Taken (Dark Desires 1)

Hell, I didn’t even know if there was anything left to expose at this point. Sean Donovan had more dirt floating around the internet than Charlie Sheen, yet the good old boy sports reporters and TV analysts painted him to be a god.

The fans loved him, and who could blame them?

He averaged two touchdowns per game. And in football, that was all anyone cared about. As long as he wasn’t abusing women or kicking puppies, his off-the-field antics were more or less ignored.

Just boys being boys.

Blowing off a little steam.

It helped that he looked like the proverbial All American Hero.

Sean Donovan was six-three, packed with muscles, and could run the 40-yard dash in 4.5 seconds. He had caught more touchdown passes than any other Kings receiver in the past five years and was considered a shoe-in for this year’s Pro Bowl.

Why should anyone care about the testosterone-driven fights with other players on the field, or the drunken bar brawls with fans of other teams? Or the numerous sex videos floating around the internet? Jesus, this guy’s junk was on display more than Michelangelo’s statue of David. And Donovan’s junk was much bigger, if you know what I mean. I’d seen all the videos… for research purposes, of course.

But then there was the other side of Sean Donovan.

The side that donated millions of dollars to charity every year.

And the side that visited children’s hospitals in every city where the team played.

And the side that worked with inner city kids in New York City.

And the side that seems like a genuinely nice guy in TV interviews.

And that was the point of my pitch to Walter.

I wanted to find out which side was the real Sean Donovan.

I wanted to follow him around for a week or two and observe him as he went through his daily and nightly routines. I’d be a fly on the wall. I wanted to shadow him on and off the field, regardless of where that took me.

What made me think Sean Donovan would even agree to such an outrageous idea?

My own desperation, plain and simple.

I was tired of writing puff pieces about women’s tennis and girls’ volleyball.

I was tired of putting in hours of work only to see my stories relegated to the back of the magazine or buried deep in the website.

I was a serious journalist, goddammit.

And I could be great at my job, if only Walter would give me the chance.

I took a deep breath and forced the emotion out of my voice. If you were one of the two female journalists working for Walter, the worst thing you could do was show emotion. And God forbid you cry in front of him. That would be like showing fear to a mad dog. Walter would rip out your heart and tell you to grow the fuck up. Then he’d assign you to cover a women’s ping pong match at a local rec center.

Breathing easy, I said, “So, I can’t even call the Kings office and request an interview with Sean Donovan?”

Walter sucked in a deep breath and blew it out slowly. I could smell the whiskey that he put in his coffee each morning, and the cigarettes he’d smoked on his breath all the way across the desk.

“Look, Kate, I’m not being a dick here,” he said, patting his hands in the air like someone being a dick would do. “You can call the Kings all day long. The minute you tell them you’re from Sports Insider Online, they will tell you to go fuck yourself and hang up the phone.”

I scoffed at him and waved a hand toward the window, as if Sean Donovan was standing outside on the ledge. “So, Sean Donovan will talk to Sports Illustrated and People Magazine all day long. He just won’t talk to us.”

Walter shrugged his bushy eyebrows and bobbed his head. “That’s about the size of it. And he only talks game with Sports Illustrated and humanitarian shit with People. Nobody has ever done the kind of story you’re proposing because Sean Donovan wouldn’t agree to it.”

I rolled my eyes. So much for keeping emotion out of the situation. “He’s okay with women posting sex videos with him online, but he wouldn’t agree to let me do an in-depth profile of him?”

Walter leaned forward and planted his elbows on the desk. “Let’s be honest here, Kate. Do you think that Sean Donovan would let anyone shadow him for a week? Off the field?”