Chapter 61 Chapter 61
Noah's POV
The morning practice had started before sunrise, the stadium lights was still burning bright overhead while the sky slowly shifted from black to dark blue. The air bit at my lungs every time I breathed in hard enough, but I liked that feeling. Pain made sense. Pressure made sense. Your body either responded or it didn’t. Simple. Everything outside the field lately? It wasn't simple. The scandal hadn’t died down. If anything, it had evolved.
Online, people had stopped debating whether Emily and I were fake and started debating whether we were manipulative, toxic, secretly real, strategically real, accidentally real, like our lives were some kind of public group project everyone else had a right to dissect. Campus had gotten worse too. There were whispers everywhere. Phones were out constantly. Students were staring too long. People pretended not to look while obviously looking. And through all of it, Emily still showed up. That part stayed with me. Most people would’ve run, or at least distanced themselves enough to protect their own future. She hadn’t. Not even after the university practically handed her an escape route. That thought sat somewhere deep in my chest while I jogged towards the fifty-yard line, rolling my shoulder once before practice drills started. It held steady. There was no sharp pull or instability, just tension from overuse, but it was manageable.
Coach Bennett blew his whistle sharply. “Move!”
The team spread out across the field. Sean fell into step beside me. “You look weirdly calm,” he muttered.
“I’m always calm.”
“That’s the biggest lie you have told this month.”
I snorted quietly. “Good morning to you too.”
Sean glanced toward the stands. “You see who’s here?”
I followed his line of sight automatically. And there she was. Emily was standing near the lower bleachers with a tablet tucked against her chest, her hair was pulled back, an oversized Westview hoodie covering most of her frame against the cold. She wasn’t trying to stand out. If anything, she looked like she was actively trying to disappear into the background, but I noticed her instantly anyway, like my body had learned her presence before my brain caught up.
Sean smirked beside me. “There it is.”
“What?”
“That look.”
I dragged my eyes away from her. “What look?”
“The one where you stop pretending she’s not the center of your nervous system.”
I shoved his shoulder lightly. “Shut up.”
“Very mature response.”
Coach’s whistle cut through the conversation again. “Scrimmage formation! Harris, pay attention!”
“I am paying attention,” I called back.
Coach gave me a long look. The kind adults gave when they thought they were watching someone spiral in slow motion.
And honestly? A few weeks ago, maybe he would’ve been right. Before Emily, everything inside me felt loud all the time. The pressure and anger like I constantly needed to prove something. To the team, to the university, to my father. Hell, probably to myself too. But lately, something had changed. Practice started hard. The fast drills, route work, contact repetitions. My body moved automatically at first, muscle memory taking over while my brain stayed half-aware of the noise around me. The whispers started almost immediately.
“PR boyfriend.”
“Wonder if she’s filming this.”
“Thought he’d be distracted.”
Most of it came from the second-string defensive group. Guys who thought talking quietly made them invisible. I ignored it, not because it didn’t piss me off, because reacting to it suddenly felt beneath me. That realization caught me off guard more than the comments themselves. Old me would’ve snapped already, thrown someone into the turf, started a fight just to feel like I regained control. Now, I just wanted to play.
Coach barked instructions from the sideline while the quarterback called the next setup. I lined up, adjusted my gloves, and focused. The ball snapped, everything narrowed instantly, movement, timing and space. I cut left, pivoted hard, shoulder stable through the rotation, then accelerated downfield. The pass hit my hands perfectly. I landed clean and turned. I ran another twenty yards before the whistle blew.
“Again!” Coach shouted. There was no celebration and no showing off. Just resetting. And something strange happened as practice continued. I stopped hearing the whispers, not because they disappeared, because they stopped mattering.
For the first time in months, my head felt clear on the field, not crowded by headlines or by anger and fear. I remained focused. And every time I glanced towards the sideline, Emily was there, watching carefully. She wasn't smiling or cheering. She was just paying attention. And somehow that grounded me more than any pre-game speech ever had.
Midway through drills, Coach pulled me aside. “You got a second?” I nodded, pulling my gloves off while we stepped away from the field. Coach crossed his arms. “You okay?”
