Focused: A hate to love sports romance(39)

Yeah. There was a part of me that was hurting all right, and it needed to friggin stop because I had a camera pointed at me.

Was I sweating? I swept my hand along my forehead, and sure enough, a few minutes of simple poses, and I was sweating.

"No, I'm fine," I said from between gritted teeth.

A smile trembled on the edge of her lips as the woman on the screen told us in a soothing voice where to position our legs. Goddess pose or something like that. All I knew was that Molly’s legs spread wide, and she lowered herself easily.

She was strong.

"Did you know that Dallas started bringing in a yoga instructor for practices?"

I glanced over at her. "Seriously?"

Molly arched her arms and pushed her legs into a different position, and when I followed a few seconds later, she grinned at my obvious delay. "Seriously. Helps avoid injuries because the players are more flexible. One of their linemen had back surgery, and when he wasn't working out during the off season, his PT suggested yoga to strengthen his back and core without risking more injury. It worked so well for him that their coach brought someone in for the whole defense to try it. Now they do yoga twice a week as a part of practice."

For the first time since we started, my mind flipped back into its natural default. Football.

"I never even considered it," I said, then grunted when I was asked to do something entirely unnatural with my legs. Molly caught a glimpse of my face and laughed, her belly shaking as she laid flat on the mat.

I hated to admit it, but it was harder than I thought. We were supposed to lay there and keep our legs in the air for eight minutes.

Eight minutes.

Molly held her legs straighter than I did. Her fingers wiggled on the mat, and not an ounce of tension existed in her body anywhere I could see. Actually, it looked like she could've fallen asleep for how relaxed she was.

Pressing my lower back firmly against the mat, I tried to breathe through my chi or harness my inner sunrise or whatever the instructor was talking about on the video.

"Are we almost done?" I asked.

"Nope."

I sighed.

"You watch," she said, eyes still closed when I turned my head to look at her, "this'll be the season you break the sack record, and when you do, you better thank me."

I smiled and directed my gaze back up to the ceiling. "You got it."

My movements were jerky when we shifted position again, whereas Molly looked like her joints were made from water.

"You're terrible at this, Noah."

In the kitchen, I caught a glimpse of Marty smothering a smile.

I narrowed my eyes at her. "I'm not terrible."

She folded her body in half. "Yes, you are."

"Fine, you come to practice tomorrow, and we'll see how you do in my world."

"No, thank you," she demurred. "Enough of my life is taken up by football. I don't need to add time on the field into it too."

"Too much football," I said quietly. I lifted my arms over my head and mimicked her movements. "Is there such a thing?"

"Maybe not when you're in the thick of it." She exhaled slowly through her mouth. "But you can't play forever. What are you going to do when you're done?"

A wry smile bent my lips as I straightened and propped my hands on my hips. Whatever the pose was in the video, my big ass body did not bend that way. "They'll have to drag me kicking and screaming off the field when they want me to retire."

"Yeah?"

"As long as my body cooperates," I said, "I'll be out there."

"Maybe you can set a new record. Oldest defensive player of the year."

She pointed at my mat, and I sighed, dropping down to do what she was doing. Cat or cow or cobra. I couldn't remember.

"Yeah, in ten years, maybe."

"You think you'll still be averaging a sack and a half per game in ten years?" she teased. "Yeah, right. You'll be limping around by that point unless you do some more of this."

I glared at her, but it didn't dim her smile. It got brighter. Everything else around her faded.

Why didn't that terrify me? That everything in the room except Molly's face became blurry and unimportant, but the way her lips stretched into a smile, how that smile lit up her eyes, was vital and precious. I didn't intimidate her in any way, and that suddenly felt like something I needed to protect. Something I should wrap my arms around and cocoon from the outside world so nothing and no one could change that about her.

It was the only reason I could think of for why I didn't see her reach out to tip me over.

Balancing like I had been, I fell like a freaking oak tree.

She collapsed into helpless laughter while I flopped onto my back.

"Dirty cheat," I groaned.

Molly wiped tears of mirth from under her eyes and balanced on her knees over me. "Are you okay?"

"Oh sure, pretend you care now. You could've injured me."

"Who knew The Machine was such a crybaby."

Narrowing my eyes, I felt my body tense to pounce, but she scrambled backward, laughter coming out in short puffs of air. Before I flipped around to my knees to take off after her, I froze. What was I doing?

Every second of this was on film. And if I laid my hands on her now, I'd be lost. Molly saw the change of mood on my face, and those bright blue eyes softened in understanding. How could she read me as well as she did? It made no sense.