Page 6 of Power Play

Sipping my coffee, I offer a shrug and lie. “Sorry to disappoint.”

She doesn’t look like she believes me worth a damn, but we have bigger fish to fry.

Like how we’re going to rope Duke Harrison into an exclusive interview withThe Cambrige Tribune. I’ve been thinking about this nonstop for the last two days and my current plan is full of Swiss cheese grated holes. In theory, it’s goddamn brilliant: Duke Harrison agrees to give a one-of-a-kind interview toThe Cambridge Tribuneand, in turn, Casey and I are taken seriously within our sphere of peers.

Maybe we get offers fromThe GlobeorThe Herald(ugh, I’m so not a fan ofThe Boston Herald). Maybe we don’t. Maybe Duke Harrison laughs in my face and has his security team wheel me out on a stretcher as a mentally unstable patient.

Is moving up my career worth the price of possibly going to jail?

No.

Maybe.

Probably, yes.

I fill Casey in on my plan, choosing my words carefully. When I finish, she leans back in her equally lumpy chair and steeples her fingers, elbows planted on the chair’s armrests. Nervously, my knee bounces up and down, and I press my hand flat against my thigh to keep it still.

“What do you think?”

She watches me from behind thick-wired frames. It’s the same expression my mom used to give me just before she embarked on an hour-long lecture. Instinctively, I gird myself for the worst.

“I think . . . ”

My eyes slam shut.

“I think it’s brilliant! How do we get this done?”

A sigh of relief escapes me. Okay. Okay, this is good. I take a deep breath to steady my nerves.Think of the job, Charlie. Yes, the job. My gaze sweeps over our shared office. It’s a sad-looking time transport to 1976. The only thing missing is a shaggy rug the color of stale Cheetos.

The time has come to take big steps.

I’ve thought about this all morning. Gwen knows him. In theory, I could reach out to her and ask for Duke’s contact information, but something tells me that she’d bury me six feet under before she ever helped a girl out. “I need his email address,” I announce.

Casey rolls her eyes. “Oh, youonlyneed his email address.” She sticks a pen in her mouth and bites down on the cap. “There is no way we’re going to be able to find his email. Maybe an email for his PR agent, sure, but his personal one?” She shakes her head. “You’re out of your mind.”

I knew she’d say that. I down the rest of my coffee, then forlornly glance down into my trash bin at the empty Dunkin’ Donuts Styrofoam cup from this morning. The crappy work stuff will just have to do for now.

“The PR email is blocked,” I tell Casey. “You know, one of those websites where they want a subscription in exchange for your soul? Nothing on the guy’s official website either, which is a bit surprising.”

She blinks. “He has an official website?”

“Yes.”

“Show me.”

My eyes narrow. “There’s nothing exciting on there. Stats, a few pictures—that sort of thing. I did fill out the contact form, but we all know how those work out. I’ll never hear back from—”

“Is he shirtless in any of the photos?”

“What?” Now it’s my turn to blink. “It’s not PornHub, Casey.”

A blush stains her cheeks, and she busies herself with sorting a stack of papers on her desk. “I didn’t ask if he wasnaked, just if he didn’t have a shirt on.”

I stare at her. “You’re sick, you know that?”

“No, I’m a woman with hormones and Duke Harrison is one fine male specimen.”

Rolling my eyes, I turn back to my desk. I need to figure this out. From what I’ve gathered, Duke “The Mountain” is a private enough guy. I type his name into Google because, what the hell,no onecan escape Google’s web crawler, and I specifically remember bypassing a Twitter page during my research on him last week.

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