Only One Love (Only One 7)

Sitting in my chair, I log in to the computer and take a minute to look at the empty walls. I make a mental note to come in on Saturday and start making this office my own. I work my way through emails, and as always, I watch the highlights of the games from the night before. It’s just preseason games right now, but it’s good to see the boys back at it.

"Good morning." My assistant, Ava, sticks her head into my office with a smile. "You are here bright and early." She hands me a cup of coffee she picked up for me.

"That is so kind," I say, smiling at her.

"My pleasure. Should I get my notes, and we can talk about the meeting today?" I found this out yesterday on my first day here, when Ava told me that my new board meeting would be today. I would be the only lady there, so they wanted to know if I had any needs. Assholes.

"That would be great." With a nod, she walks out of the office, grabbing her notepad and coming back in. "Let's throw some ideas around," I tell her, but in my head, I already know what I want to pitch. It was something that came to me last night while I was taking a shower.

When I tell her my idea, her eyes light up. “That sounds really good.” She smiles, and when she walks out of my office, I get up, the nerves in my stomach starting.

"Ms. Grant." I hear Ava call my name and look over at her. "It’s time."

Getting up, I grab my iPad and we head over to the conference room. I walk with my head high and my blond hair pinned in a ponytail, straight into a room with a table full of men who all look in their forties and fifties. "Gentlemen." Pulling out the only available chair, I sit down with my papers in front of me. Water bottles are lined up in the middle of the table.

"You got here bright and early," Jeffrey says, looking at me with a smirk. From what Ava told me, he’s the oldest one here. He has his head stuck in nineteen ninety and thinks we should just recycle shows. "Nervous?"

I smile at him instead of doing what I want to do, which is glare. "Not even a bit." I grab my pen with my hand instead of flipping him the bird, which is something else I want to do. "Shall we get started?" I look around the table at the six men, all of them dressed in button-down dress shirts. "Why don’t we go around the table, and we can hear everyone’s idea?"

One of the guys chuckles, and I know they are testing me. It’s like a pissing contest. "Unless you guys don’t have any ideas, and then I can just jump in." The guys all look at me with condescending looks.

"I have an idea," Spencer says, and I look over at him. He’s the youngest of the whole bunch, and from what Ava said, he got here about a year before me. "What about the series of has-beens?" He looks around the table. "Big back in the day and nowhere to be found."

"She has a whole family of that," one of them mumbles, and my blood starts to boil. It’s one thing for me to insult my family, but it’s another for someone else to do it.

"I like it," I tell him honestly. "We could also do players that were drafted first but didn’t live up to the hype," I say, leaning back. "Of course that would be like no one in my whole family since they were pretty much drafted first and then hit the top of the leaderboard with points." I look around the table, and some of the men avoid my eyes. "But what do I know? So we will put that one on the board." I then look around. "Anyone else have anything that they want to bring forward?"

"What do you have in mind?" Earl asks, his stuffy white mustache hiding his whole top lip. "Since they brought you in to brighten up the network."

I ignore the last part of his sentence. "I was thinking we could do a weekly show on bad boys of hockey," I start the pitch "Past, present, and future. Everyone always looks at the bad boys when they are on the ice, but no one knows how they got the title." I smile. "I mean we, the press, give them the title of bad boys, but who are they really?"

"I like that.” Spencer tilts his head to the side. "I like that idea better than my own." He smiles at me, and I nod.

"We could perhaps make a list of people and reach out to them." I flip over my notes. "I do have a couple in my family I can ask." I look over at Earl. "Figure they can brighten up the screen."