She kept talking as if I hadn't said anything. "Marty sent him footage from Noah's apartment last night, raving about your ability to draw him out. Get him to lower his guard."
I rubbed my lips together and fought the irrational impulse to flee the car. "We were just talking about football. I didn't do anything special."
"Molly, I wish you’d been honest with me about knowing him."
My whole body went ice cold in an instant. "Beatrice, I …"
"Both Rick and Marty were thrilled that you had previous history with Noah." She paused meaningfully. "Not something I appreciated hearing from them as opposed to my own employee."
"I'm so sorry, Beatrice," I said in a rush. "I should have told you. I didn't know Noah was even coming to Washington when you offered me the promotion."
Because she couldn't see me, I leaned forward and dropped my head in my hands again.
"Is this going to be a problem?" she asked. "Your history with Griffin."
"No," I answered instantly.
The question was jarring to just about every part of my brain, like a cloth that was ripping off center away from the main seam. Whatever I was feeling toward Noah, I knew without a doubt it wouldn't be reciprocated. He had one relationship in his life, and that was football, and I'd do well to remember that.
What mattered was doing my job.
What mattered was keeping my eye trained on that, no matter what instincts he was pulling out from inside me.
"I know I'm being tough on you, Molly." Her tone had softened, which had my shoulders relaxing slightly and the nauseous tumbling of my stomach settling down just a little. "I'm only hard on the employees who I think have potential."
That had me sitting up. "Th-thank you, Beatrice. I kind of thought you gave me the promotion as a … I don't know … a test you expected me to fail."
"I'm not as awful as you think," she said wryly. "And if that were true, it's not a very good use of my budget, is it?"
"Probably not."
Would this be a problem? No matter how quickly I’d told her it wouldn’t be one, I still had to be honest with myself. It was Noah. And if I closed my eyes, I saw him as he'd stared at me the night before. That look that had singed me straight through. But that look could've meant a thousand different things. Maybe he was pissed that I noticed something he'd done poorly before he fixed it. Maybe he was impressed that I knew what the hell I was talking about.
"You don't have to worry about a thing," I told Beatrice firmly.
"No?"
Isabel was right. Noah's issues weren't my responsibility. I could do my job and still maintain a professional level of distance. Because if I couldn't, then what right did I have to feel frustration at Beatrice's reservations?
"No," I repeated. "I hear you loud and clear."
"Good." She sighed. "Now, I have one more call to make, and if I remember correctly, you have a family dinner to get to."
My eyebrows popped in surprise that she remembered. "I do."
"Enjoy it. Thanks, Molly."
"Thank you," I told her. I meant it too. Her call was a timely reminder that I needed. Noah wasn't mine to fix, no matter how he'd looked at me, and I'd do well to remember that.
Chapter Thirteen
Noah
Normally, I didn't think of myself as a slow thinker. Just the opposite, in fact. A defensive player should have the ability to see possible scenarios play out before they happen, in the twitch of a finger, the shift of body position, or the pivot of a foot. But when it came to Molly Ward, I was a little slow on the uptake.
It took me two days of actively avoiding her while we filmed to make the connection that I was not, in fact, the ignorer. I was the ignored. And because it was me, I had to mentally break down, in detail, how the hell that had happened and how I missed it.
Three days after she schooled me on her football history, the crew was at practice, and for the two days prior, I kept my eyes off her at all time. Yes, I cataloged what she was wearing within fifteen seconds of her walking in my peripheral vision, but that was it. I did not give her a second of full eye contact as she tilted her head toward Marty's, and they discussed filming for the next day, and Marty said something that made her laugh. That tinkling, wind chime laughter that made me want to do something ridiculous, like shove my fingers in my ears so I didn't have to hear it. It was the latter part of day three when the wheels started falling off, and it was all Kareem's fault.
They decided to haze me since I'd had over a week to get used to the rhythm of practice and let my guard down a little bit. That was when he started sending the rookies over to me—one by one—each one asking me for a selfie, an autograph, and a ridiculous question that they would've known their freshman year in college.