Page 1 of Home of the Brave

1

VICTORIA

Iwas being tested. My patience, perseverance, and limits.

If I wasn’t positive my boss didn’t hate me, I would have serious doubts because this was it. This was my breaking point.

Men’s college basketball.

March Madness.

The bane of my existence.

I did not care. I did not enjoy it. I did not want to be here.

Basketball was not my sport.

Men’s teams were not my specialty.

I was a women’s hockey correspondent.

I did not belong here.

I swear, basketball players smelled worse than hockey players. Not sure how, since they didn’t wear all the padding, but I was having to cover my nose discreetly with my hand so I could inhale my lotion instead of sweaty boy stench.

“Last question!” the team’s manager called.

I raised my free hand, only because it was expected, and let out a relieved sigh when I wasn’t chosen.

Oh darn. Sorry, Chris, just wasn’t in the cards. My boss would simply have to understand.

I didn’t have the same pull here as literally any arena with ice.

My connections, background, and talents were all wasted on this assignment.

Stupid Trevor and his stupid wedding.

He actually cried––literal tears––in Chris’s office when he realized he couldn’t be here. His fiancée got the weeks mixed up and accidentally booked their bachelor and bachelorette parties, rehearsal dinner, and wedding day throughout the end of March instead of the beginning.

He was devastated.

I was proud of her. There was no way she hadn’t done it on purpose.

But that meant I was stuck listening to the most annoying squeaky sounds in the world and watching the biggest babies in athletics––minus professional men's soccer players––play the most boring sport ever…for weeks.

Seriously, raise the hoops and make the courts bigger. The genetically modified giants playing these days, even in college, aren’t being challenged.

Scoring over a hundred points a game shouldn’t be the norm.

It’s boring. It's predictable. It’s too easy for them.

Chris was well aware of my stance on this sport, yet here I was. Still responsible for covering it.

And he had the audacity to remind me to leave my bias out of my words.

I was a professional.

Of course, I would set aside my feelings and be factual.