Page 158 of Running
We have plenty of room at the house after all.
“Alright, I’m off. See you in a few weeks.” Landon gives me a quick hug and begins marching out of the room, saying goodbye to Molly as he hands her all the tech pieces we used for the interview.
I don’t have to rush as much, so I take the time pulling out the earpiece and pulling the mic from my shirt.
As Molly walks over to me, she holds out her hand so I can give her the items. “You’re not totally done, Johnson. Coach Houston was hoping you could come to his office.”
I’m not sure what that will be about, but it’ll be nice to say goodbye before the offseason starts. Grace’s early days of training at Fairview Elite are going so well that she’s entering several meets this spring. I’ll be traveling to support her, so I may not make it to the facility too often.
The awesome thing is her new boss, Milo, is entirely supportive, saying her experience as an athlete is only going to help her connect better with clients.
When I walk into Coach’s office a few minutes later, Marshall is there too, sitting in one of the chairs in front of the desk.
“Ah, Johnson. Your locker cleared out for the year?” Coach asks.
I nod and take a seat in the other guest chair. “Yeah, I just finished my last interview planned for a bit too.”
“Great,” Coach says. “So you’re probably wondering why we asked to meet.”
Marshall chimes in. “It’s nothing bad, but we wanted to get your insights.”
“Okay, absolutely.”
“We’ve decided not to re-sign Paul Graves,” Marshall explains. “He was already starting to slow down, and it’s not worth the cap hit from his salary to roll the dice on another year.”
Unfortunately, that’s the NFL for you. You can be an All Pro wide receiver one year, but out the next if you can’t perform.
“I understand.” I wonder where this is going?
“We’re going to need depth at wide receiver if we’re going to make that Super Bowl run,” he adds.
Coach jumps in then. “So we’ve been talking to the general manager’s team about draft options.”
Ah.
“Can you tell us everything you know about Rawley Battle?”
Epilogue
GRACE — JUNE
“In this event, we have Polly Swendela wearing number one, Grace Battle wearing number two…”
As they make our introductions at the U.S. National Outdoor Championships, I survey the crowd, spying all three of my brothers and Johnson sitting together. Rawley had special shirts made with a big cut out of my head on the front and “Team Grace” on the back, and they all have them on. It’s both funny and terrifying at the same time.
Rawley catches me looking at them. “GO GRACE, WOOOOO!” The rest of the group joins him, and I feel myself blush at the attention.
It means the world to me, though, to see them all together. Johnson and Landon have repaired their friendship, week by week, month by month, and now it’s stronger than ever. Once Landon was willing to see how happy I am, and how well Johnson treats me, he was able to smooth his hurt over in his mind.
Seven months in, we even told Landon about that one night in college. We were light on the details, but Johnson didn’t want to have it spill out accidentally down the road. Thankfully, Landon made another joke about throwing Johnson offthe boat, as opposed to getting upset.
Now I even catch my brother looking at us together at gatherings with a satisfied smile on his face.
Rori isn’t here because she’s in the thick of the UK grass season, and Landon’s headed there after this meet. He refused to skip today, though.
“I’ve missed enough of your big meets, Gracie. I’m making it happen no matter what.”
As a rookie, Rawley has been juggling more NFL off-season obligations than Landon, but none overlapped with this week. Connor has an easier schedule, so there wasn’t even a question of whether he would be here.
