Focused: A hate to love sports romance(69)

Marty groaned. "I can't. I can't do it. He's made us watch it eight thousand times in the past two days, Rick. I see them almost kiss one more time, I'm going to lose my mind."

I glared at him. "And whose fault is it that you got it on film?"

"Like I knew what you guys were doing when I came back upstairs! I didn't even realize I caught anything until I got back to the office."

Rick held up his hands. "Okay. Marty, go take a breather. Noah, you and I can take it from the top. But I promise," he said, "it's perfect. She'll love it."

"This better work," I muttered. He started the video we'd made again, and just like I had every single time we watched it, there was an unsettling sense of rightness in every second. The fact that I missed it, from the very first day, seemed impossible now.

We watched quietly, and I found myself smiling when we got to the snippets from the day we did yoga. Marty fought tooth and nail for the scene where I blatantly checked out her ass, and he was right, it was funny. A chink in the armor, a break in my control, almost as though she'd scripted it herself from the very beginning.

There was a brusque knock on the door, and I sighed, punching the pause button on the remote.

"Want me to get it?" Rick asked.

"No. It's probably a neighbor or something. I keep managing to avoid the greeting committee."

I yanked open the door.

And there she was.

"Wha-" I stammered. "Molly?"

Her brother stood behind her, a cunning grin plastered across his face.

She glared over her shoulder at him. "He just ... showed up here and wouldn't tell me why."

When she faced me again, her cheeks were flushed bright pink, her eyes bright with nerves.

The fact that my house was a mess, nothing was ready, no lights were strung, and no soft music was playing under a sunset-dim sky or that I looked like a crazy homeless person didn't matter. There were a thousand details that could have made it the most perfect night in the world, but suddenly, they were completely inconsequential.

The excess boiled away, reducing the moment down to the bare truth, the unbreakable bones of what I needed to know, what I needed to trust in.

She was here. And I loved her.

"Will you come in?" I asked.

Molly blinked. "You knew I was coming?"

I gave Logan a loaded look. "You were supposed to be delivered a little bit later," I said meaningfully, "but yes. Logan agreed to help me."

Her lips curled in a smile. "Then I'm sorry I'm early."

"I'm not," I answered.

The smile widened, and it blew through me like a veritable wrecking ball. That was always what Molly had been to me. A weapon of mass destruction, testing every limit I'd ever given myself. And I didn't want it any other way.

Standing back so she could enter the house, I glared at Logan. "What was that for?" I hissed.

He leaned up to smack me on the shoulder. Hard. "That was for sleeping with my sister, asshole." Then he grinned. "Welcome to the family."

As he ambled back to his truck, he whistled, and I couldn't help but shake my head at how this entire thing had played out. Ten years in the making, an inevitable conclusion that was impossible for me to avoid.

I shut the door and tried to regroup because well ... I'd just been blitzed. Outmaneuvered. And I never saw it coming.

Rick was grinning as he greeted Molly. "He's been an absolute terror to put up with since you left."

"Is that your way of saying you missed me?" she asked. Marty stormed up the stairs when he heard her voice and wrapped her in a massive, rib-cracking hug that had her laughing. "I guess that answers my question."

"Don't leave us alone with him," Marty begged.

Molly tucked a piece of hair behind her ear and gave me a shy glance that had my heart thudding—big, big, bigger—until it felt stretched over my entire body. "I'll see what I can do," she said.

I smiled.

It was so right having her here. This was what made it feel like my home. Her.

Her gaze tracked over the space, and even with how messy it was, she looked happy. Then the smile froze, her eyes widening as she caught sight of the TV screen. "That's us," she said numbly.

Rick and Marty shared a look. Rick gave me a thumbs-up and disappeared downstairs. Marty picked up his small camera and moved back into the kitchen, so he could be out of the way and still catch what needed to be caught. It was our compromise.

Just far enough out of earshot that if she and I spoke quietly, they'd struggle to hear us. The other cameraman flicked off his machine and followed Rick downstairs. He nodded encouragingly too. Maybe I ought to learn his name before it was all over.

"It is us," I said, coming up behind her. "It's ... hell, this is not how I wanted to do any of this."

She reached down to the coffee table and carefully picked up the remote. Before she hit the play button, she let out a shaky breath.

But my brave girl, not knowing what she'd see, or what I'd intended, she lifted her chin and started it over.

I'd seen the film enough, the blossoming of our love condensed into eight minutes, so I could unabashedly watch her.

One minute in, she was smiling at the scene where she knocked me on my ass by telling me I could be better.