The change in his tone and posture, and the pure respect I saw in his eyes were enough to make my nose burn with unshed tears. “I’ll be so mad at you if you make me cry.”
“No crying in football, Ward,” he snapped. “That’s an order.”
I rolled my eyes. “Go coach your team, please.”
He winked and left me alone in the hallway. Before I joined Noah again, I sank against the wall to gather myself.
Noah wasn’t my boss, but it was my responsibility to keep this process as painless as possible for him.
And I wasn’t his boss, but he’d need to respect my role, nonetheless. Film when I said he needed to film, cooperate with the crew from Amazon, and trust that he’d be portrayed positively. And more importantly, that he’d be reflected honestly.
Those things didn’t always go hand in hand, not in our industry. The best player in the world could be a raging asshole to the people around him. But as much as Noah had rubbed me the wrong way in the elevator, he was still respected by his teammates and coaches. Maybe he wasn’t universally adored because of the stoic exterior, but even the iciest person thawed occasionally. And at the end of the day, it was up to me to make sure the world saw that.
Sitting in the too-small chair in my boss’s office was a man who had dedicated his life to the same game I’d loved for all of mine.
They called him The Machine because the game of football—brown leather and white laces, cleats and turf and helmets and pads and sweat—was the thing he existed for.
“What’s behind The Machine, though?” I whispered.
Before I went back into Beatrice’s office, I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. It might take Noah weeks to thaw to my presence in his life, but thaw he would. He’d have no choice in the matter because the cameras didn’t lie, and the reason he agreed was to allow a rare glimpse behind the curtain. It reminded me of my favorite movies,
The Wizard of Oz.
If Noah Griffin was the wizard, all powerful and too big to comprehend for all that he was able to accomplish, then I’d have to be the unsuspecting Dorothy who unearthed the truth, one day at a time, no matter how out of place I felt doing it.
Ruefully, I glanced down at my nude-colored ballet flats and clicked the heels together. Didn’t have the same effect as ruby red slippers that glistened in the light, but it would have to do.
When I opened the door, he stood staring out of the window in the corner, which overlooked the sprawling suburbs where the Wolves training facilities and front offices were located. Off to the southeast, the jagged lines of Mt. Rainier were visible. His shoulders were held so rigidly in place that he didn’t give the slightest indication he’d heard me enter, but something at the back of my neck and with the way the hairs lifted on my arms, I knew he was fully aware that we were alone again in the same way I was.
I kept the door open a crack and walked back to my seat. My clipboard was on the corner of Beatrice’s desk, and I picked it up so I could flip to the tentative schedule marked out by Amazon. Things they wanted, requests for time and interviews, and insight that they thought would go over well but couldn’t be forced.
Setting the clipboard in my lap, I wondered briefly whether I should let him take the lead in this conversation, given he was the one who acted like a giant horse’s ass the last time I saw him.
It went against every molecule, every cell in my body not to care what he thought of me. To not try to convince him that I was a safe person for him in this. That our history could benefit us and not make life harder.
But I came to a decision as I sat there in the uncomfortable silence. It didn’t matter whether Noah liked me. I just needed him to do his job, and I needed him to let me do mine. We could achieve that whether he liked me or not.
“Beatrice thinks I got this job because of my brother,” was the thing that came out of my mouth first. There’d be no filter, not for this conversation. While he and I were alone, honesty was the best thing I could give him.
At the sound of my voice, Noah stilled even further, which didn’t seem possible. His massive frame held almost preternaturally motionless. The span of his back was so broad, emphasizing the way his body tapered at the waist and hips. A true athlete, no one would ever look at him and question that he was born to do this.
I knew the kind of dedication it took, and the sacrifices that people like him made to reach that kind of strength and stamina. It was why I did what I did, worked where I worked, and why I’d overlooked his opinion of me and Beatrice’s doubts in order to do my job.
“Is she right?” he asked.
I smiled. “I’m sure it helped me get my internship in college. But they never would’ve given me a job and they definitely wouldn’t have kept me around if I sucked at it.”
Noah didn’t answer, and he didn’t turn to face me. I preferred it that way.
