Focused: A hate to love sports romance(9)

Isabel snorted. "I still blame Mom for a lot. Just ask my therapist."

My head swiveled in her direction. "You go to a therapist? Since when?"

"Eh, I went twice before it pissed me off. She was a whack job who kept asking me stupid questions. If I knew why I was so angry with my mother, would I be paying her a hundred bucks an hour?"

Laughing under my breath, I shook my head. That sounded about right. The thought of my emotionally reserved sister spilling her guts in a comfy chair to a shrink did not compute, not in any reality I was aware of. It sounded like something I would do. Allow a perfect stranger to untangle my emotions and figure out why the woman who gave birth to us didn't love us enough to want to stick around.

All four of us bore scars to varying degrees, and over time, they'd all healed differently. Mine was a sense of urgency if I knew someone didn't like me, whatever the reason. A niggling discomfort under my skin to fix it, fix it, fix it.

I sighed. "I'm sure that's part of it, but it was him, too. I'd completely convinced myself if I just ... had the chance to really talk to him, he'd fall head over heels in love with me, and I'd have the hottest boyfriend out of all my friends, who played college football."

"Not surprising for a sixteen-year-old."

"No, but it was crazy. To do what I did." My face flushed hot when I thought about it. Something I hadn't really done in years. The moments before his dad walked through the door, I'd never felt more alive. More womanly.

It should have been a blazing red warning light that Noah had no qualms about kissing me like he did or touching me like he had after I climbed through his effing window without so much as a single meaningful conversation between the two of us.

That five minutes after my legs cleared the windowsill, I was straddling his lap. I should’ve worried that his big, hot hands were underneath my shirt, sliding up my back and tugging it up over my head, when we'd barely kissed. That my hands shook where I'd laid them on his muscular shoulders because when he did kiss me, it felt like I was drowning in something so much bigger than I'd been prepared for.

If his dad hadn't walked in, I would've slept with Noah Griffin that day. And he probably would've never spoken to me again afterward.

It was something I had to come to grips with after it all went down.

After Mr. Griffin marched me back home to face my furious brother and my disappointed sister-in-law, I curled up in my bed and sobbed my sixteen-year-old heart out. The look on Noah's face when he realized how old I was cemented the fact that any happily ever after I'd imagined with him would stay firmly planted in my teenage brain.

"You know how every age you're at," I said, "you feel like, this is the most mature I'll ever be. Right now, I have it all figured out."

Isabel smiled.

"And then a few years pass, and you want to slap your past self for ever thinking something that stupid."

She laughed under her breath. "Yeah. I know exactly what you mean."

"I wish I could go back and handcuff myself to my bed, so I never climbed through that damn window. I wish I could go back and get on the elevator two minutes later so that I never realized what a big, dumb asshole he is now." I shook my head. "I really, really wish I could take back the moment I said I wanted to be friends with him."

Her face was sad as she listened. "That doesn't sound like you. You're friends with everyone."

"Not Noah Griffin."

Inexplicably, that made Isabel grin.

"What?" I snapped, well aware that I sounded like the human equivalent of a pout.

"How'd he look?"

I groaned, dropping my head into my hands. "Isabel."

"That good, huh?"

Lifting my head, I glared at her over my shoulder. "You know what he looks like."

"Yeah." She sighed. "Sure as hell do. But seeing him in person, being stuck in an elevator with him, that's a whole different thing, and you know it, Molly. Give me the goods."

How did he look?

Oh my stars, I didn't want to think about how he looked.

Angry.

Big.

Beautiful.

More than likely, Noah would've hated that I called him beautiful, but he was. The symmetry in his features, the bold slash of his lips, the rock-hard angle of his jaw, the shock of dark hair, the icy color of his eyes ... everything about that man's face was a gift of genetics, and it pissed me off on principle.

A face that perfect should be smiling. Kind. Warm.

And he'd been the exact opposite. He took me in, judged me, then decided I wasn't worth a single ounce of his kindness.

What a prick.

I sighed. "It was stupid how good he looked, Iz."

"What are you gonna do?"

I rolled my neck. "I'm not sure. I do not want to turn down the new job from Beatrice because of this. There's no guarantee that Noah will be involved anyway. More than likely, they'll follow one of the other new guys ... maybe the new running back."

Isabel's eyebrows bent in. "The guy from the New England practice squad?"

I nodded. "It's not like Noah is the only new contract they signed this week."

"He's just the biggest name," she said gently.

"Thanks."