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Lyla

I love my job. I love my job. I love my job.

Maybe if I say it enough times, I’ll actually believe it.

Because right now, it’s not so much about loving my job as it is about loving Cathy, my boss.

Cathy runs our local chapter of Play It Forward—a nationwide mentorship program dedicated to empowering kids through sports, leadership, and community.

We work with athletes and either pair them with a mentee or work together on special event days.

I have the privilege of being Cathy’s administrative assistant—which means, in Cathy’s eyes, that I get to do everything she doesn’t feel like doing.

Today, that’s grant writing—something I know nothing about, but somehow in Cathy’s mind I’m qualified to do because I have an English degree.

I’m cursing my younger self for having an unhealthy interest in Shakespearean literature. And also my inability to say no whenever Cathy asks me to do something I’m not paid to do.

Hazel keeps telling me that ‘no’ is a complete sentence, but I haven’t quite figured out how to work that into my vocabulary yet.

I shift in my chair behind the two-tiered front desk—one of those setups where the counter comes up to about chest height for visitors, with my actual desk tucked in behind it like a little cave of administrative chaos.

It’s great for hiding snacks and messy paperwork, but not so great when little kids come in and I don’t notice them until they say something and make me jump out of my skin.

I’m elbow-deep in articles about grant writing when an email from Cathy comes through. She’s telling me to get the paperwork ready for our newest professional athlete who’s coming in tomorrow for his orientation.

I scroll to the bottom of her email to find out the athlete’s name.

And it’s none other than Drake Blythe.