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Jake Malone was indeed going places.
But then he’d taken a local gig, just for a couple of months. It had been weird at first, waking up in the same bed every morning and eating breakfast somewhere other than an airport. But it had been temporary—just long enough for him to really sink his teeth into New York City.
Except it hadn’t been temporary. The two-month stint had been quickly followed by a six-month gig kissing up to the New York Yankees and attempting to cater to the players’ enormous collective egos.
It had been half a year of documenting hairline finger fractures, reporting multimillion-dollar deals, and trying to find a positive way to spin a dugout brawl over who ate whose sunflower seeds.
It had been the worst kind of journalism. Repetitive, slightly distorted, and completely predictable.
In other words, his nightmare.
To this day, Jake refused to set foot in Yankee Stadium. Not that he’d mention that little quirk in the office. Anti-Yankee sentiment was the worst kind of treachery in the Oxford office. Forget about cash Christmas bonuses. It was all about season tickets.
Following the bullshit Yankee gig, Jake had every intention of jumping on the next plane to anywhere, but then he’d met Bill Heiner. Jake hadn’t been looking for a mentor, but Bill had the type of personality that sucked people into his vortex.
And Bill’s vortex was Oxford magazine.
It wasn’t that Jake didn’t admire Oxford—he did. Any magazine that could claim the title of best-selling men’s magazine for more than sixty years deserved a nod.
The magazine itself had never been the problem.
It was everything that had come with it. The nine-to-five. The suits. The like-clockwork deadlines. The uptown office building that never changed. Ever.
Ultimately, though, Jake had caved out of loyalty and admiration for Bill. The old editor in chief had been a friend in addition to being a kick-ass mentor. Being a member of Bill’s team had been worth the desk job and multiyear lease on his apartment. And it wasn’t without perks. The 401(k) and health insurance were handy. And responsible.
And boring.
But Bill was gone now, probably sitting on a beach in Barbados.
And Jake was realizing too late that he didn’t want to be just another NYC salaried columnist scrambling up the journalism ladder.
It was time to get back on the going-places track. Preferably somewhere that involved a plane ticket. Jake was creeping up on thirty-four, and while he loved New York, he’d been here for over six years.
It was starting to feel a lot like the rest of his life.
He wanted to reclaim the old Jake. The fly-by-night, who-knows-what’s-next kind of guy that all of his friends and family had expected him to become.
He wanted to be the version of himself that his parents could brag about, and he knew exactly how to get there.
After years of Jake’s badgering, Oxford was finally, finally adding a Travel section to the magazine.
Jake was the perfect person to take it on. He was the most senior columnist, had no wife or kids to keep him in New York, and was willing to try anything, eat anything, live anywhere.
He was the best man for the job. He knew it. Bill Heiner had known it.
And then Bill had retired.
Now Jake just had to make sure that newbie Alex Cassidy knew it.
So far, they weren’t off to
a good start. Cassidy had gotten it into his well-groomed head that Jake would be the perfect candidate to do some fluffy “let’s cooperate with the girls” joint article with one of the Stiletto women.
Over his dead body.
He loved women. On a personal level. He loved the way a woman’s eyes went dark when he pinned her hands above her head. He loved the way no two women applied perfume in the exact same way. He loved the rarity of finding a woman who could make him laugh—really laugh—although the numbers on that were low enough to be depressing.
But professionally? He’d already done his time writing the tawdry sex advice and the insipid when-to-let-her-pay-for-dinner bullshit.
