9. Noah
CHAPTER 9
NOAH
“Is it always this chaotic around here after practice?” a familiar voice bellows nearby. Looking over from my perch on the bench in the middle of our locker room, past the giant otter who is also our team’s mascot, I can just make out Travis Richards. My agent and the man I credit with saving me from myself most months.
“It’s usually way more zen,” I say with an easy grin, kicking off my skates and standing to shake his hand. “We were just burning sage and talking about our feelings in a circle of trust. Is that what you’d like to hear?”
“Fits with the idea I have in mind for good team bonding.” He laughs, tossing his thumb over his shoulder. “Why the otter?”
Cooper, who happens to have his locker next to mine, suddenly pulls his head out of it, staring at Travis incredulously. “Right? Why an otter?”
He slams his door, making the bank of metal lockers in front of us jump, and walks away shaking his head. Turning back to Travis, I lift my shoulders.
“Well, guess I can’t say we’re all fans of the otter.”
“Duly noted, but I bet the kids love it.”
“I hear they do,” I say, pulling my Renegades sweatshirt from the locker and tugging it over my head. “So what have I done that required you to stop by in person?”
“Does a guy need a reason to stop in and see one of his favorite people?” Travis says, trying to pull some of his smooth agent-y vibe on me, but nah. I won’t have any of it.
“Yes.” Slipping my feet into my sneakers, I grab my backpack from the hook before slamming my own locker door closed. Tossing the bag on the ground at my feet, I cross my arms and put Travis square in my sights. “You’re more of a texter or ‘Let’s meet for dinner’ kind of guy.”
“You’ve got me all figured out, huh?” He pulls his phone out of his pocket and taps it a few times, turning it around to show me the screen. “I’m down here meeting someone else, if you really want to know. Figured I’d remind you of your engagement this evening.”
“Dinner with the Arnolds. Yes, I am still planning on going.”
“Good. I know it’s not the usual for you, but the family has been vetted by me and several of my colleagues. We even went so far as to run a background check.”
“Dude,” I say with a snicker, “it’s dinner.”
“At their house. You’ll be required to make small talk.”
When I roll my eyes, Travis taps my shoulder. “Buck up, little camper, I know you can do it.”
“I thought you’d be with me?” Which was literally the main reason I’d said yes to this. Being with fans who want me to sign an autograph and then go our separate ways is one thing. I can do that standing on my head with my eyes closed all day. But sitting across from them at a small table, in their home, is another. “I know they won this as part of a charity thing …”
“Their kid, Charlie, wrote an essay about being your biggest fan and it won a contest for the Renegades, not a charity. Man, I need to prep you better,” Travis says as his phone rings in his hand. Glancing at the screen, he shakes his head. “Sorry, Noah, but I need to go. My meeting starts in a few minutes and it’s about that assistant coach position. I need to hop on that. Call me later to debrief?”
I watch Travis as he navigates his way out of the locker room, leaving me standing in disbelief.
“I’m going to be alone? For this kind of one-on-one?”
A voice beside me whispers, “I’ll go with you, if you want.”
I nearly jump out of my skin, clutching my heart, I swivel around to find Murray grinning at me as he pushes a broom.
“Dude, you need a bell,” I manage to eke out as I take deep cleansing breaths to calm my nerves.
“And you need to find a friend you can actually talk to, and not just do it with yourself,” he tosses over his shoulder as he pushes past.
“Touché.”
The pit in my stomach tells me this is the kind of thing I know I can do; I mean, I’m confident in myself, right? But it kind of fills me with dread to be alone with these strangers. There is always a worry of letting someone down once they do meet me. That fear is real.
My phone sounds off in my hand, pulling my focus away from myself, as well as my revenge plot for Murray, and when I see who it is I grin. A text from Willa. Even better, it’s an invitation to come by her hotel tonight.
Instead of texting, I hit the button on my phone to call, her voice surprised when she picks up.
“I didn’t expect you to respond this soon,” she teases.
“I don’t have long to talk, but I wanted to call,” I start. “I can’t come tonight.”
“Oh,” she responds, her voice sounding oddly deflated considering how we’d left things at Maple Fest. “I wanted to get you prepared for some photos this week. Compare calendars and set some times in stone.”
“I can always come by later,” I say before interrupting myself. I think I have an even better idea. “Hey, you know what? I have this thing I need to do tonight for my agent. It’s dinner with some locals. Their kid is a fan, and I’m going alone.”
Willa’s quiet for a second before she responds. “Are you asking me to join you?”
