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14
Taran’s phone rang beside her, and she glanced down at the name on the screen. She quickly muted her microphone and answered.
“Well?” she asked.
“T, he signed it,” Sean said.
“As is?” she asked, shocked.
“Yup,” he answered, but he didn’t sound happy.
Taran fired off a couple more spells and listened to the guy in her ear asking her if she was asleep at the wheel again. She ignored him. She made sure they didn’t die, but she wasn’t focused on Diablo at that moment.
All she could think about was that Corey Matthews had just signed a contract giving her permission to write a color story about him for September without any input. She couldn’t believe it. When she asked Sean to try to get him to sign it, she never imagined in a million years that he would. She had hoped that now that he knew her better, he would trust her enough to let her write an article on him, but she hadn’t really believed it.
“You there?” Sean asked.
“Yeah, I’m here. Did he say anything about conditions or suggestions?”
“He didn’t read it, so he has no idea he agreed to let you write an article about him.”
“Oh.” Just like that, her bubble burst. She didn’t understand why she cared whether Corey Matthews trusted her, but knowing he didn’t willingly sign it depressed her. “What did he think it was?”
“If I had to guess, I’d say something saying you could print the Clayton article. He didn’t read that either.”
“Why didn’t you correct him?” Taran asked, mystified.
“He fired me,” Sean said. “You didn’t. You, as my client, asked me to get someone to sign a contract for you. He didn’t even ask me what it was about. He just assumed. I suggested—strongly—he read it, but legally, I can’t tell him what it says. That’s not my job. I was representing you.”
Taran always forgot that she was Sean’s client, but he wrote up all her contracts with Sports Illustrated and with all the athletes she wrote about. And because of that, she got a nice fat monthly invoice from him.
“What do you want to do with it?” he asked miserably.
Wasn’t that the million-dollar question? She had always wanted to write the Matthews story, but could she do it this way?
“Just hang on to it for now,” Taran finally said. “I’m doing Tillerson for June, and that contract said he’d be the September story, so I have some time to think about it.”
Tim Tillerson was another one of Hot Shots’ clients who had the potential to be Major League Baseball’s rookie of the year. Sean offered her the first real shot at him. She jumped on it knowing it would make Wayne do a happy dance to get a feature on the rookie catcher and get him off her back. Two good athletes in a row had her boss smiling. The only issue was that he was another Metro, and she knew that meant a run-in with Corey Matthews.
She hadn’t seen or heard from him since she’d walked out of Nick and Morgan’s wedding. Not that she had expected to. But a part of her hoped she would, so part of the temptation of this new story was that it would once again bring her into his circle, but that was also part of its downside.
“Nope. Not going to do anything? Great, thanks. Guess we’re going to die—definitely going to die—yup, officially dead. Hear that? Dead.” Her earpiece was now yelling at her so loudly she had to yank it out of her ear and toss it onto the table.
“Who’s that?” Sean asked.
“It’s just the TV,” Taran replied, still ignoring the game. Dying wasn’t the end of the world.
“Oh, for a second I thought—” Sean stopped. “Never mind.”
Taran ignored the comment. “Let’s put it on a shelf for now. We can think about it again in mid-July. Email me a copy with Tillerson’s paperwork, but I won’t do anything without your input.”
“Fair enough,” he answered and hung up.
Taran reached for the earpiece and put it back in. “You let us die?” A string of curse words greeted her.
She laughed. This guy really took this game seriously. “Sorry, I got distracted.”
“This is why you need to eat meat. Carnivores don’t space out,” the man complained. She didn’t know who sportnut85 was, but they’d been playing together for a few weeks now. He had messaged her out of the blue, saying he’d heard she was a pretty good wizard and asked if they could pair up for a bit. They did well together, and the guy seemed nice enough.
