2. Bigger Than Football #3
“Take that too.”
“Anything else?”
I looked toward the doors.
The campaign people were still camped out in the hallway. Reporters waited beyond security. Reid would already be planning whatever came after the press conference.
Five minutes sounded luxurious.
“Please make sure nobody disturbs me until they’re ready for the mic.”
The equipment manager nodded. “Understood, man. I’ll stand right outside the double doors.”
“Thank you.”
He carried my gear out and pulled the door shut behind him.
The room settled again.
I closed my eyes and kept the ice against my knee.
I thought I finally had the place to myself for a few minutes.
The latch clicked before I had managed a full minute alone.
“He asked for five minutes, Sloane,” the equipment manager said from the hallway. He wedged his shoe against the threshold as if trying to block her without turning it into a scene. “You need to let him rest.”
“I’m taking ten seconds.”
I opened my eyes as Sloane walked into the rehab room with her phone already in her hand. The equipment manager appeared behind her and lifted his hands in surrender.
“I thought you were guarding the door.”
“I tried.”
Sloane glanced over her shoulder. “You can stop acting like I broke into Fort Knox. I need one picture.”
“You have pictures.” I kept the ice pack pressed against my knee. “A lot of them.”
“Campaign pictures. This is different.” She crossed toward the treatment table and raised her phone. “The PR team is begging for one more piece of organic content today. Let’s give them a sneak peek of the brand’s power couple before the billboards go up.”
The phrase should have bothered me more than it did.
Instead, I looked at the equipment manager. He had already lost this argument on my behalf, and sending Sloane back out would require another conversation with Reid once he learned I had refused. One photograph would take less time than explaining why I didn’t want one.
“You can go,” I told him.
“You sure?”
“Coach still needs me at the podium?”
“In about five.”
“Then I’m sure.”
He stepped back into the corridor but left the door partly open. “I’ll be right outside.”
Sloane stopped in front of me. “See? That wasn’t difficult.”
“I just sent everyone else away because I wanted two minutes without somebody asking me for something.”
“And now I’m asking very nicely.”
“That’s generous.”
She smiled. “You’re mean when you’re tired.”
“I’m injured when I’m tired.”
“Even better. Authenticity.”
I stared at the phone in her hand. Arguing would eat through the little time I had left, and the press conference was mandatory whether my knee liked it or not.
One picture.
I pulled the ice pack away and set it beside me on the table. “Just make it quick, Sloane. I need at least two minutes of absolute silence before I have to go face the press.”
“Deal.”
She stepped between my knees, leaving me no room to retreat.
I moved back on the table to give her space, but she leaned over my lap until her hip rested against my thigh. The padding compressed beneath us.
“Sloane.”
“It’s the angle.”
“You have an entire room.”
“And I have one phone screen.”
She lifted the phone above us. Our faces filled the screen, close enough that anyone looking at the picture without context could invent whatever story they wanted.
But there was context.
Sloane was paid to stand beside me. I was paid to stand beside her. Reid wanted chemistry because chemistry sold shoes, tickets, apparel, and whatever else he could attach my name to before the season ended.
None of it changed who waited for me at home.
“Smile,” Sloane said.
“I am smiling.”
“You look like somebody just told you practice starts at four.”
“It practically does.”
She adjusted the phone and leaned closer, her arm brushing my shoulder. “Better.”
I gave the screen the same expression I had used beneath the campaign lights: relaxed mouth, easy eyes, no sign that my knee hurt or that I wanted everybody in the building to leave me alone.
The phone’s camera clicked.
Sloane studied the photograph and grinned. “Perfect. The fans are going to lose their minds over this one, Nolan.”
“Then we’re done.”
“You’re done.”
“Best thing anybody has said to me all night.”
She stepped back out of my space. I put the ice pack back against my leg while she headed toward the door.
“Try not to sound miserable at the podium,” she said.
“I just won a football game.”
“Exactly. Pretend you enjoyed it.”
“I enjoyed the game. Everything after the game is the problem.”
“That’s because everything after the game asks you to smile.”
“At least somebody understands.”
She laughed and disappeared into the corridor.
The equipment manager leaned through the doorway a moment later. “You ready?”
“No.”
“Coach is.”
“Of course he is.”
I returned the pack to the table and stood. Pain flared through my knee when I put my weight on it, but the joint held, and I tugged my jersey straight before heading toward the door.
Game. Promo. Press.
I just had to get through the last one.
I walked to the podium, convinced I had handled the night just fine.