I nearly laughed. “Physically or psychologically?”
“Both.”
“I’m fine.”
He studied me carefully. “Are you sure?”
“Yeah.”
“You got media circling the campus every day. Half the university thinks this situation is going to implode. Your name is all over the internet.”
“I noticed.”
“And Emily Taylor?” Coach lowered his voice slightly. “Is she affecting your focus?”
I looked past him automatically, towards the sideline again. Emily was talking quietly with one of the athletic trainers, pointing at something on her tablet while the wind pushed loose strands of hair across her face. She looked tired.
“No,” I said honestly.
Coach raised a brow. “No?”
I shook my head slowly. “She’s the only reason my focus is better.”
That surprised him, I could tell. Probably surprised me too, if I was being honest. Coach watched me carefully for another second before he nodded. “Well,” he muttered, “whatever is happening with you lately...” He gestured vaguely towards the field. “Keep doing it.”
I smirked slightly. “Was that a compliment?”
“Don’t get used to it.”
Practice resumed and Coach was right. I was playing better. Every movement felt intentional instead of reactive. My shoulder remained stable through contact drills. My timing sharpened. My decision-making remained clean. And through all of it, Emily kept watching. At one point during water break, our eyes met briefly across the field.
Sean dropped onto the bench beside me, breathing heavily. “This is disgusting.”
“What is?” I asked.
“You.”
I frowned. “What?”
“You’re emotionally stable now.”
“I’m literally sweating blood.”
“You’re centered,” he said dramatically. “Grounded. Mature.”
“Careful,” I muttered. “You will ruin my reputation.”
He grinned. “Too late. Rehab Barbie fixed your brain.”
I rolled my eyes, but I still glanced towards Emily again afterwards and Sean noticed. “Oh my God,” he whispered. “You’re gone.”
“I’m not gone.”
“You’re looking at her like she personally invented oxygen.”
I shoved his face away with one hand. “Please shut up forever.”
He laughed so hard Coach yelled at him to get back on the field. The second half of practice turned brutal. There were full-contact repetitions, aggressive defensive pressure. Normally, that kind of environment pulled the worst parts out of me. The aggression. The recklessness. The need to hit harder than necessary just because I was angry at something outside the game. But today, I remained controlled. Even when someone shoved late after a play. Even when another player muttered something about Emily under his breath. I looked at him. And realized I genuinely didn’t care enough to lose control over it, because I already knew what mattered. And none of them got a say in it.
The realization hit hard and unexpectedly somewhere during the final drill. Emily doesn’t distract me. That’s what everyone assumed. That she was some emotional complication ruining my focus. But standing there under stadium lights with sweat dripping down my neck and my lungs burning from drills, I realized the exact opposite was true. She grounded me. That was the terrifying part, and maybe the best part too, because before her, I felt like I was constantly running on instinct, anger and pressure. There was something steady underneath all of it now. Something that made me want to be better instead of just louder.
Coach finally called practice. The players started peeling off towards the locker room, exhausted and complaining. I grabbed my water bottle and looked towards the stands again. Emily was packing up her things. She glanced up and caught me looking. She smiled. That tiny smile hit harder than any headline ever had. I walked towards the sideline before I could overthink it. She met me near the bottom of the bleachers.
“You pushed harder today,” she said.
“You noticed?”
“I notice everything.”
I smirked slightly. “That sounds threatening.”
“It’s medical observation.”
“Sure, Dr. Taylor.”
Her eyes rolled automatically, but her mouth twitched faintly. “You looked stable during rotation drills,” she added more seriously.
“No sharp compensation?”
“Minimal.”
“That good?”
“That’s very good.”
I looked at her for a second. At the exhaustion beneath her eyes. The stress she still carried from everything happening around us and the fact that she was still standing here anyway. “Are you okay?” I asked quietly.
Her expression softened slightly. “Tired.”
“Yeah.”
“But okay.”
I nodded slowly. The scandal was still everywhere. The university was still circling us like sharks pretending to care about professionalism. People were still talking and still judging, waiting for this to collapse, but standing there with her after practice, I realized something with terrifying clarity. Everything around us might still be falling apart. But this wasn’t.