Something in her voice sounds hopeful, or maybe it’s just my ears playing tricks on me. “If you’re free and game to do it.”
“I think it sounds very … interesting. Should I bring my camera?”
“Not this time,” I say quickly, my voice clipped. Realizing how harsh I may have come across, I backpedal. “What I mean is, that since Charlie is a child, I don’t want to use this as part of any press about me. It’s not fair to them and their family, you know?”
“I get it,” she says, her voice breathy in my ear. “What time should I be ready?”
“I’ll be outside your hotel at six o’clock.”
There is something about a woman who walks down hotel steps one at a time with her head held high and a smile on her face. Okay, maybe not so much about any woman, but definitely about this woman in particular. Willa has her long, dark hair pulled up into a high bun on top of her head, but stray pieces hang loose around her face, framing her features. The long brown coat she’s wearing swishes around her legs like a flowing dress.
When she hits the pavement, I hop out of the back of the black SUV and hold the door open for her to get in .
“This is fancy,” she says, taking my hand as I help her inside.
“Travis wanted to make sure I had a driver nearby for tonight. Remember, he booked it thinking I was going alone.”
Slamming the door, we both buckle ourselves in as our SUV pulls away from the curb. Turning so I can angle myself to face Willa, I have an apology on the tip of my tongue, but the sun is setting and the light frames her from behind, adding an ethereal glow around her silhouette. My heart bangs in my chest with such force, I panic for a moment, thinking I could be having a heart attack. I really need to lay off the caffeine.
Unaware of my own private internal issues, she reaches out and puts her hand on my knee. “First, before we do anything, I need to say I’m sorry.”
“That’s my job,” I say, fighting the smirk that threatens to expose itself. “I’m the jerk who is always apologizing.”
“Well, this time, it’s me. I was rude and said some things to you, covering them off as playful, but I was letting off my own steam.” Sighing, she throws herself against the back of the seat. “Noah, I’ve been mad at you over the years. You were an easy target to blame. I’ve known about your work on yourself—it’s been reported, you’ve done interviews—but there was so much going on in my life, you were the bullseye I needed to aim for.”
“I guess being the focus of your anger at least means me being the focus of your … anything?” I say, keeping my tone light.
“What it was, was unfair. To you and to me. Holding in anger like that is cancerous.” She turns, cocking her head to one side as she takes me in. “When you told me you had no idea that your team had tried to blacklist me, I knew the moment you said it you were being honest.”
“Because I have nothing to lose?” I ask, the answer clear to me.
“Exactly. You came clean, told me about your rehab, but I’ve been …” She stops, chewing her bottom lip as she thinks of the next words to say. I hope she struggles to find them because th ose lips are really pretty and that bottom one in particular has me obsessed. It’s a pale tint of red, and pouty, and I’d like to—
“I’ve been remiss in seeing it.” She turns away and looks out the window. “The year we met was the year my father was dying.”
A pit forms in my stomach. “Oh, Willa, I’m so sorry.”
She turns to me again, a smile on her lips, only a sad one. “Don’t be. I mean, thank you, but he was sick. When he passed away, he left my mother still paying a mortgage on not only her home, but their business which is attached to it. An antique shop.”
“And you ended up being a photographer?”
“Ah …” She giggles. “I’m not good with antiques. I worked in the store one day. Once. I dropped a priceless vase and my mother fired me on the spot.”
My turn to bite my lip, but I’m trying not to laugh. Too late, I’m busted.
“No, go ahead, laugh. Mom still does. Well, now she does. I ended up in the photography club after that so I had something to do, and the rest is career history.”
“Is the antiques shop still going?”
Willa shakes her head, then shrugs. “Yes, no … maybe? It’s on the bank’s radar. My mom is behind on her payments. It’s the same sad story a lot of people have, and we’re trying to get her out of it.” She sighs, flexing her hands and looking at her perfectly painted nails as she speaks. I fight the urge to run my fingertip over one of the delicate colored nails just to feel its smoothness and have more proximity to her.
“So being mad at me gave you something, or somewhere, you could channel your energy, huh?” I ask, meaning each word and being okay with it. When she nods her head, I reach over instinctively and squeeze her knee. “Hey, it’s okay. I was a right jerk to you. If you needed me to be the fall guy, I was the perfect villain.”
“When I found out that Athletic Edge wanted me to take pictures of you and spend time with you while I was here, I bucked wildly against it. At least I wanted to,” she corrects herself, laughing. “But they’ve dangled a promotion over my head that I need. That we need.”
“It’s a good thing, then?”
