It pissed me off.
“None of this feels natural,” I growled. I speared my hands into my hair and stared out to the line of blue water in the sound. “And even though I’ve heard all these reasons it’s fine, and why people will find it interesting, I don’t understand how I’m supposed to just … wander around these houses and it’ll help the team. Or help me be a part of the team.”
Molly took another step closer, sighing softly as she did. Her face, delicate and sweet and pretty, was bent in a thoughtful frown. “It’s not supposed to help the team, Noah. It’s not about winning or about making them better,” she said haltingly.
“Then what’s the point?”
Her eyes searched my face. “The point is showing the truth. This is the reality of being a player in the league. Sometimes you change teams, and sometimes it’s hard when you do.”
I clenched my jaw and caught sight of Marty in my peripheral vision. The little shit was even sneakier than Molly, creeping around without anyone noticing.
“Aren’t you supposed to be out of the shot too?”
She didn’t take my bait, and I felt a moment of shame that I swiped at her in the first place.
“No, I’m not supposed to be doing anything other than this,” she said quietly. “I’m helping you find someplace to live because that’s what you need. You need a place to feel like home, to have chairs that fit you and walls around you that make you feel like this is where you’re meant to be. And if you’re upset because you don’t have anyone else to call to help you with this, then fix it. If you don’t like it, then do something about it.”
At that moment, I realized that you didn’t have to yell or be the biggest and loudest to infuse your strength into an important moment.
So few people in my life took me on head to head. She was the last person I’d expected to be willing to step up to the plate and do it, this petite woman who barely reached my chest with the top of her head, who I could lift with one hand.
“You’re not my friend, Molly,” I reminded her. My voice was low, so Marty couldn’t hear us. “I don’t need this from you, so stop trying to psychoanalyze me.”
Her eyebrows bent in. “That’s not what I’m doing.”
I leaned down toward her. “Yeah, it is. You keep trying to make me more interesting, more fun, more friendly, and maybe that’s the version of me you want the world to see, but that’s not what I am. Quit trying to turn this into something it’s not.” I straightened, ignoring the hurt, speculative look in her eyes. “I’m done looking for today. I’ll take care of this myself.”
They wanted to film The Machine, and that was what they’d get. Starting now.
MOLLY
“That house must have been worse than I thought,” I muttered. “It’s like that last hit to the head knocked his personality into a coma.”
Standing in the kitchen of Noah’s temporary apartment, Marty and I watched carefully as Noah did his best impression of a man ignoring everyone around him.
By that, he was sitting on the couch with headphones on and watching film on his iPad, occasionally pausing the film to jot notes into a massive notebook.
“So we just stand here?” I asked.
Marty sighed, checking the position of the tripod that held his smaller camera. “Yup.”
“He’s not doing anything.”
“Nope.”
His unperturbed tone had me glancing at him. “How often do you get bored doing this job, Marty?”
He chuckled. “Rarely. Even at times like this.”
“Seriously?”
What he lacked in height, Marty made up for in his huge smile. “Seriously. You don’t go into a job like this because it’s exciting all the time. It’s about finding the moments of interesting in the mundane, you know? I’ve done six-month shoots tracking wolves in Yellowstone, and it’s not like you’re constantly filming them on the hunt, right? They’re sleeping half the time, pissing in the grass, tugging at a pile of old, dried-out bones to find a last scrap of a meal. If you get lucky, someone fights over a female, and you manage to catch it. But most of the time, it’s quiet.”
My eyes trailed back to Noah, sitting quietly on the couch that was painfully out of proportion for his large frame. In my mind, I couldn’t imagine him as a wolf. He was too large, his frame too dense and weighted down with muscle. He was a bear, tall and broad and ominous, big enough to blot out the sun if he stood over you.
“And you’re never tempted to force action?” I asked.
“What do you mean?”
“Like they do in reality TV.” I held my hands up when his face pinched with distaste. “I’m not suggesting it, trust me. Just … trying to understand the process is all. How doing this serves the narrative.”
