AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Probably something different than what you hold against him,” he says, and his tone is suggestive.
It takes everything in me not to slap him.
“I don’t care for what you’re implying,” I warn, but he dismisses my complaint.
“Listen, Bailey. You’re a reporter. If you’re getting the impression people aren’t receptive to the new coach, do your due diligence. Don’t hit up your competition for information.”
I blow out a breath. If it was Rivera asking, I bet he’d hand the details right over.
Still, the fact that maybe not everybody in Vegas is on board with this new hire is on the table for the first time.
I make a mental note to do a little more digging into Coach Nash. Maybe James is right—maybe it’s simply due diligence and I’ve avoided it for personal reasons.
But I won’t let my vagina get in the way of this job.
Instead, I head into the office and I start researching.
I don’t get Saturdays off anymore, but I do get the flexibility to fit in my work when I can, so I read articles and make notes and dig, dig, dig. By the time I set myself up for a big day of work tomorrow and I see it’s nearly seven already, I’m ready for a stiff drink with my best friend.
I told her I didn’t want to go to my dad’s bar, but I’m so close now, and besides, Lincoln is out of town. It’s not like we’ll run into him at the Gridiron. I text her the change of plans.
Me: Change of plans. Can you meet me at the Gridiron? I’m on my way now.
Sam: Be there in ten min.
She loves the Gridiron—mostly because she loves fantasizing that she’ll meet a hot football player in here and he’ll sweep her off her feet and she’ll have the sort of life she always dreamed she’d have.
“How was work?” I ask.
She’s a nurse practitioner working in an emergency room, and she pretty much makes her own schedule, so usually she does three ten-hour days a week.
“Fine.” She shrugs. She doesn’t usually like talking about the things she has seen in the ER unless they’re entertaining stories, which do happen upon occasion—particularly here in Vegas where people truly live by that old cliché about what happens here stays here.
It’s not true. Medical bills follow you back home, even when it’s because you stuck a potato in your ass during a bachelor party dare gone wrong.
I reach over and squeeze her hand.
“Yours?” she asks.
“Fine.”
“We’re a pair, aren’t we?” she asks.
I chuckle, and Debbie comes over. “The usual, ladies?”
I shake my head. “I need something strong, Deb. What do you have for me?”
She twists her lips as she thinks it over. “Long Island?”
I wince a little as I think about the last time I had a Long Island. It wasn’t pretty.
“Margarita?”
I wrinkle my nose. “No tequila tonight. I don’t need a headache all day tomorrow.”
“Hm.” She taps her chin. “What about vodka cranberry?”
I nod. “Bingo. Light cranberry, though. Heavy vodka. And a lime.”
