'll be the point person between Washington and Amazon. I'll be in charge of making sure everything runs smoothly; that the film crew has what they need, that the players are protected, and nobody gets in each other's way."

  "Molly, that's amazing," Paige gushed. She hurried around the island to give me a tight hug. "She can't be too bad if she trusted you with something like that."

  Logan looked thoughtful. Not thrilled, but not unhappy either. "And this is something you want to do?"

  I nodded. "I do. And I know, Logan, you loved that I never had to deal with the players, but I'll be fine. I have sixteen years of knowing how to manage stubborn athletes under my belt."

  Paige laughed.

  My brother rolled his eyes.

  "I wonder if the roster shakeup influenced Amazon's decision," Paige said.

  Logan stared at the floor but didn't say anything.

  "It's possible. Beatrice told me they're looking at a couple of narratives, and one is following the new players as they assimilate into the established culture of a team, college and pro." I shrugged. "But that's just one possibility."

  Logan muttered something under his breath. Paige narrowed her eyes at him.

  I cocked my head in his direction. "What was that?"

  He pinched the bridge of his nose. "I said I think I know who they want to film. Dammit."

  Paige slowly pushed the swear jar back in her husband's direction, which he ignored as I stared him down.

  "Who?"

  Logan slicked his tongue over his teeth and stared me down right back. "This is a horrible idea, and you should turn down the promotion."

  "Ummm, no. Why on earth would I do that?"

  "Molly."

  "Logan." I crossed my arms. "What's your problem?"

  "You have worked so hard, kid," he said, and my arms dropped at the sudden seriousness of his voice. "So damn hard, and I'm so proud of you."

  Paige glanced back and forth between us, and I shrugged.

  "Who did we sign, and why does this freak you out so badly?" she asked.

  He rubbed the back of his neck, closing his eyes for a long moment.

  I grabbed my phone. "Fine, I'll google it."

  "Noah," he said. "We signed Noah Griffin this morning. Press had barely got wind of it by the end of the day."

  Paige somehow managed an, "Ohhhhhhh shit," even though her half-open mouth barely moved.

  The phone clattered out of my hand, and I sank back down into the stool.

  "Like, Noah Noah?" I pointed at the house behind ours, the one he hadn't lived in for years. "That Noah."

  Logan's look was enough affirmation. Paige covered her mouth with one hand.

  My younger sister Isabel appeared around the corner with a half-eaten protein bar in her hand. "What about Noah?"

  We all looked at her but didn't answer.

  I dropped my head into my hands.

  "What about Noah?" Isabel repeated. "I heard Miami dropped him because of some drama in the locker room. Which is weird because he's like ... uber football robot man. I don't think I've seen him smile in three seasons." She whistled. "But damn, his QB sack record is bananas. Off the charts."

  Isabel would know. Our resident sports know-it-all.

  I thought my mind was racing before. How cute.

  "Molly," Logan said quietly. "Come on, think about this. If they're showing up to film him, then taking care of him will be your job. Do you think that's smart?"

  I snapped my head up. "I'm not a kid anymore, Logan."

  "What in the hell is going on?" Isabel shouted.

  Paige pushed the jar in her direction as Logan ignored everything except me.

  "Molly—" he said again.

  "No," I interrupted. "I'm not turning this down. I was sixteen the last time I saw him. That was forever ago. I'm sure he's forgotten all about it, just like I'm going to."

  Paige cleared her throat obnoxiously because we all heard the bullshit in my words.

  Like I'd ever be able to forget Noah Griffin.

  Former next-door neighbor, the college boy I crushed on for two years before I snuck out, climbed into his bedroom window, and attempted to seduce him before his dad caught us. The same college boy I could've ruined if his dad had walked in much later, and anyone had found out he slept with a minor while on a full ride football scholarship.

  Yeah, that Noah Griffin.

  Looking around the room, I noted all three of their faces were frozen into variations of this is a horrible idea.

  "You guys," I stated, "I've totally got this. They probably aren't even coming to film him. We have thirty-one other players to pick from. It'll be fine."

  Oh, how very, very wrong I was.

  Chapter Two

  Noah

  Almost nothing about my job intimidated me.

  A three-hundred-pound offensive lineman could curse me out just before the snap of the ball, threaten my mother and spit through his helmet all the ways he was going to grind me into the turf, and I wouldn't feel the slightest twinge of apprehension.

  I didn't become the best at my position by getting scared off easily. I did it by living, eating, breathing football.

  Nothing came before it. Nothing ranked above it.

