Page 42 of Red Zone Realizations
After she sits, I acknowledge the next one. “Robert Inglish, Gridiron Riff podcast. You’re coming off a rough season last year, do you feel like you did enough in the off season to prepare yourself for playing at a higher level this season?”
I lean forward and put my forearms on the table. “I have an immense amount of focus. I’ve been putting in the work and then some.” My eyes slide purposefully to Audrey’s. “I’m also determined to get everything I want, on and off the field.” I lean away from the mic and push my chair back. Gina pops in. “That will be all from Noah today. Thank you. If you’d like to wait, I’ll have the next player in shortly.”
Chapter Twenty
AUDREY
I blink.
Then blink again.
I can feel the heat in my cheeks rising from the look in Noah’s eyes. I thought I was in control of this situation, that the lines were clearly black and white, but Noah is playing by his own rules. I stayed on the straight and narrow when he modeled his god-like body after cooking a delicious meal. I steeled my resolve against his warm-up routine that was essentially softcore porn. It wasn’t easy, but that’s just the physical stuff. I could write it off as lust, but there’s more. On top of all those trials and tribulations, he’s proven to me that there’s a good man behind all that muscle.
Nothing he does is for show, it’s all just him right at the surface. I push him away and he stays. I put other things above him, and he waits. A prideful man would have felt the sting of rejection and taken off to lick his alpha-male wounds while listening to an Andrew Tate podcast. Noah is not a prideful man. He’s thoughtful, loyal, and persistent.
As he walks toward me, waving politely at the mediastanding around the room, I realize that I’m fighting feelings as hard as I am fighting lust. I’m not sure how long I’ll be able to hold out.
My right hand’s full of obligations, my left hand’s full of fear, and I realize that I have nothing left to hold onto Noah with.
He strolls right up to me, like that little show wasn’t for my benefit. “Do you want a tour?”
I nod, barely able to focus on anything else but him. “Yeah, I’d like that.”
He places his hand on my lower back and guides me out of the media room. Part of me is afraid that a photo of his hand on me will be splattered all over social media, but when I glance back, the entire room is focused on the front table where Colin now sits.
We leave the room and turn right. Noah walks so fast, his stride at least twice that of mine. I have to hustle a little to keep up, but as soon as he notices, he slows his pace. He wipes his hand over his mouth. “Sorry I’m used to being shuffled from meeting to meeting here.”
He flips around and walks backward in front of me like a tour guide.
“If you look to your right and left you will see several conference rooms. These are meeting rooms for the different positions. All of the offensive line meets together with their coach to watch film and do team building. There’s a room for every set of positions. Wide receivers on your left, quarterbacks on your right. This hallway is pretty boring.” He keeps walking backward.
We enter a huge opening with big glass doors to the left, and to the right a painted brick wall with the Hurricanes logoon it. Over the hurricane image, Full Throttle, No Limits is written in white letters with a navy outline.
“This is the front entrance to the practice facilities. Basically, everyone comes through here every day. If you look up, you’ll see the century chandelier. One-hundred years of teams are up there. The name of every man etched into the glass.” I look up at where Noah is pointing. One-hundred, multicolored glass poles hang from the ceiling. They’re red, clear, and blue. The light flows in from the huge doors, casting the color of the glass to and fro. “White means a winning season, navy means a losing season, and red is a Super Bowl.” There’s only one red rod, and it seems to be toward the beginning.
“Are you going to be up there?”
“I already am, I’ve been here three years.” I look up at the three blue rods, the bottom of them labeled by the years. All losing seasons.
That must be so hard to see every day. You come in to work, looking for success, and literally hanging over your head are all the previous failures.
“Everything splits off from here. You saw the east side, let’s go to the other side.” He crosses the room in big, backward strides as I follow, taking everything in. This is what makes up Noah’s days. I gaze at the shiny floors and the high ceilings and think about all the social media photo opportunities here.
On the west side of the practice facility, Noah takes me to a huge set of double doors painted navy. “This is the locker room. Probably the coolest part of the whole place.” He opens the door and holds a hand up to me. Simultaneously, he puts his head through the door and yells “HELLO?” When no one answers, he gives a satisfied nod and pushes the door all theway open. “Had to make sure everyone was out for the day before bringing a hen into the roost.”
I’m amazed by how nice the locker room is. Each player has their own cubby, probably four-feet wide. The top of them has their name emblazoned. Below that is a shelf that holds Hurricanes’ helmets and brand-new cleats. Then a longer space that has hooks at the back. Everything is customized with the player’s number. Some of the guys have family photos taped to the sides of their cubby, like when you decorated your locker in high school. I walk a slow circle around the room, looking at everyone’s photos. Some have boxes with fan mail piled high. When I get to Noah’s, the family portrait catches my eye. I see a younger Noah standing beside his parents. He has his arm thrown over his mom’s shoulders.
As I scan, I feel Noah step closer to me. “That was my senior year of college on our last family vacation before I went pro.”
“You look happy.”
“I was.” He pauses as if considering whether to say more. “I had finally done what my dad had always wanted me to do, but when I got to the league I was overwhelmed with the pressure and all the changes that come with leaving college.”
“I’m sure that was hard.”
“All that ever mattered to my dad was that I go pro, like him. That was always at the front of my mind. Reaching it was everything to me, and when I finally did, I was so stressed about the responsibility and expectations. It sounds so stupid because there’s millions of guys who would kill to be in my position and I was anxious and insecure about it.”
“Your dad was pro too? I can only imagine how hard that would be. The change between college and adulthood is huge.It was hard for me too. Suddenly, you’re out in the world. Before I started working for myself, I felt listless.”
