Kareem waved another teammate over to introduce me, and I took a deep breath. No one was judging me. No one was watching with narrowed eyes.
Except maybe Logan, I thought as I caught sight of him at the edge of the field, watching me carefully underneath the brim of his well-worn black cap with the Wolves logo stamped on the front.
Turning my attention to the guys who approached, I recognized a few but not all. They all smiled, made small talk, and joked around with Kareem. The kind of familiarity that typically grew between teammates.
Just not with me.
Sometimes, I hardly recognized that about myself, but I'd been that way for so long, it felt like a fool's errand to try to change it. Change myself.
"Relax, man," Kareem said quietly as the other guys started talking amongst themselves.
I rolled my eyes. "Yeah, that's what I do best."
"You still a virgin? You know that's your problem, right?"
My whole body froze as he said it far too loudly. I leveled him with a glare, which made him crack up. "Kareem, you asshole. I'm not a virgin—"
His jaw dropped open as he caught sight of my face. "Seriously? You still don't have sex?" His head shook back and forth, slowly, incredulously. "I thought you were just being, like, moody or some shit in college."
"We are not talking about this right now."
He hooted again. "Yeah, we are." One arm came around my shoulders, and we separated from the guys. I wasn't ashamed of the fact that I chose to abstain from women. A woman was a distraction. Sex was not only a distraction but it also came with far too many possible complications. I didn't want kids. Didn't want anything in my life that would fight for the top spot in my life outside of football. "Man, come on, you're killin' me. How do you … Aren't you angry all the time?"
That made me smile, just a little, because the way he said it made it sound like I was attempting an impossible feat. Climbing Mt Everest naked. Bungee jumping over a canyon full of glass with a frayed rope. Jumping from an airplane without checking to see if my parachute was attached to my back.
"And you don't think that helps me?" I asked.
He stopped walking. "I know you're playin' right now. I know you are."
I held my arms out. "Why? You said you'd be angry, right? Where do you think I put all that energy?" I lifted my chin at the field in front of us. "I put it out there."
"You are one crazy motherfucker, Griffin." He shook his head again. "I knew it then, and I really know it now."
Logan—Coach, as I needed to get used to thinking of him as—whistled sharply from the sidelines, and Kareem shoved me hard enough that I stumbled. I shoved him back, which made him laugh, but he was the only one. Coach Ward glared at me.
"Is this how you paid attention to your coaches in Miami?" he asked, arms folded across his chest. Behind him, I noticed a couple of suits—one man, one woman—and a guy holding an expensive-looking camera.
Lifting my chin, I clasped my hands behind my back like a soldier facing his commanding officer. "No, sir."
"It's my bad, Coach," Kareem said on a laugh. "Noah thinks his"—I gave him a sharp look, and he grinned—"his natural state of repressed anger means he can beat my ass off the line."
The guys around us laughed, and Coach cracked a reluctant smile. "Yeah? What do you think about that, Jones?"
Kareem slapped a hand on my back. "I think this boy is crazy, and I'm ready to prove it."
The suits and the cameras aimed their attention fully in our direction now, and the cheers and laughter of my new teammates were just enough to distract me from wondering what they were doing.
I shook my head. "Kareem, don't embarrass yourself. Let's just get to work."
In truth, I didn't want to line up like this at my first practice and turn it into a circus. As much as I wanted to be the best, I didn't need the spotlight that came with it. I wanted to break records to prove that I could. I wanted to lift more, run faster, train harder because I was good at it. My body constantly craved that burn, the satisfying edge of pain that told me I was the hardest worker on the field.
But Logan waved at us to do it, so I'd flatten Kareem without a second thought.
Our teammates surrounded us, leaving adequate space in the middle for Kareem and me to face each other. Someone handed us practice helmets, and I strapped mine on while he did the same. The tall, thin woman in the suit pushed some players out of the way so the cameras could see us clearly, and I rolled my neck to ignore them and focused on what I needed to do.