After another hour, I dropped on the mat on my back and groaned.
Another day in the books.
She walked over to my phone on the bench and turned the music down before coming over to sit on the mat a few feet from me.
“How often do you push this hard?” she asked.
“Six days a week in the off-season. It’s my time to build and strengthen before the season starts. I always give myself one day to recover.”
“It’s impressive.”
I sat forward so we were facing one another. “I’m sure you’ve pushed yourself, being a collegiate athlete.”
“Yeah. We definitely did. It was a lot of work. I miss it sometimes. But I still run a couple of days a week and swim when I’m home.”
Thoughts of Brinkley in a bathing suit flooded my mind.
“You can join me on my swims. I’ve been cross-training a few days a week.”
“Sure. Seeing as now you’ve made me your training partner, when does the actual interview start?”
I smirked. “I knew you were going to ask that.”
“Don’t get a big head. I’m a reporter. It was sort of inevitable that I’d ask.”
“All right. Three questions today. Make them count.”
“I can ask anything?”
“Like I said, I’ll answer what I’m comfortable with. If you ask a question that I don’t want to answer, I’ll just tell you to move on to the next one.”
“Fine.” She rolled her eyes. “I’m going to record this, so anything that’s not on the record, just be sure to say that so I can make a note later when I type up our conversation.”
“Fair enough.” My jaw ticked, and I prepared for the worst.
“Why do you look so uncomfortable?”
“I don’t like talking about myself outside of football.”
I’d never been one to put myself in vulnerable situations, and for whatever reason, I didn’t feel like I was in complete control over this interview.
“Then we’ll start with football.” Her lips turned up in the corners the slightest bit, and her gaze locked with mine. She held up the phone to show me that she was hitting the record button. She said the date and the time, and her demeanor changed in that moment. Her shoulders squared, and she let out a long breath. She took her job seriously, that much was clear.
“Did you know that you wanted to play football when you were young?”
She’d thrown me an easy pass, and I appreciated it.
“From the first moment I held a football in my hands, something changed in me.”
“How so?”
“I don’t know. I was maybe five or six years old when my grandfather gave me a football. I just remember coming alive. Waking up every day and wanting to play.”
I remembered that day with my grandfather like it was yesterday.
“Like it was a part of you?”
“Sure. I’d say that’s a fair statement. It was all fun and games back then. I played flag football for years, and then things started changing in high school. It was no longer just a hobby or something I looked forward to doing. It was what I wanted to pursue.”
She nodded.
“So, Lincoln, tell us about the next level of play. About getting recruited to college.”
I held up two fingers to remind her that this counted as question number two.
She glared in response, and I forced back a smile. I liked irritating her.
“I got one offer to play at a small college in Iowa, where I’d grown up. My high school coach knew Jack Hardin, who coached at Iowa State College, and he took a chance on me. He’s also the man who helped me transfer to Alabama from there. I still wasn’t their best guy, so I didn’t get a ton of playing time when I first arrived. But I was training with top-notch coaches and athletes. Learning. Taking it all in. Working my ass off every day to try to get better.”
She paused and studied me for a long minute, as if she was contemplating her next question. I already knew I wasn’t going to like it by the look on her face.
“We’ve all seen your mother out there at every game. Can you tell us about your father and if he played a role in your football journey?”
I could feel my face hardening. My hands fisted, and I made a conscious effort to relax before I spoke. “Next question.”
We sat in silence for a minute. “Tell me about the draft.”
“Not a lot to tell. I was happy to get drafted by San Francisco. I was their second-string QB when I first came on, and Pete McGuire ended up injured, which put me out on the field before anyone thought I was really ready.”
“And you proved everyone wrong, didn’t you?”
“Not sure about that, but I’d say the season went well that year. We didn’t make it to the Super Bowl, but we finished second in our division.”
“That’s where you started playing with Brett Jacobs and Lenny Waters, right?”
“Yep. They’re my brothers, and I miss playing with them.” I knew exactly where she was going to take this.
“That leads us to the question everyone wants to know. There are rumors that you will join them out in New York. I know you haven’t made your decision, but is that the team you are considering?”
“That was three, sweetheart. That’s enough for today.”
She groaned and turned off her phone. “This isn’t usually how this works.”
“Tell me how it works.” I pushed to my feet and held out a hand and pulled her up.
There was a charge when we touched that I couldn’t explain.
I quickly dropped her hand.
“Well, as soon as the conversation starts to flow, you’re calling it done. That’s usually when things start getting good.”
“I guess you’ll have to be creative, then.”
“You’re enjoying making this difficult, aren’t you?”
“Listen, I’m giving you my story. More than I’ve ever given anyone else. You can shop it around. Use this to leverage your dream job. But we go at my pace. We’ve got time.”
“Fine.” She followed me back out to the kitchen, and I guzzled another Gatorade, offering her one, but she held up the one I’d given her earlier to show me she was still working on it.
“So, were those questions okay? You seemed irritated when I asked about your father.”
She didn’t know when to stop, but she’d learn quickly that I wouldn’t suddenly change my mind. She was good, but no one was that good. There were things that were off-limits, and she’d have to respect that.
“I told you that if I didn’t want to talk about something, I would tell you to move on.”
She narrowed her gaze. “So, is talking about your father off-limits?”
“If I say next, you can assume it’s off-limits.”
“You’re so condescending sometimes.”
“You asked. I answered. Deal with it.” I was in a foul mood from the mention of my father, but I wasn’t about to say that.
Everyone was always curious. As if everything I’d accomplished couldn’t have happened without a strong man leading me there.
Well, I was living proof that a strong-ass woman could lead you wherever you wanted to go.