Page 8

Harper

I thought I could handle seeing Jamil again. I thought it might even be a good thing to see him again. Boy was I wrong.

I had spotted him well before he had realized who I was. He had run out of the dugout behind Tommy to the roars of a crowd thoroughly obsessed with him. A woman behind me even had a shirt that said she was his number one fan—I’d tried not to eye her more than once and failed.

Neil had given me a strange look during the second game of the series when I suggested that the pregame interview with Tommy was enough, and we could all go home after having such a long day.

But bless that man’s heart because he didn’t question me as I tore out of the stadium like someone who’d seen a ghost.

That crooked smile reminded me of limbs tangled up. The feeling of ecstasy that had me slipping away from my own pathetic reality. A reality that I was now facing head on, starting with the mood board I’d hung in my apartment as the very first belonging I’d unpacked.

“What are you doing, Nelson?” I sighed as I poured myself a tall glass of wine and stared at the pictures I’d printed out of people I admired with jobs that I’d been chasing.

I’d spent the entire night cleaning my new apartment after I’d rushed back from the game, trying to wipe away those hazel eyes that looked at me with such yearning. Or the way my heart had pounded so hard in my chest, that I thought it would burst right out at my feet for everyone to see.

“You’ve been working for this for four years and you’re going to let something as simple as feelings for someone get in the way? There’s a reason you swore off men because you thought they would be a distraction for you and this job. Why change now?”

Nothing about the feelings swirling in my head feels simple.

Times like this I wished I had a friend I could call.

The only people I talked to nowadays were Neil and my parents.

None of those options felt like the right person to call up and spill my guts to about Jamil Edman.

Neil never said more than a handful of words at a time.

I’d have more luck talking to a wall. And my parents would only remind me of the ultimatum my mother had delivered to me before I left Washington DC.

I was better off working through this myself.

My eyes drifted back to the mood board. I set my wine glass down on my coffee table and hurried to grab a dry-erase board I knew I had packed away in one of the boxes in my living room that had been dropped off while I was working.

“I know you’re here somewhere,” I whispered. “Gotcha!”

After nailing it to the wall next to my mood board, I uncapped one of my dry-erase markers and began listing out my plan to secure a spot on one of the network’s daytime shows by the end of the season.

I needed a sense of order back to my life after Jamil had tipped my world upside down and a plan was sure to do that.

Secure interviews that will bring attention to the network.

Cover stories that are meaningful and display my style of reporting.

Convince Terry that I’m deserving of a promotion.

No distractions!!! (Jamil Edman)

Satisfied with my work, I tossed the dry-erase marker back into the box I got it from and picked up my wine.

How I was going to avoid the best player on the Chicago Cougars that I was absolutely going to have to interview multiple times this season, I had no idea.

But having the plan written down soothed the part of me that was beginning to believe my mother and that I’d never achieve my dreams—always the failure in her eyes.

With a sigh, I turned my television on. Only to have a jump scare when Nick O’Connor’s face appeared.

Was Nick truly deserving of the hate that I harbored for him?

Probably not. It wasn’t his fault he’d been born with a silver spoon in his mouth.

But every day I went to work, I reminded myself I was the better reporter.

Nick’s questions were unoriginal and surface level.

His interest in the person he was interviewing came across as forced and he’d gotten his information wrong on more than one account.

I sipped my wine as I watched him stumble through the statistics of the player he was interviewing, finding a sort of sick joy at the way the athlete raised his eyebrows at him questioningly.

No, I deserved to be sitting at a desk while I talked through the biggest stories across sports. And I wasn’t going to let someone like Nick O’Connor get in my way. There was only one person who could possibly derail my plans and his name was written on the dry-erase board hanging on my wall.