Page 5 of Power Play

She doesn’t wait to make any more small talk, not even with her bride-to-be cousin. Latching her hand around his wrist, she gives a quick tug and pulls him toward the table of women.

“Excuse me,” Duke murmurs as he brushes past me. I objectively admire his butt as he walks away. It’s a great butt, no doubt thanks to the fact that he’s constantly squatting in the net. He moves like a lethal predator, and there’s no shortage of female sighs as he settles into an empty chair at the end of the table. Gwen sits next to him, immediately turning to him with an accusing finger jab.

Trouble in paradise, it seems.

And then it hits me: I just met Duke “The Mountain” Harrison.Holy crap. This is . . . this is crazy. I cannotwaitto tell Casey, my coworker, on Monday morning. Even if I do think he’s overrated, there’s still the fact that I am a sports journalist and I’ve been following his career for years. Since he was a rookie a decade ago.

But while I might be a sports journalist, I also happen to while away thirty-five hours per week atThe Cambridge Tribune.To say that the newspaper is second-rate would be a stretch, and for one very good reason: my boss, Josh, doesn’t believe in handing out press badges. No one takes us seriously because half of the city doesn’t even know that we exist.

Who wants to read an online newspaper where the quotes are regurgitated from other publications? No one knows who I am—this isn’t a bad thing, necessarily—but my chances of even freelancing for a more reputable newsletter, likeThe Boston Globe, are slim to none.

Honestly,Iwouldn’t even hire me.

My clips are decent, but there’s only so much that you can do with lackluster story material.

“I don’t like that look on your face,” Jenny says from beside me. “Whatever you’re thinking, you stop that right now, Charlie Denton.”

Bristling at her suspicious tone, I say, “I’m not thinking about anything.”

“You are,” Mel jumps in. “You so are.”

They’ve got my calling card. I need a story—a story that will land on screens all over the Northeast—and Duke Harrison just became my muse.

Chapter Two

Iwaituntil Monday to make my move.

I’m surprised I’ve contained my nervous energy for this long, actually. This is it—my opportunity to make it into the big leagues. I can feel it in my bones, though I’m hoping that the echoing pain in my shins isn’t an early onset of arthritis kicking in.

“What’s the matter with you?” my coworker demands after I leave my desk twice in the span of thirty minutes to pour myself more coffee.

Casey and I didn’t start out as best buddies. In fact, it’s safe to say that we spent our first year atThe Cambridge Tribunehating each other’s guts. Desperation, as well as the creeping realization that we had only each other in a department full of testosterone, soon bonded us in a way that could only be trumped by slicing our forearms and sharing our blood.

I dump a packet of creamer into my mug, swirling the coffee around with the bottom of a plastic fork. “I have this idea,” I tell her as I sit back down in my lumpy office chair. “Do you want to hear it?”

Casey rolls her eyes but gestures for me to go on. Instinctively, I know this means she’s agitated by my jitters but curious enough to keep quiet. We’ve been through this before.

“Okay.” I plunk my mug down and coffee sloshes over the rim. Idly I use a spare paper napkin from yesterday’s Dunkins run to wipe it up. “Guess who I met this weekend.”

“Your future husband.”

She says this so drolly that I glower. Is it so hard to imagine me as the marrying kind? I think of my previous track record and feel my shoulders slump in defeat.

“That was a joke,” Casey tells me, making the defeat feel only that much sharper. “Obviously we’re going to become two old cat ladies together.”

“I don’t like cats.”

“This is why we can’t be lesbians and marry,” Casey jokes, pushing her brown hair back from her face. “I couldn’t be with someone who hates God’s greatest gift to mankind.”

This time, it’s my turn to roll my eyes. The marriage thing is a running joke between us, mainly because our coworkers are sexist pigs and have a hard time believing that, yes, both Casey and I are straight, and yes, we thoroughly enjoy sports.

I cut straight to the chase. “I met Duke Harrison.”

Casey’s eyes go wide and her mouth falls open a little. “I don’t think I heard you correctly. Did you just say that you metDuke Harrison?”

I nod. “Yes. And, before you ask, he’s only marginally better looking in person than he is on TV.”

The doubtful expression she levels on me says it all. “Onlymarginally better looking?” she demands, dropping her elbows to her desk. “I refuse to believe that Duke Harrison is anything less than a Greek God.”

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