“The only way I’ll prove to my boss that she’s wrong about me is by doing. There aren’t enough words in the English language to convince her that I’m not the sole product of nepotism, and this job, this opportunity, is the platform she’s allowing me to do that.” I stared intently at his back. “To prove that I earned my place here by my actions.”
His face tilted in my direction, enough that the light from the window caught the sharp jut to his jaw. The muscles under his skin popped, and I found myself staring at that little square of skin, marveling at how something so tiny could be so potent.
“Why are you telling me this?” he asked.
Leaning back in my chair, I folded one leg over the other and chose my words carefully before saying them. Noah wasn’t yelling, he wasn’t making a scene, but his annoyance at being in this position was loud and clear, like a blinking sign over his head.
“I didn’t pick you for the documentary, Noah. That was Beatrice and Amazon. It’s not my choice to be stuck with you. I actually tried to tell her I thought the rookie from New England would be a better choice.”
That made him turn. A slow pivot with his hands bracketing his hips. “Why’s that?”
Ah, there it was, a bright burst of irritation behind his eyes, probably because I insinuated that someone else would be more interesting than him. If there was one truth in this industry you could take to the bank, it was the competitive nature of these men. God bless their predictability in this single regard.
“My reasons don’t matter because they went with you.”
He must have clenched his teeth because his jaw did that thing again. I tore my eyes away.
“Sorry to disappoint you,” he said.
“You’ll only disappoint me if you get in my way.”
His eyebrows lifted slowly. “That so?”
My hands shook slightly, and I tightened them in my lap. He couldn’t see the frantic bouncing of my foot, but if he had, it would have betrayed whatever badass version of myself I was trying to portray.
I had one shot. I thought about what Beatrice said in our very first meeting. That we rarely had the chance to revisit someone’s first impression of us.
One chance to rework whatever definition he had in his head about me.
One shot at this conversation that would set the tone for us to work together.
To prove Beatrice wrong.
“You think you’re the only person who understands pressure?” I asked. I stood from the chair and dropped the clipboard onto the desk with a sharp slap of sound. He didn’t need to tower over me like an overbearing … whatever he was trying to be right now. “I’ll forget our interaction in the elevator yesterday because we were both taken by surprise.” I lifted my chin. “But it’s been almost ten years since you’ve seen me, Noah. I’m not the same girl, and you are not tempting enough to risk the opportunity that’s been given to me. If I can get over what happened, then you need to too. It’s not like I’m ripping my shirt off and begging for another chance.”
Those eyes flicked down my body, an intentionally derisive motion that took my measure in no more time than a single thud of his icy chunk of a heart.
“Sweetheart,” he drawled, “it wouldn’t matter if you were.”
Heat burned my cheeks, but I refused to drop my gaze. “Glad to hear it.”
Noah’s eyes narrowed slightly, but he didn’t say anything else.
“If you’re free after practice tomorrow, my office is two doors down on the right. We’ll meet with Rick, he’s the Amazon producer, and go over our filming schedule for the next couple of weeks. We’ll need on-field and off-field access to you.”
At that, he made a sound that could almost be confused for a laugh, if he wasn’t a soulless robot with no emotions.
Scratch that.
Noah had emotions. They just seemed to be slight variations of irritation.
“Off-field access to me will be pretty boring,” he admitted. “But they’re welcome to film it all the same.”
“Good.” I held out my hand, but he didn’t move closer. If he wanted to shake on it, he’d have to come to me, and based on the dangerous gleam that entered his eye, he knew it. “See you tomorrow?”
For a second, my hand was frozen in the air, and I worried that he’d let it stay there. But then he took two steps and enveloped my hand with his. My whole arm tingled, chills slipping up my skin at the dry, hard calluses on his fingers. It had been a minute since a man had touched me, and I hated that he was the one to elicit the reaction.
“Don’t make me regret that I agreed to this,” Noah said, still gripping my hand tightly in his.
New Book: Back Home to Marry Off Myself
Loredana’s father left the family for his mistress, leaving them to fend for themselves abroad. When life was at its toughest, her father showed up with “good news” after 8 years of absence: To marry off Loredana to a paralyzed son of the wealthy Mendelsohn family.