About cleats.
Then favorite stain remover for the grass stains.
How to avoid athlete's foot.
I was slow on that uptake too, my irritation rising exponentially with each one who approached me throughout the four hours of practice. By the fourth rookie, and his question about which jock strap I preferred to keep my balls in place, the rein on my temper snapped.
"Jones," I roared, seeking him out between the snickering faces. "Kareem Jones, get your ass over here."
The camera was pointed at me, but I couldn't care less.
When Kareem sauntered over to me, wearing a wide-ass grin on his face, I had a moment when I wondered whether Molly would step in and try to cool me down.
"How much did you pay them?" I asked.
"Oh, watching the look on your face has been priceless enough, Griffin," he said.
I crossed my arms over my chest. "So they get nothing out of it?"
He wiped under his eyes. "No, I told them that if they did this, we wouldn't duct tape them to the field goal after practice."
"I'm too old for this shit," I said, pointing a finger at him. "If you want them to earn their freedom, use someone else. I'm here to work, not run a daycare for rookies."
He knew me too well to be fazed by my temper, but a few of the guys who didn't, rookies and veterans alike, shifted uncomfortably, their laughter dying down to throats that suddenly needed to be cleared.
Kareem whistled, rocking back on his heels like I'd pushed him. "Hear that, rookies? I think he said the magic words, didn't he?"
"What magic words?" I snapped. "Kareem."
"Don't you back out now," he said, glancing carefully into the faces of everyone around us.
Our quarterback, a young guy in his third year with a rocket arm, grinned at me, then looked over his shoulder. "You heard Jones. Get him."
Before I could blink, every rookie on the Washington roster had me pinned, no matter how much I thrashed, threatened, or shouted. The coaches laughed. Even Logan had a wide smile on his face, and if I hadn't been betrayed by my entire defensive line, who sat back roaring with laughter, I might have thought it was funny too.
"You nice and sweaty, Griffin?" Kareem asked as he approached.
"You asshole." I tried to pry my arm away from where three rookies held it. I was pinned to the turf, on my knees with my hands behind my back, and I finally gave up.
"I'd close my eyes if I were you." That was the only warning I was given before they proceeded to dump black and red glitter down the front of my shirt, then snap my shorts away from my waist and dump it down there too. The cleaning crew would hate them, and I'd be planning retribution for the rest of my life, but from the tear-inducing laughter from every person present, it must have been worth it.
Behind the camera, Marty wiped at his face, and as I stood, shaking as much excess glitter as I could from my body, that was the first that I noticed Molly was avoiding me.
If she’d watched what had happened to me, she wasn't watching the fallout. She wasn't approaching me with that big, bright smile on her pink lips, trying to suss out how I felt about what they'd done. She wasn't eyeing me curiously through my anger. She wasn't eyeing me at all.
It crossed my mind, as I showered off the mess and changed into clean clothes after practice, that I'd forgotten to return her call from the day before. She had invited me to dinner at Logan's house, a message I hadn't received until hours later because I often didn't check my cell while it was charging. By the time I saw it, by the time I'd listened to it, it was well after eleven, and I wasn't sure what to say.
Thank you, but your brother would sooner poison my dinner than have me show up with you.
I don't know how to do family dinners, so I'd sit there like a freak.
Their family was big and loud and had probably only gotten bigger and louder in the years since I lived behind them. Not my scene, even if I'd wanted to go.
Molly had made no attempt to hide that she was puzzled by the way I acted with the people around me. That "The Machine" was a moniker she didn't deem appropriate, even if everyone else thought it was. I’d had glitter down my ass crack to prove how appropriate the rest of my team thought it was.
But Molly wasn’t wrong either.
If I was well and truly a machine, with no pulse or heartbeat or complex emotions, it wouldn’t have bothered me that she wasn’t speaking to me.
Which was why I sent her a text, late on day three.
Me: I apologize for not returning your phone call. It was late when I got the message. Thank you for inviting me, though.