My face turned sharply in his direction. "That bad?"
"Yeah," he said tightly. "For guys like you and me? It's everything we hate about playing."
Once he'd given some instructions to an assistant coach, we started walking toward Beatrice's office, and I thought about what he said.
Everything we hated about playing. Great.
Chapter Six
Noah
"Thank you for joining me, gentleman," she said from where she sat across a massive, gleaming desk. Her ice gray eyes landed on my face, and she smiled, a completely different kind of smile now that we were on her turf. "How's the transition to Washington going, Noah? It can't be easy to change teams so close to kickoff."
The guy holding the camera in the corner had it pointed straight at my face, and the focus, solely on me, made my skin prickle.
"I'm excited to be here." I answered like I was facing the media and not someone in-house. "And I'm excited to get to work."
Logan sighed. "Exactly. Work. Practice. Which is where we're supposed to be right now."
The grumpiness was so evident that I almost cracked a smile. Only two days into my time at Washington, and I found someone with less people skills than I had.
Beatrice sliced her gaze to the camera and nodded. "A moment, please. We won't need this. And tell Molly I'll be ready in five."
My jaw clenched involuntarily.
Silence cloaked the office as the camera guy stood and gave us some privacy.
"I'll cut the chase. Amazon is including Washington in an upcoming season of their All or Nothing documentary, and you're the player they'd like to highlight."
I sat forward, eyebrows tucked in tightly over my eyes. "What? Why?"
Logan rubbed the back of his neck but didn't say anything.
"The narrative for this season is finding and fitting in to the culture of a team. I've been working on this deal since the day I told Cameron and Allie they should hire me, and we just needed the right player." Her smile softened, and it changed the hard angles of her face. "And that player is you."
"I don't want to have cameras on me all season." I shook my head. "Don't get me wrong, they do a great job. I watched the LA and the Michigan season, and they were great. But being under that spotlight is the last thing I want. I'm here to play football."
She took a deep breath. "Let me rephrase this while it's just the three of us in this office, okay?"
Something about the way she said it made me sit back again and breathe deeply to dismantle the brick that suddenly appeared in my stomach. Logan gave me a quick, uncomfortable glance, and I had a feeling he knew exactly what was going through my brain.
This wasn't a negotiation. It was a courtesy.
"You are the best defensive end in the league. By the time this season wraps up, no one will be able to touch the records that you'll break." Her eyes were so intense, words so coldly delivered that I practically saw frost come from her mouth. Not in a mean way, but in a way that I knew, without a doubt, I'd hate whatever she was about to say next. "But all of that will be overshadowed if people think you got kicked off your team because you hit on your team captain's drunk wife while she was unable to defend herself."
I was out of my chair before I took another breath. "That story is bullshit, and you know it."
Logan stood, laying a calming hand on my back. "Of course, she does. We all do."
My heart was thrashing wildly, every iron shred of my will gone in tatters at the mere suggestion that I'd become a salacious headline. Slowly, I lowered myself back into my chair and fought with white-knuckled grip to gain control of my irritation.
"The story is bullshit," she said calmly. "I never doubted it. The people in the front office in Miami know that, which is why there hasn’t been a single whisper about it to the media."
“Yet you know about it.”
She smiled. “Professional courtesy from someone in their offices who I used to work for.”
"What does this have to do with the documentary, Beatrice?" Logan asked.
She watched my face carefully before answering. "One part of my job is to facilitate positive brand awareness for Washington. A documentary like this is priceless for what it allows our fans to see. Normally, they wouldn't get access to meetings, film rooms, trips … the kinds of things that would never make it on social media. But we can give them that, and this way, we're controlling the narrative. Yes, it's documenting the reality of an established player coming into a new organization, but Noah, this allows you to show people the kind of man you are. Behind the helmet and pads and stats."