“If I get it, I’ll leave LA and instead be based in New York City. But I don’t need to live there; I’ll be able to live closer to my mother and not only help her if she needs it, but pitch in to get her out of this hole she’s in.”
“Where does she live?”
“Harper’s Ferry, West Virginia.” Willa smiles. “It’s beautiful there, right on the border of West Virginia, Maryland, and—”
“And Virginia,” I finish her sentence. “I know, I’ve been there. I go there, a lot.”
Her eyes widen with surprise. “You do?”
“River City plays outside of Richmond, Virginia. I keep an apartment there for weekdays and our home games, but after rehab, I invested in a small horse farm in Leesburg.”
“Leesburg is, like, over two hours away from Richmond.”
“Exactly. I wanted to be able to get away to give myself space from all of it. The game, the city, the temptations that can happen when you live around a lot of things to do …” I say this with an easy chuckle, but it wasn’t something I did lightly. “Leesburg offered me country living without all the hassle. I have someone who works for me at the stables and runs things.”
“So it’s not technically a horse farm, as in, you’re raising them, but you rent out stables?”
I nod. “That’s the plan for now, but I don’t know. I wanted it for a reason; I just haven’t figured out what it is yet.”
“Your farm is about thirty minutes from Harper’s Ferry.” She shakes her head incredulously.
“You got it.” I smile at her, our conversation surprising me. Not only because we seem to have dug well below the surface in a small amount of time, but also the ease at which we both seem to be sharing our innermost secrets. Well, at least I am. “I’ve never told anyone about the horse farm being something I may want to pursue. Most of the guys on my team back in Virginia think I just live in the country.”
“You’ve never invited anyone to come out to the farm?” she asks. “I’d show it off. That’s such a beautiful area. Talk about rolling hills.”
“Well, now that we’re friends, the next time you visit your mom, maybe I can show it off to you?” I make this offer without any expectation, but judging by the weight that suddenly hits my middle, it’s an invite I really hope she says yes to.
“We’ll see,” she manages, her eyes making their way to meet mine in the back of the darkened car.
“I’ll keep apologizing if I have to, Willa. One thing I learned doing my own self-discovery was how far and wide my choices reached when I was acting so destructively. Hearing the pain you were in when we met, it’s no wonder you hated me.”
“Wanted to hate you, but there’s a fine line between love and hate, isn’t there?” She chuckles. “I’m realizing now there is a difference, though, between actually being angry at someone versus having them be a part of the hurricane that is the crapshoot landing in the dumpster fire that was my life. All that to say, I accept your apology.”
“So we’re on a clean slate?”
She smiles, holding out her hand. “Clean slate.”
We’re sitting in the back of the car, the hum of the engine the only sound breaking the silence between us. Yet here we are, about to make an agreement that could change everything.
The gesture catches me off guard, a moment of vulnerability that makes my heart race. Our eyes meet, and for the first time in a long while, I see something beyond the wariness and caution in her gaze. And that pounding in my heart? It’s back.
When I place my hand in hers, the warmth of her touch sends a jolt through me, and suddenly, I’m acutely aware of just how much I want her to see the man I’ve become. Her grip is firm, steady, and her hands are soft, smooth, gentle; in that simple handshake, a rush of emotion floods through me.
This isn’t just a handshake to clear the air—it’s a chance to rewrite my story with her, to prove that I’m not the reckless guy she once crossed paths with. Her hand lingers in mine, and I’m in no hurry to let go. Our eyes lock together, hers bouncing back and forth, looking at me as her lips part and she takes in a breath of air. Once again, that pouty lower lip of hers almost beckons to me.
At this moment, I know. I know that I’m falling for her. It’s more than a need for redemption—it’s a genuine desire to be with Willa, to show her I’m worth her trust. It’s a foreign feeling to me and the body slam it gives is enough to shake me to my very core.
The car begins to slow down as my breath catches. Willa breaks our gaze, leaning forward to look beyond the windshield at the neighborhood where we’ve arrived.
“We’re here, Mr. Beaumont,” the driver announces as he pulls into the driveway of a log cabin home tucked back into a grouping of pine trees.
I throw open my door and hop out, Willa scooting across the seat and about to jump out behind me. I hold out my hand to help her step down and incline my head toward the house. “Ready for this?”
“Let’s have fun,” she says with a smile, holding my hand for a moment longer as we stand in the driveway. Not that I’m complaining.
I’m determined to show Willa that this time, with me, things will be different. I’m falling for her, and I’m ready to fight for whatever future we might have together.