Page 18

18

Tovah

L ike I’d suspected, my professor had called me into his office to give me shit for not paying attention during class. The retired elderly investigative reporter had probed me with question after question to figure out why I’d acted so strangely today. Was I sleeping alright? Was it my boyfriend? He wasn’t treating me poorly, was he? Because if he was, there were options available…

I sidestepped all of his questions. I certainly couldn’t tell the professor the truth. It would make him a target, too—and risk my safety and my mom’s. Instead, I told him I was tired and stressed with my workload, and he reluctantly let me leave.

I was a good liar, after all.

The conversation with my professor made me late to my newspaper meeting with the other editors. Our editor-in-chief, Toby, glared at me. We didn’t have the best relationship. He was a pretentious douche with a stick up his ass, but his great grandfather had founded The Daily Queen in 1872, which meant that the board would let him get away with anything. Including making me senior sports editor when I’d wanted to be managing news editor—and letting people believe we’d been sexually involved when I wouldn’t touch him with a thirty-foot pole.

It didn’t help that Veronica Lucas, the vindictive former friend who’d started the rumors about me, had badly wanted the senior sports editor position and felt like I’d stabbed her in the back when I’d gotten it…even though I’d never in a million years wanted to steal it from her. If I hadn’t accepted the role, Toby would’ve kicked me off the paper entirely—and then no news outlet would hire me after I graduated. All I’d ever wanted was to be a journalist, to search for the truth and bring it to light so powerful men were brought to justice. It was the one thing my mother and I had never been able to do—yet—and I was determined to build a life around helping people in that way.

Veronica didn’t believe that, though, no matter how hard I tried to explain it. She thought I was just an “opportunistic ho,” as she’d told me multiple times.

In the present, she glared at me, glancing at my two giant babysitters standing in the corner of the room.

“I heard you were fucking Isaac Jones. I didn’t realize you were fucking the whole hockey team, but then I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. Especially when you fucked Toby to get sports editor,” she hissed.

Judah’s and Levi’s faces turned thunderous.

Toby, the asshole, didn’t even come to my defense. He’d never dispelled the rumor, and even though I’d wanted to punch him multiple times for it, I told myself that it was fine. It was all fine. It didn’t matter that people thought I was fucking every guy on campus, right? Who cared what people thought, if it served my purpose? One day I’d have a Pulitzer, and all this college social hell would be nothing more than an ugly memory.

But for some reason I didn’t want Judah and Levi to think that. Like their opinions of me mattered.

I didn’t know why they looked so pissed off. Were they that upset by the idea that I’d supposedly slept with my boss? Were they judging me? Were they going to tell Isaac?

Shit . I could just imagine how that would go. Isaac had made it clear that while we were “together” no other man was allowed to touch me. For someone who didn’t give a crap about me, he was weirdly possessive.

At least I wasn’t on the edge of an orgasm anymore. On the way to the newspaper offices, I’d stopped in a bathroom and taken off the vibrating underwear, tossing them in the trash. I wasn’t letting Isaac put me through that hell again, and even though he was taking a test, I wasn’t sure if the app on his phone could control the panties from far away and wouldn’t put it past him to not fuck with me during my meeting.

My meeting that was not going well.

“Tovah, can I talk to you?” Toby asked, ignoring the way Judah and Levi straightened. “Alone?”

“Not gonna happen,” Judah said. “Whatever you can say in front of her, you say in front of the two of us, too.”

I could feel my face turning crimson. This was becoming a pattern, one I hated .

Getting out of my chair, I followed Toby out of the bullpen where we’d been meeting and into his office. Judah and Levi, who’d been busy propping up the wall with their backs, stood up and followed.

“They don’t actually think they’re joining us, do they?” Toby said, sounding worried.

I understood. Separately, each of the Wasserson twins probably outweighed him times two. Together, they could flatten him into a newspaper, or something resembling one.

“Tovah, what is going on? Why do you have bodyguards? Or are they babysitters?” he continued, holding his office door open for me.

I followed him in, and as Judah started to step inside, I slammed the door shut in his face, locking it.

He shook his head slowly at me.

“Isaac’s not going to like this,” he said through the door.

I pulled down the shade in reply, turning to Toby.

“What’s going on?” I asked him.

He exploded. “Tovah, what the fuck . You were supposed to send me an interview with Isaac Jones, but I checked the Dropbox multiple times last night and this morning and there was nothing. You didn’t respond to a single one of my texts and emails.”

Of course I hadn’t responded. Isaac still had my damn phone.

Toby continued. “Then, I hear you’re dating the guy? Don’t you hate him? There’s no integrity to the feature if the writer is the subject’s girlfriend,” he whined in his nasally voice.

I was still stuck on what Toby had said. Girlfriend? Isaac and I had gone to one class together, and yeah, Toby was a journalist, so it was his job to know things, but still. It had gotten around campus that quickly? And Isaac had made it pretty clear in class it wasn’t a girlfriend-boyfriend situation so much as a clingy hookup situation.

“Am I going to have to assign someone else the interview?” Toby prodded.

“No,” I said. “I’ll get you the feature.” I would, and Toby didn’t know it yet, but the story he was going to get was going to be so much more than he’d ever expected.

“Good, because I don’t want to regret giving you the sports editor position.”

“I didn’t even want to be sports editor, Toby,” I pointed out. “I wanted to be managing editor. You just made me sports editor because you hate Veronica.”

He shrugged. “She’s a bitch. You know that.”

“You made her bitchier,” I said. “You so easily could make my life easier and instead?—”

“—and instead I did what made my life easier,” he said agreeably. “And you’re just going to have to suck it up and deal with it because?—”

The door to Toby’s office banged open liked someone had kicked it.

