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“That’s not who I am.” Even if she was currently a gossip reporter, she wasn’t willing to outright lie in any story. Man, she was amazed that they even needed to have this conversation. Five years ago, she never would have believed she’d work for this type of man. But over these last few years, everything about her life had taken a hard left turn.
“Yeah, you and yourprinciples. Anyway, how about next month's article?”
“I have until Monday to find someone.”
She wrote full-length feature articles for the monthly magazine. Her stories were more color than fact and focused hard on the players' lives outside of sports.
“Have you contacted any of my big five?”
Wayne had a list of athletes he wanted her to feature before the end of the calendar year. Although he deemed it a reasonable list, she knew better. The first was the hottest rookie baseball player of the year, and everyone was after him. The second one was a soccer star living in Guatemala. She’d reached out to his agent twice already but hadn’t even gotten a call back. The next two were on a media hiatus, and the last one—the elusive white whale—had never in his entire career done a color interview. He was good at answering questions about his game, even when he was playing poorly, but if anyone dared to ask about his personal life, the interview ended.
“You’re in the same building as Corey Matthews. Make an attempt.”
The white whale himself. It wasn’t shocking that Wayne demanded she go after him first. But unless the stars aligned and luck suddenly had her back, she wasn’t going to get Corey Matthews to agree to anything. Hehatedgossip reporters.
“Do you hear me?”
“Yeah.” She glanced down at her clothes. She’d stand out like a sore thumb if she went into the locker room looking like a kid. There was a change of clothes in her car, so she’d have to head out to the parking garage and hope Matthews didn’t leave before she got back. But everyone knew the pitcher bounced out as quickly as possible after a game.
“Yeah, what?” he asked. “Do I need to take care of locking down articles for you? Try to keep up with the big boys, princess.”
Wayne had never wanted to hire her. He was old, crotchety, and a full-blown sexist. He thought the only place women belonged in sports reporting was in front of the camera where they could look cute. She fantasized about stabbing him with a fork, but that was about as likely as her getting an interview with the elusive Matthews. Still, she needed this job. Any chance of her dream job had ended in disaster two years ago.
“I’ll get one of the five by Monday.” She made the impossible promise to get him off the phone and hung up, having no earthly idea how the hell she was going to do it.
* * *