  Practice always took precedence over anything I might find fun, which was why my former teammates in Miami used to call me The Machine. I was the first one in the weight room, the last one to leave the film room, the copious notetaker at meetings, and probably one of the only unapologetically celibate football players in the league.

  Another thing that didn't come before my job was women, or what anyone around me might think of me.

  But when my agent called me two days earlier, and said, "We're sending you to Washington," I felt something foreign lodge behind my chest, somewhere low in my rib cage.

  Apprehension.

  Nerves.

  And worst of all, the slightest, smalles
t twinge of fear.

  Because forty-eight hours later, I found myself standing in front of the closed door of my new defensive coordinator, who was expecting me for a meeting, and I couldn't bring myself to open it.

  My hand wouldn't lift to knock, and my feet stayed stubbornly parked in place. I'd clocked in at two hundred and eighty pounds at my last weigh-in, and not one of those pounds, the muscle I'd worked on my entire career, was feeling particularly motivated to move me forward into that office.

  My jaw tightened as I stared at the nameplate next to the door, innocuous silver with black letters. Logan Ward, Defensive Coordinator.

  In the past ten years, I'd only seen him once since I started for Miami, when our teams had played against each other two years earlier. A nod after the game, which they'd won, and that was it.

  Prior to that ... I refused to think about. My eyes pinched shut because that one day set me onto a trajectory where nothing, and no one, would ever distract me from my goals again.

  The door yanked open, and his face greeted me with a scowl.

  "Are you coming in, Griffin, or should we yell at each other through the door?"

  Whatever trace of fear had been lingering was instantly replaced with annoyance, and I gave him a look of consternation. "Nice to see you, too."

  "Let's get this over with because I don't need distractions, and there are already enough of them lining up for the season."

  "Are you this welcoming to every guy you coach?" I asked as I followed him into the no-frills office.

  "Nope," he answered easily. He sat heavily in his chair and watched me thoughtfully.

  His was typical of every coordinator's office I'd ever been in. A desk with two chairs across from it, a whiteboard along the back, and empty walls. Their work took place on the field, their strategies mapped out on clipboards and in the film rooms. And a defensive mind like Logan's, that had been one of the best when he played, had only been honed further now that he coached from the sidelines.

  His genius didn't need a fancy office. He just needed players who listened and knew what to do, knew what to look for, and who had that same sense that he did in reading an offense.

  "Haven't talked to you in a long time, Griffin."

  Just over nine years since we exchanged a single word, but that stayed unsaid, considering my dad sold our house shortly after Logan all but threatened my career in his driveway if I ever looked at his sister again. I crossed my arms over my chest. "I didn't ask to be sent here."

  He exhaled a quiet laugh. "Dispensing with niceties, I see."

  I swiped a hand over my mouth. This was the part I wasn't very good at. "I guess. I just ... I'm here to work, you know? Yes, you and I used to be neighbors, but it's not like anyone knows that here. I didn't want to leave my team, but here I am. It's not my choice, but I'll be damned if it derails me in any way."

  Logan's attention never wavered from my face, and his expression never shifted. It was that razor-sharp focus that every good player had. Every good coach too.

  "You've changed," he said quietly.

  "In ten years? I hope so."

  "Fair enough," Logan conceded. He leaned forward, setting his folded hands on the surface of the desk. "Here's the deal: you've got more natural talent in your pinky finger than most players on my entire defense. And if you tell anyone I said that, I'll deny it until my dying breath."

  My face stayed unchanged, even as my heart sped up at his compliment.

  "But I will not go easy on you because we knew each other. If anything, I'd take great pleasure in seeing you get knocked on your ass a couple of times, simply because it's within my power to make that happen," he said with a grim smile.

  I sat back. This was the meeting I'd expected. The warning I'd anticipated. All because his pain in the ass little sister climbed on the lap of a stupid college boy who used to let his dick rule his life.

  My thoughts must have been clear on my face because he nodded like he could read every single one.

  "I wasn't allowed to knock you the hell out back then,” he said. “But I wanted to."

  My chin lifted a fraction of an inch. "I know you did, sir."

  "I won't now. I've matured in my old age."

  If he wanted me to crack a smile and lighten the mood, I didn't give him the satisfaction. Nobody saw me flinch. "You also know I'd hit you back, coach or not."

  Logan's smile was slow, but it came nonetheless, because he thought I was joking. When my face still didn't change, the smile disappeared. He shook his head.

  "You are one grumpy son of a bitch, aren't you?"

  "I've heard that, yes." Then I shook my head. "I'm not grumpy. I just don't take any of this lightly. Football is the most important thing in my life."

