Page 54 of Rounding Third

Marching straight to Bill’s office, I knock on the open door and wait for him to raise his gaze to meet mine. His thin hair is brushed to the side, trying desperately to hide his bald spot. There are several stains on his white dress shirt and I'm sure not all of them are from today. He looks sloppy and unkempt, nothing like a successful businessman. He’s the polar opposite of Owen Powell and I wonder if that’s his issue with Owen.

“Is the article finished?” He raises a brow.

“Yes, my article is done. I wrote up everything I observed while I spent time with the team.”

He motions for me to come in and holds his hand out for the paper. As soon as he has it, he’s ignoring me as he skims what I wrote.

I watch the lines in his forehead get deeper as he frowns down at the words. His features pinch more and more as he gets further down. When he’s done, he tosses the sheets on his desk and sits back, glaring at me.

“What part of your assignment did you not understand?”

“I understood what you wanted, but I'm not giving you that. Owen Powell isn't a bad man and I'm not writing lies to make people believe that. I want no part in ruining a man’s career who doesn’t deserve it.” I fold my shaking arms across my chest and glare at him.

I don’t like confrontation, but I'm not backing down on this. I want to be a reporter I'm proud of. Everything I write should be honest and shed light on the good or bad in the world. I'm not here to sway someone’s opinion, I'm here to present the facts.

“I'm not running this,” He hisses as he drops the papers into the trashcan next to his desk.

“Ok.” I shrug my shoulders. I knew he wouldn’t, but I'm proud of what I wrote and I don’t care if he doesn’t like it.

“You wasted a month of company time! How dare you bring me this trash and not even care about it!” His face turns a brightshade of red as he gets angrier and angrier. “Don’t you care about your job at all?”

“I do, which is why I'm doing my job and presenting the facts. You were asking me to make up stories. I don’t write fiction, Bill. That’s not what being a reporter is.”

“You’re fired,” he growls. “Owen Powell is a horrible man and if you’re not willing to write the truth about him, you’re not worthy of working here.”

I lean down, placing my hands on his desk and look him right in the eyes. I want him to really hear what I'm about to tell him.

“Owen Powell is an amazing man, but you’re too overwhelmed with jealousy to notice that. I did present the truth in my article, but if you want fiction published in your news articles, I don’t want to work here anyway. I quit.” I tug my phone out of my pocket and press send on the email I already had drafted to human resources. “HR just got my resignation letter. I knew how this meeting was going to end, but I hoped it wouldn’t.”

I spin on my heels and head towards my office. I need to clean it out before looking for a new job.

“Liliana!” Bill yells. I glance over my shoulder at him, meeting his furious glare. “I’m going to make sure you never work in this business again.”

“You can try, but the truth always comes out, Bill. I wonder how many stories you’ve written that were lies. Maybe I should take the extra time I have now from being unemployed to research every article you’ve approved and see how many are fake.” I smirk when his face gets even redder. “You fucked up when you tried to use me to play out your personal vendetta.”

I exit his office with my head held high and a smile on my face. I know what I did was right and I'm not ashamed.

Chapter 27

Smithy

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Wheeler grumbles under his breath as he scrolls through his phone while we’re eating lunch.

“What?” Covey asks as he shoves another bite of food in his mouth.

“Is Liliana pissed at you or something?” Wheeler arches a brow at me, making me slow my chewing.

When she left this morning, she seemed nervous, but I think that had more to do with her meeting with Bill and less to do with us. We were fine… right?

“No… why?” I ask slowly, almost afraid of what his answer could be.

“Look at this shit she just put out.” He hands his phone over to me and I quickly skim the article.

My eyes race over the letters, trying to figure out how she could write this. There’s no way. My girl wouldn’t say this shit.

Owen Powell is a money hungry tyrant who doesn’t care about his team at all… Harrison doesn’t belong in a coaching position and he’s only going to make the Pit Bulls crumbleeven more… Everson shouldn’t be playing. His injury is too severe and he doesn’t deserve to be on the field… Cord Powell only maintains his position because daddy dearest wants him there… Smithy might be the only good thing about the team.

I reread the words again and again, but it doesn’t make sense to me. There’s no way.

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