Page 6

Harper

“You’re moving to Chicago?”

Both of my parents stared at me, mouths hanging open, as if I had just suggested I was selling everything I owned and joining a cult.

“To cover the Chicago Cougars—last year’s World Series champions,” I repeated.

“How will you network there?” My mother asked. Because the most important thing to her was making sure I lived where I could make connections, climb social ladders, position myself in society with an abundance of opportunities.

“Do you at least have a place to stay? That’s a quick turnaround,” my father added, the more sensible one of the two.

“The network has an apartment set aside for me. They are going to pay for the first six months of rent. That should leave me with only a couple of months that I will have to pay before the season is over.”

My father’s eyebrows raised, clearly surprised that my job would go to such extremes to have me in Chicago. Neither of them were sports fans and they held the belief that there wasn’t much money or benefits from the kind of career I was pursuing. They didn’t have the same vision I did.

Reporters were in a unique position to provide and uncover the kinds of stories that could make a difference.

I was the one that could highlight the good that people do in the world or the one to highlight the bad, especially when it was needed.

I loved the thrill of being the first one to a big story or the satisfaction I got after a successful interview with an athlete.

This job made my blood sing like nothing else.

I knew my parents loved me and I hoped they would come around. Eventually, I would prove to them that all these nights on the road would be worth it. Today was still not the day.

“What if this job goes away? What happens then? They’re always sending you all over the country.

How are you supposed to grow your expertise if you’re covering all these different sports and teams?

” My mother continued to press. I watched my father reach for her under the table, trying to tell her to back off.

But once Maria Nelson got going, there was no stopping her.

“You also said you’d help me campaign. How are you going to do that from Chicago? ”

The waiter walked by during the inquisition I was receiving, and I signaled for him to refill my wine glass all the way to the top. His eyes were downcast, trying to look anywhere but at his patrons wrapped up in a verbal sparring match. Very few people ever stood up to my mother.

“Mom, sending me all over to cover different teams and sports is entirely the point. If I have any chance at being a host for one of the shows on the network, I have to have a vast knowledge of all sports. And I told you I would help if I had the time. That was the caveat. I don’t have the time now.

” We stared at each other in a silent standoff.

My mother narrowed her eyes. “When are you going to settle down and stop traveling so much?”

This wine wasn’t going to be strong enough to keep my patience long.

By the grace of some higher being, I managed to keep away any eye rolls. “When I get a host position with the network,” I reminded her. We’d had this same conversation many times over the course of my tenure in this industry.

“Don’t you think you would have been promoted into that position by now?

” My hand clenched around the stem of my wine glass.

If I shattered this glass, would the lecture I’d receive then be worse than the one I was receiving now?

I bit my tongue to keep from spouting off something I would regret.

“Honey, we can’t keep stepping in to help you financially when you refuse to see the writing on the wall.

Maybe it’s time you came to work with me? ”

“And do what?” I asked incredulously. “Smile and wave? Stand there and look pretty? What kind of life is that? I want to make a difference and journalism is where I think I can do that.”

“Politics is more than smiling and waving, Harper. You know that. You make a difference in people’s lives every day. I know there will be more certainty in it than there is in your current job.”

My mother had worked her way up from being our town’s mayor to a congresswoman for our nation over the course of her career.

She’d never spent more than two terms in a position, always climbing to the next rung until she was at the top.

In her eyes, if she faced opposition, whether that was an opponent in a race or stagnation, she would figure out a different way to achieve her goals.

She viewed my hesitation to go elsewhere as weakness.

Showing that her point held any validity felt too close to admitting defeat and I refused to admit defeat. I glanced over at my father, hoping for some help in this argument, but he was too busy scrolling through his phone to bother defending his only child’s dreams.

“I don’t want to go on a campaign trail with you to be a pawn in your manufactured image. I don’t want to work as an aid in your office and have to spend my whole life sucking up to people I hate when I could be covering a story about them instead.”

The ominous look my mother leveled me with sent a chill down my spine. Whatever she was about to say next was going to be final. There was never any room for negotiation with her.

“After this season, if you aren’t promoted and still scrounging for money from me and your father, then you will come to work for me.” My jaw unhinged. Never had she forced my hand like this before.

“I have a feeling this could be the opportunity I’ve been waiting for. If I can impress the network with my coverage of the Cougars, I think a host seat could be mine.” I hurried to defend myself, but any effort I made felt useless. My words were falling on closed ears.

The tension between my mother and I finally died when she realized that nothing was going to come from her efforts. But her disappointment remained evident in the deep frown set in her face and the purse of her lips.

My father nervously glanced between us before he flagged the waiter down. “We should get some cheesecake to celebrate then. We will send you off with some good luck.”

One of my father’s beliefs was that nobody could be angry over dessert. The three of us ate our cheesecake in silence to end one of our typical dinners together while I tried to figure out how I was going to pack up most of my life in a single weekend and move it all the way to Chicago by Monday.

Or how I was going to keep my dream career alive.

The field reporter job was considered grunt work in the industry with all the travel, long hours, and minimal pay.

I’d relied heavily on my parents to continue doing it this long.

Without their support, I’d be forced to quit.

The stakes felt much higher than they ever had before.

It wasn’t until my third glass of wine that I remembered a very important detail that hadn’t crossed my mind. There was a particular player with hazel eyes and strong hands that haunted my dreams every night and played for the Chicago Cougars.

That morning, three weeks prior, I had woken up to the sound of a rain shower tapping against Jamil’s windows.

We were both tangled up in his sheets, the comforter forgotten on the floor.

Jamil was still fast asleep on his stomach with his hands tucked under his pillow.

The muscular planes of his back were bunched up and my fingers itched to dip in and out of those valleys or sink back into his curls.

But I had fisted them in the sheets instead.

There wasn’t a single version of our time together that ended with me staying that morning.

That would only risk questions—about full names or if we wanted to get breakfast.

I didn’t regret sneaking out in the early morning hours before the sun had even risen because I’d never thought I’d be around him again soon. It had been one perfect night of two strangers crossing paths at the perfect time. That was all it was ever supposed to be.

Serendipity.

Crossing paths again .?.?. now that was more than just coincidence. Maybe it was divine intervention. Maybe it was a disaster waiting to happen. Whatever it was, the universe was throwing a major wrench in my five-year plan, and it could fuck off.