Page 15 of What If I Hate You
I turn my attention to the stack of notes and stat sheets I left on my desk last night, shoving the encounter behind me like a bad date I don’t want to relive unless absolutely necessary. The rest of the morning grinds by with desk work. Call sheets and a brief phone interview with a local high school coach who manages to slip in a creepy “If you ever want to talk off the record—” before I shut it down with a withering, “We’ll stick to the facts, Coach Freedman.” I have two voicemails from my actual boss, Simon, who is mostly as supportive as a man in suspenders with a cheap looking mustache can be. I give him a courtesy call back, listening to him hype me up for my “blistering, boundary-pushing” on-air performance and then immediately ask if I can “tone it down” for tonight’s segment, just a bit “so as not to alienate the older male demo.”
Give me a fucking break.
“Simon,” I say, rolling my eyes to the ceiling, “did you know your older male demos most searched term is ‘hockey fight’? I’m just giving the people what they want.”
There’s a pause while I imagine him blinking at his computer, deciding if this is an argument he’s brave enough to finish. “Just don’t go for blood, Blakely. But I like the edge. That’s…that’s your brand. You’re edgy.”
“My brand,” I echo, letting the phrase linger like the aftertaste of cheap wine. “Good talk, Simon.”
I boot up my laptop, reminding myself now is not the time to lose my shit over a stupid man. There’s nothing on the schedule for another forty-five minutes, but most everyone in the room is working on their pre-game slop, a slurry of speculation and micro-dosed gossip. I’m two sentences into my spot piece whenthe door swings open and a wall of man enters, dragging the temperature down by a full five degrees.
Cunningham walks in wearing a suit that you would think looks like it cost more than my entire wardrobe but oddly enough, it’s just the opposite. His jacket pulls tight over his overly broad shoulders, the seams appearing to hold on for dear life. The wrinkles in his faded navy suit pants tells me he definitely lives alone, because there’s not a woman alive who would allow him to go out in public dressed like that. He clearly doesn’t know what an iron is.
Or a steamer.
Or, you know, maybe even a dry cleaner.
Still, though his suit leaves much to be desired, Marlee is right. Barrett Cunningham could wear the oldest rags known to man and still come across with enough sex appeal to give me many nights of self-inflicted happy endings.
Ugh. Why are the attractive ones always either gay, and therefore unavailable, or downright pompous dicks?
Barrett doesn’t hesitate. He doesn’t scan the room or ease his way in. He just beelines for the cluster of media tables, sees me, and steers directly for my spot like he’s hunting a puck he means to smother.
And the room goes quiet. Even the click of keyboards stops.
The rest of the guys in the room sense the shift, the way a cocktail party chills when someone brings up politics or dead pets. I feel every gaze flick between us, waiting for the hit.
“Blakely,” he says, like he’s got a hair in his mouth. His voice is pure sandpaper. “Got a minute?”
I catch the smirk on Troy’s face and the way Greg’s eyebrows slide up to his hairline. They want a show. I won’t give them the satisfaction—at least, not on their terms.
I gesture to the empty chair next to me and then to his suit. “Sure. Have a seat. Looks like you survived your night in the wild.”
He doesn’t sit. Instead, he leans over me, one palm planted on my desk, the other gripping the back of my chair. He eclipses the overhead light and throws my screen into shadow, which is a pretty on-the-nose metaphor for every day I’ve spent trying to make it in this town.
“Saw your interview,” he says, jerking his chin at the stack of stat sheets under my hand. “You write and speak like you’re sharpening knives, Rivers. Got something you want to say to my face?”
It’s not a question. It’s a challenge. The kind you hear in the locker room right before someone throws the first punch.
He can’t seriously think I’m going to fall for that.
Regardless, my heartrate is rising with every passing second. I fold my hands, keeping my palms flat to the desk to hide the fact that I’m shaking, just a little. Not because I’m scared, but because adrenaline is a hell of a drug and Cunningham is a hell of a trigger.
“I thought you didn’t watch your own press.”
“I don’t.” He leans even closer, and I smell sweat and aftershave and the ghost of something expensive. Ironic given his appearance. “But the boys do. Pretty sure I’m never living down Swiss Cheese Cunningham. Or brick shithouse thanks to you.” He’s not smiling, but his eyes are alive, bright with a venom I recognize from a thousand highlight reels.
I don’t blink. “Maybe if you plugged that leaky five-hole, I’d have to come up with something new.”
There’s a sound behind us—someone stifling a laugh. Troy, probably, or one of the radio guys who’d sell his own children for a TMZ scoop. Barrett’s jaw flexes so hard it looks like it might split his face open, but he doesn’t say anything for two beats.Instead, he sweeps a hand over my desk, sending my stack of stat sheets sliding to the floor.
A deliberate mess. The kind toddlers make to prove they exist.
“That’s cute, Cunningham. I’d tell you it’s okay to lie down and take your nap now but we don’t seem to be done with circle time just yet. You’ll have to keep your patience pants on just a while longer.”
The room goes so silent and I swear even the janitor somewhere down the hall slows his mop. Barrett leans all his weight onto the desk, looming so close I can see the white flecks at the corners of his mouth. He pitches his voice at a volume that guarantees every tongue in the room is on pause, every eye on the two of us.
“Here’s the thing, Rivers.” He drags my last name out long and slow, like he’s enjoying the taste. “You want to make your living running your mouth about guys like me? Fine. Just don’t pretend it’s anything but clickbait. You don’t care about the game. The only thing that really matters to you is making sure everyone watching remembers what color lipstick you have on.”
