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.
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.
An hour or so later, I received my reply.
Molly Ward: No problem, it's fine.
A reply like that from a person such as her was telling, and it still didn't click in my head that something was wrong.
Day four was no better, and that day had been free of pranks, free of tempers, free of anything that could have upset her. Even the fact that I was still pondering what I might have done to inspire this type of reaction in her should have been a warning sign.
I lifted weights, had a meeting with the coaching staff, and watched some film. Between those things, I talked with Rick, giving them something they could use later for voiceover work. And Molly stayed placidly behind the camera, face either pointed at her phone or at the back of the camera screen.
In fact, she was doing such a good job of not looking at me that I was now an expert in the top of Molly's head.
Rick cleared his throat, and I looked back at him. There was a knowing glint in his eye that made me want to punch him.
"Does glitter make you feel like part of the team?"
"Yeah, it's really magical that way."
He smiled. "You weren't too happy, though?"
The tip of Molly's pencil slowed as she was writing, and something warm flashed bright inside me. She was still aware; she just didn't want me to realize it.
"Would you like to be held down by seven football players and have them dump glitter all over your sweat-soaked body?'
"No."
I rubbed my jaw. "No, I wasn't happy." I paused and started thinking about what Molly would have asked me if she wasn't doing a such a good job of ignoring me. She'd want me to flip up the lid on why I felt that way, why my anger at that moment was so hot and so high, instead of being able to laugh it off like a lot of my teammates would. "It's probably a control thing," I admitted slowly. "Why I got so mad."
Her pencil stopped moving over the surface of the paper. Her whole frame froze, to the point where I wasn't even sure she was breathing.
"Everything about switching teams reminds you how little is in your control in this league." I propped my hands on my hips. Trying to unearth the right words for what this reminded me of when I was little and used to dig in the dirt around this bush in our yard. I'd find something that felt small, that I could pull up easily, but inevitably, it was part of a larger, more stubborn root. I'd tug and tug, and only a little bit would give way before I needed to stop. "I can't control my teammates, no matter where I am. My coaches. My opponents. None of it."
"What can you control?"
For a second, I stared at the top of Molly's head, her shiny hair, and willed her to look up at me. But she didn't, and the pencil in her hand shook for a second before she started writing again.
"I can control how prepared I am," I said. My eyes moved back to Rick. "I can control how in shape I am. What I eat. How I sleep. What I allow as a distraction.”
“That seems like a pretty good list,” he commented.