Marty leaned over to check the camera again and changed the angle to account for the setting sun. “Things like today were perfect or would’ve been if he hadn’t had a tantrum at the first house. It’s something real and true, something he needs to accomplish to get settled now that he’s here.” His eyes, astute and keenly observant, moved back over to the man in the other room. “But this is real and true too. He’s retreating to something that’s safe, something he’s good at, and this is just as important to capture.”
I nodded, glancing at my watch. We had about an hour left in the filming schedule, and it was about as fun as watching paint dry.
“But if you want to ask him some questions,” Marty said, leaning toward me and speaking quietly, “I wouldn’t tell you not to. You get a reaction out of him that no one else seems to. And that’s good on film. As long as his reactions are his, are true, it’s never going to be a bad thing.”
The laugh huffed out easily. “But that’s not forcing action?”
“It’s not. You know we can edit you out of the shot if that’s what needs to be done, but look at him,” he said. We both did, and my face felt flipped upside down at what a sad picture it was. “He’s alone, by choice, in this place that clearly doesn’t fit him or make him feel comfortable, and he’s supposed to make it feel like home.”
“Seattle was home to him,” I corrected. My eyes zeroed in on my shoes as I felt a flush of heat crawl up my neck. “I just mean, it’s not like this is new to him.”
“How well did you know him?” Marty asked the question just a little too smoothly.
I gave him a look. “Not well. I knew of him. Knew he played football. It’s almost impossible to be a sixteen-year-old girl and not be aware of someone like that living next door.” I shook my head. “But I don’t remember him being like this.”
“Is that hard for you?”
“Hard how?”
He shrugged. “Guy’s pretty closed off. I hope we can get enough good footage off field, you know? Make it worth it to keep his storyline in the final cut.”
A flash of discomfort turned my stomach over, imagining Beatrice’s face if that were to happen. How that would reflect on me if it did. “It’ll make the final cut. I saw the way he tore up practice this morning. You guys won’t cut his footage.”
“It’s happened before.” Marty clucked his tongue. “Be a shame, since Washington put all their eggs in his basket. One he doesn’t seem very motivated to hold onto, if you ask me.”
“Oh, you are a dirty, dirty cheat,” I muttered under my breath, which made him grin unrepentantly. “I’m motivated enough for the both of us, trust me.”
He nudged me with his shoulder and started unhooking the camera from the tripod. “I think your boss is banking on that too, Ward.”
So many people called me by my last name, a hazard of working in the industry that I did, but for some reason, it reinforced why I was in this position and what was riding on it.
My last name held weight in the halls of Washington and even more on the field. When I walked into a meeting with someone new, there was an undercurrent of established respect. One that I’d be a fool to ignore, no matter how much it rankled that Beatrice didn’t think I’d earned my place honestly.
I had earned it honestly. But it also came with undeniable perks. And one of those perks was a knowledge and respect of the game of football that stretched back my entire life. Maybe I hadn’t lived with Logan until I was fourteen, but I grew up watching him play. Some of my earliest memories include standing in the stands and cheering him on when he was in college, then more than a decade of him playing professionally.
I could throw down with any man about this sport, no matter how much of a die-hard fan they were. No matter if they were a player either. Marty’s words echoed through my head as I approached the couch. It was long and black, low to the ground, with sleek oblong pillows flanking each arm.
Noah pretended he wasn’t aware of me coming closer, but I saw the tightening of his jaw, and the way he shifted the iPad away from my gaze. Inexplicably, it made me smile.
That he noticed because his eyes flicked briefly from the screen, over to my mouth, then back. His frown intensified.
It was amazing how, only a couple of days after seeing him again, that frown had lost some of its ability to intimidate me. I folded my legs under me on the couch and leaned close enough that he sighed irritably. It wasn’t film of Washington.
It was a game he played at Miami against an opponent we’d be facing in week two and on the road as well. Their stadium was a hostile place to play. Loud and open and unforgiving for any team that didn’t call it home. I nodded when he backed up the cursor to watch something for a second time.
“What?” he snapped.
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.