Hold Her Close

But I’m not going to give up. Not yet. Not only am I determined to make this work until it is time to trade up to a better place, but I refuse to believe that what I thought was my dream job is actually a nightmare. After leaving everything behind for this, I don’t think that I could handle that.

I still have lots more story ideas, but I’m not going to pitch them until I have a clear and indisputable angle of why I’m the one that needs to be reporting them. My job isn’t to give Bill unearned opportunities for journalism while I sit behind the desk and look pretty, no matter what he thinks.

A soft knock on my door grabs my attention.

“Come in,” I call.

Alan, the main producer, pushes open my door. “Hey, Sadie.”

“Hey, Alan. What’s up?”

“Good job today,” he says.

I smile. “Thanks.” Internally I’m screaming, because if Bill told him to come in here and critique my wardrobe and he’s actually doing it, I might actually lose my shit.

“I’ve got a last-minute story for you,” he says. “Just came in.”

“That’s great,” I say, both relieved and suddenly filled with energy. “What is it?”

“Local athlete,” he says. “Kind of burst onto the scene and is becoming both a local and national sensation. He agreed to do a profile, which is good for us because up until now he’s been kind of shy on doing media.”

I’m still smiling, but my heart falls a little bit. “I’m not a sports reporter.”

“We know,” Alan laughs a little. “But the guy says he’ll only do the profile if you’re the one doing it.”

I frown. “What’s his name?”

“Jon Lawson.”

Quickly, I type his name into google. The pictures populate, and I freeze. Oh shit. It’s him. The guy from the club. The guy that’s been plaguing my dreams since I left him sitting naked in that VIP room in Atlanta.

Alan must see my face fall because he sighs. “Is this going to be a problem, Sadie? Because you really need to find a way to not be a problem, if you take my meaning.”

My stomach plummets. Alan must have told him what I said. “I know him,” I say. “Or rather, I’ve met him before. I didn’t know his name, though. I don’t want it to look like I’m using a personal connection to get a story.”

“Honestly, I don’t care,” he says. “This guy is the hottest thing in sports right now, and everyone is talking about him. The fact that his first real interview is going to be with us is a big deal. He wants to do it with you, and if you’ve met before, maybe that’s why. If he feels more comfortable that way it’s fine with me, but we need you to do it. This is a big deal for us, and I don’t give a shit how we got this scoop.”

I nod. “Okay.”

“Thanks.” Alan turns to leave. “Oh, and he’ll be here at four o’clock to shoot it. He didn’t want to wait and neither did we.”

Plastering a brilliant and confident smile on my face, I look at him. “Not a problem.” But as soon as the door shuts behind him I let out a string of curses.

What the actual fuck. How is it him? Why is it him? How did he find me and why am I the only one he wants to do the interview with?

Of course I already know. Alan said that he is local. So when he was in that club in Atlanta, he was just passing through. And now that he is here and I am here, and my face in on TV every day, he must have seen me.

I almost have to laugh. It’s the exact situation that I’d tried to avoid by having that one-night stand in Atlanta. I hadn’t wanted any lingering attachments. And yet…

That night has haunted me in unexpected ways. I keep reliving the way he made my body sing with pleasure and the way he fell into that slow, deep place with me. The way his eyes flashed and he made me feel like I was the only person in his world.

The roughness in his voice when he asked me what my name was. I’ve woken up more than once since that night, panting with longing and having to resort to other far less satisfying methods just to ease the arousal that thinking and dreaming about him brought me.

And now he is here, and I am going to see him in less than three hours. Last minute is right. Usually working stories and profiles like this would take at least a week for research and preparation. Maybe more than that. I’m going to have to come up with an entire battery of interview questions in a few hours, and I don’t even have a modicum of knowledge about sports. And if I can’t pull this off, then my career is in jeopardy because the last-minute nature of this interview won’t be the problem, I’ll be the problem.