  "I can respect that." He tapped the side of his thumb on the desk, looked away from me, then looked back, seeming to come to a decision about something. "She works here, by the way."

  I tilted my head. "Who does?"

  A warning siren started low, somewhere in the back of my brain as he said it, and it occurred to me, just before he answered that maybe this was the reason I felt apprehensive about this change. This was the reason I should've been afraid to come to Washington.

  "Molly." He stared me down, daring me to have any sort of negative reaction about her. Any reaction at all.

  Over the past nine years, I'd come to think about Molly with a strange sense of detachment, equal parts harbinger of destruction and the symbol of my shifting focus.

  "A lot of people work here, sir. What does that have to do with me?"

  His eyebrows popped up. "Not much, I suppose. I just wanted to give you a heads-up, in case—"

  I held up a hand. "She a trainer?"

  "No."

  "A coach?" I asked unnecessarily because we both knew none of the coaches in the league were female.

  "You know she's not."

  "Then it doesn't involve me." I stood from the chair. "I need to get changed and head to the weight room if you're done."

  He leaned back in his chair, and I hated the look of disappointment on his face. That face had aged since I last saw him but not by much. It was in the color of his hair, and the addition of a few lines around his eyes. But I'd changed too. I'd gained about seventy-five pounds of muscle since the day I stood in his driveway, humbled and embarrassed and, quite frankly, terrified.

  Sometimes, I hardly recognized the man who stared back at me in the mirror. But I promised myself that day that I’d never feel that way again. One stupid slip almost ruined my life. A mistake that never would’ve been worth the consequences had the wrong person caught us.

  "Anything else you need from me, sir?"

  It took a second for Logan to answer, but finally, he said, "No, that's it."

  I nodded and left his office far more quickly than I'd entered. As I walked back down the hallway, trying to remember which one led to the elevator that would get me to the locker room and weight room, I harnessed every ounce of mental discipline in my body to ignore what he'd told me.

  The absolute last person I cared to see at work was her.

  And more than likely, I wouldn't have to. Players rarely saw front office staff unless they made it a point to. I took a deep breath and refocused. The elevator was down the hall and to the right, and that was what I needed to think about.

  Someone on the janitorial staff passed me with a polite smile, which I returned just enough that I wouldn't look like a raging asshole. Making the turn, I saw the gleaming metal doors. I punched the button and waited. My muscles bunched in anticipation of a good workout. If I didn't put in a couple of hours a day, minimum, I felt an uncomfortable buzzing underneath my skin. Energy that had no outlet would start seeking one, no matter what that outlet was.

  For me, I chose the healthiest. The one that would make me stronger. Make me faster. Make me better.

  Some players drank. Partied on yachts. Raced cars. Did drugs. Slept around.

  But they weren't as good as
I was. To me, all those things were pointless distractions.

  The doors opened, and I strode into the empty elevator car. I hit the button for the correct floor and waited. Just as the doors slid shut, a hand popped through the opening, halting their progress.

  Like I had a few moments earlier, she surged inside the car, coming to a screeching halt with a squeak of surprise when she saw me leaning up against the wall.

  We were frozen there, staring at each other, her mouth hanging open as the doors tried to close unsuccessfully. She stepped forward, and the doors closed smoothly, locking me in the enclosed space with Molly.

  "Hi, Noah," she said weakly.

  Chapter Three

  Noah

  Tilting my chin up, I breathed slowly through my nose.

  "This cannot be happening," I muttered.

  "Nice to see you too," she said, voice no longer weak and surprised.

  Grudgingly, I dropped my gaze, and for the first time in nine years, I looked Molly Ward straight in the face. The last time I'd seen her, my father had marched us over to her house to deliver her back to Logan and his wife.

  The last time I'd seen her, I'd pulled her shirt off and sucked on her enthusiastic tongue while she wiggled on my lap. I didn’t even have a good reason for doing it, other than being a dumb college football player who didn’t question things like hot girls wanting to be with me.

  The last time I'd seen her, I was an idiotic nineteen-year-old, completely unaware that the girl with the fantastic rack, the one who eyed me like I was made of chocolate, the girl who climbed into my bedroom window and tasted like Rainier cherries, was only sixteen.

  Thank God my dad walked in.

  There was a lot about her that hadn’t changed. She was still short—or short compared to me even though she was probably around five feet eight—and her eyes were the same bright blue. Her face had slimmed down because the cheekbones were new, while some of the other curves she'd had as a teenager were either effectively hidden behind her simple white shirt or had melted away as she grew into an adult. Her hair was the lighter than it used to be, but the stubborn lift of her chin gave me vivid flashbacks to the last time I'd seen her.