Because someone had. Isaac stood there, hands fisted as he planted his right foot back on the floor and stared at me.

“Excuse me, did you just kick open my door?” Toby looked shocked.

“It never should’ve been closed in the first place,” Isaac said, and although his voice was calm and easy, the flash of anger in his eyes and his fisted hands were not.

“Tovah, maybe when you write your piece on the hockey team, you can talk about how they must all be taking drugs that have turned them into roid-ridden psychopaths,” Toby said, clearly not caring or aware that he’d just taken his life in his hands.

Because at the mention of drugs, Isaac, Judah, and Levi all went solid. Isaac’s dark, accusatory gaze searched mine, like he thought I’d been talking about the team’s control of Vice and Vixen to Toby, or worse, had made up something about them using performance-enhancing drugs. I shook my head, once. Isaac relaxed somewhat, but the suspicion was still in his eyes.

“Toby, steroid use isn’t really a thing in hockey,” I said. “That’s more football and?—”

He waved a hand in the air. “I don’t really care.”

Isaac crossed his arms in front of his chest. “Are you this disrespectful to all your editorial board? Or is it only Tovah who gets to experience your dickishness?”

My jaw dropped.

Was Isaac defending me?

There were murmurs around the bull pen. Toby’s cheeks flamed.

Veronica cleared her throat. “Tovah’s very familiar with Toby’s dick,” she said, giggling.

Jesus fucking Christ, was everyone trying to destroy my life today? What had I done to deserve this?

I was stressed, and annoyed, and tired, and just wanted my bed and a bag of Flamin’ Hots and a whole season of House Hunters International to watch. I was so done with all of this, including the way that Veronica was eyeing Isaac like he was a tree she wanted to climb.

“I am not familiar with Toby’s dick,” I said to her, too pissed off to watch my tongue anymore. “Game’s getting old, Veronica. Don’t you have anything better to do than to spread rumors about me? Like, I don’t know, learn how to be a better journalist?”

Laughter broke out in the bullpen, and I couldn’t even tell who the other editors were laughing at anymore.

Isaac glanced at me.

“Rumors?” he asked. “What rumors?”

Damn it. I wasn’t supposed to care what he thought of me, or what anyone thought of me.

“How dare you!” Veronica cried, rising to her feet and sticking a hand on her hip. “And you should talk. You wouldn’t even be an editor if you hadn’t sucked Toby’s dick.”

Violent images—ones I usually ignored—came to me, including the urge to rip Veronica’s hair right out of her head. Before I could act on them, or, hopefully, shove the image away, Isaac had crossed the room to her and was picking up her hand in his.

My heart dropped like a lead balloon.

I shouldn’t feel so disappointed and betrayed, but for Isaac to turn to her so quickly, especially after the ways she’d insulted me…well, it showed just how little I mattered to him. And the knowledge stung like a million papercuts.

“Veronica, right?” Isaac said. “That’s a pretty name.”

“Oh,” she blushed, fluttering her eyelashes at him. “That’s so sweet of you, Isaac. We know each other, by the way. I used to be the reporter in the front row on the left after games, remember? You always said you liked my questions.”

He smiled, a dimple showing. “I try to be sweet. You know what isn’t sweet, Veronica? When you’re so pathetically jealous of my brilliant girlfriend?—”

Girlfriend? Since when was I his girlfriend, even his fake girlfriend?

“—that you make up rumors to undermine her talent and authority on campus, even though you know rumors about a woman’s sexual history, especially with her boss and coworkers, can have far-reaching consequences. That’s not a good example of journalistic integrity or honesty, is it, Veronica? I didn’t know who you were then, but I do, now—and I promise, in this instance, you don’t want me to.”

Veronica’s lips pinched, her eyes got big, and she tried to tug her hand out of Isaac’s, but he didn’t release her. He didn’t squeeze tight, or hurt her, but the threat was there.

“Got it,” she sniffed.

“Aren’t you forgetting something?” he said calmly.

“I—” she seemed confused.

“An apology,” he said, that same calm patience in his voice. “I think you owe my brilliant girlfriend an apology for starting rumors about her and Toby and then repeating them to me—because you were hoping that it might impact our relationship.”

“I’m sorry,” she muttered, eyes flashing.

Judah put a hand to his ear. “What? I couldn’t hear you.”

“Say it with meaning,” Levi suggested.

I covered my mouth with a hand to hide my laughter. I felt like a bitch for enjoying this, but Veronica had been causing me issues for months now, and it felt good to get mine back—and to be supported this way by the hockey team. By Isaac, especially.

“I’m sorry ,” Veronica said, louder this time, her face pale with rage.

“I’m sorry, Tovah,” Isaac prompted.

“I’m sorry, Tovah,” Veronica spat, and finally, Isaac released her hand.

She moved away from him, her eyes trailed on the ground.

Turning to Toby, he said, “You clearly went along with it, which is a dick move, but I’ll make you a deal. You set the record straight that Tovah got the senior sports editor position because she’s a talented journalist and manager, and never say a word about her again—or I will happily defenestrate you.”

Toby gaped at him. “Defenes?—”

“It means toss you out the fucking window,” Isaac added helpfully. He smiled at Toby, his dimples fully on display. He’d never looked so terrifying—or so sexy.

“I—” Toby swallowed. “I don’t?—”

“You will,” Isaac told him. “Or I will.” To me, he said, “Ready?”

I grabbed my bag, ready to be done with this place—and this day.

“Ready.”

But as we left together with the entire newspaper staff watching us, my shoulders drew back and my head felt higher than it had in a while, like a whole weight had been lifted—and Isaac was carrying it for me now.