Her face fell. "We don't?"
I shook my head. "I've gone headfirst into so many situations without paying attention to anything other than my feelings. Noah is a perfect example. Twice now, when it comes to him, I've let my feelings override common sense. I agree with you, I think Noah does care for me, and I think we could have something amazing." I swallowed. "But it's not my responsibility to make him understand that. Or to prove to him that I'm worth a spot in his life. I know that I'm worth it. I know he's worth more than what he does on the field. But I think"—I breathed unsteadily—"I need him to climb through my window this time. Do something that feels risky and crazy for me. I deserve that."
Paige surged forward on the couch and flung her arms around me. I was engulfed by almost six feet of gorgeous, overwhelming, maternal-influence love.
"You deserve that times a million," she gushed.
I patted her back with a laugh.
"Can we eat carbs now?" I asked.
Paige disentangled herself from me and held out a hand to help me up. "Yes. Let's go brainstorm your other issue over garlic bread."
I grinned. "Oh, I already have an idea for that. I won't be unemployed for long."
Chapter Twenty-Six
Noah
"This is not what I had in mind when you asked for my help, Griffin," Marty said. His head was resting on his arms, his whole body slumped in exhaustion. Or maybe it was irritation, I couldn't really tell. Didn't really care either because once the plan starting formulating in my head, I dialed in like a ravenous dog onto a medium rare chunk of prime rib.
I crossed my arms and pointed at the massive screen I had mounted above the fireplace of my family room. "Back it up about forty seconds and look." I swept an arm out. "We need to cut right there.” I rolled my eyes when Marty groaned. "If you watch carefully, you can see what I'm talking about right there."
"If you make me watch this clip one more time," he growled.
I glanced over my shoulder. "You'll what? Glare at me to death?" My hands snapped together in a sharp clap, and Marty jumped. "Do I need to mark it up on the diagram again?"
"No," Rick and Marty answered.
The diagram had been an immense source of joy for me over the past forty-eight hours. It laid on my dining room table, spiral bound with laminated pages so I could mark on it with dry erase markers. My own playbook because I could understand that structure for how to move forward.
Offensive Campaign: M Ward
The title needed work, but what was found inside the pages was nothing short of genius. I'd never fancied myself a filmmaker, but over the past two days, the three of us had honed, hacked, edited, tweaked, and cut my relationship with Molly down to a short film that was fucking Oscar-worthy, if you asked me.
Rick and Marty just didn't appreciate my approach at directing, which looked a bit more like my attempt to channel my inner Bill Belichick. I was ruthless, making them loop the same thirty-second scene over and over and over until we caught just the right cut of the moment that Molly tipped me over when we were doing yoga.
The only reason they hadn't tied me up and stuffed a gag in my mouth was because I'd agreed to let them film the entire thing once she was here. A camera guy from their office came over after Marty and I had our parking lot brainstorm, then cleared everything with Rick.
The parking lot brainstorm was full of excitement and optimism and hope.
Now, they were actively plotting my demise with every request I made to play back another chunk of the footage.
"Okay," I said, "let's move back to South Dakota. I think we can give that more impact."
"No," Rick mumbled.
My eyebrows lifted. "Sorry?"
"No, no, no." He stood from the couch and pressed two fists into his back as he stretched with a groan. "You are the Hitler of romantic gestures, and if she doesn't love this exactly as it is, then holy shit, Griffin, we can't help you."
Suppressing my irritation that they weren't taking this as seriously as I was, I crossed my arms over my chest and faced him with spread legs. "It has to be perfect, Rick."
My tersely spoken words hung in the air as they stared at me. Didn't they understand?
This was my chance. This was the way I could make her see.
Seeing Molly like that—when I was unprepared to speak to her, unprepared for the gut check of being around her, and seeing the way every emotion played out over her face—it flipped on every light that had been dark in her absence.
Maybe I hadn't seen it right away, that every second we spent together, every second she spent gently coaxing me out from behind the wall I'd built, had been us falling in love. But I saw it now.
I couldn't help but see it, in the hours and hours of film I had at my fingertips.
Watching the film was preparation.
Watching the film helped me understand myself and my opponent, and currently, the thing opposing me was the clock. Washington had a bye week, so the time for a big romantic gesture couldn't have been better.
But the time ticked down all the same. Bright, shifting numbers that got closer and closer to some imaginary buzzer going off.
And I was fighting against myself.
Showing Molly that I was capable of allowing room in my life for something other than football—not just something, her—would need to be big.
Those were pages fifteen through eighteen of the playbook, which included sketches of string lights across my back deck, a movie projector, and a giant screen stretched through the branches of the trees in my backyard. And some vague idea of moving my mattress onto the grass and topping it with pillows and blankets so we could watch our movie under the stars. My telescope was out there somewhere too, since I'd mapped out precisely what would be visible in the night sky.
This was the way to do it. Everything lined up correctly, the best defense against my own cluelessness. My own ambition blinded me to all the other things that could matter just as much as my career did. If I could pull this off correctly, if I could do this right ...
My thoughts started stuttering in that same place every time. The if.
Rick must have sensed the change in direction in my head because I couldn't entertain the idea that maybe I'd read Molly wrong in all of this.
He laid a gentle hand on my shoulder. "Noah, it's perfect."
I shook my head. "I can make it better. I just need a little more time."
Marty and Rick shared a look.
"Molly won't need perfect," Marty said quietly. "You know that girl. Even when you were a giant horse’s ass, she felt something for you. Because she knew the real you was underneath there somewhere."
Rick nodded. "All you need to do is show her that she wasn't wrong about you. That what she saw, what she put her trust in, even for that one weekend, was worth it."
"Worth her job?" I asked dryly.
"Worth taking a risk," he corrected. "She took a risk because you were worth it to her. This"—he gestured to our little command center—"is you taking a risk too. Because you could get through everything you have planned, and she still might not say yes."
Panic was an icy claw that dug straight into my chest, gripped my spine tight, and threatened to tug. "Please never be a coach because that is the worst pep talk I've ever heard."
And I thought that figuring out how to get her to the house would be the hard part. I'd convinced myself up until the current moment that convincing Logan to help me was the hard part. But the hard part was letting go of the edge, one finger at a time, until I could fall back freely into whatever happened next.
In my ears, I could hear the hard pulse of my heart because I knew Rick was right.
Before I could talk myself out of it, I yanked out my phone and sent a text to her brother.
Me: Here's my address. Tell her whatever you need to get her here, but I'll be ready at 8pm tonight.
Logan: Understood.
I let out a slow breath.
Rick smiled. "All set?"