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“Ms. Bailey?” he asks before I open the door. “Thank you for sharing your concerns with me. Between you and me, I hope you get the position over both Rivera and Sanders.”
“If you’d be willing to share that with Marcus Dean, I’d appreciate it.”
“I’ll put in a good word,” he promises. “We don’t have enough women with the balls to do what you do, and I love to see it.”
The irony that he used a male body part isn’t lost on me. “Thanks, Jack.”
He nods, and I head straight to my own office, just a three-mile drive from the Complex. A little traffic slows me down, and I use the time to dictate the breaking news story from the press conference for Marcus.
I fix it up on my tablet then email it off to him, and I stop by his office as soon as I return.
“I saw your copy already,” he says when I knock on the door frame.
“I snagged a meeting with Jack after the conference,” I say. “He wouldn’t confirm anything but it sounded to me like Nash is the leading candidate right now.”
“Really? Wow. Meetings with him are hard to come by. How’d you manage that?” he asks, clearly impressed.
“He trusts me from covering the grand opening of one of his real estate developments. I guess the entire subdivision sold out immediately after the story broke, and he’s been in my debt ever since.” I shrug, and that’s the difference between guys like Rivera and Sanders versus me. I’m willing to get to know the people behind the athletes. Most sports reporters leave out that important element. They’re players, yes, but they are people with interests and lives outside of that, and part of my niche is learning more about who they are off the field while analyzing what they’re doing on it.
“Good work, Bailey. If I was keeping score, I’d say today ticks another point in your column.”
I nod and keep my face stoic even though I’m brimming with excitement over the compliment. Because that’s the thing…he is keeping score. Another point for me means I’m all that much closer to scoring my dream job.
I wrap things up then head over to Sam’s. I knock on the door and Sam appears a minute later to answer and let me in. I hear the boys in Cade’s bedroom yelling about zombies, so I assume they’re playing Minecraft again…as usual. Those boys are straight obsessed with that game.
“What are you making?” I ask as I follow her into the kitchen.
“Spaghetti. You two want to stay?”
I nod. “If you don’t mind. I can get you back tomorrow night.”
“Nonsense,” she says, patting her short, dark pixie cut. “Tomorrow night is pizza night.”
I laugh. “Then I’ll treat for pizza since it’s my day to pick up the boys.”
“I will take you up on that.”
“I’m just going to go say hi to Jonah,” I say. “Be right back.” I head down the hallway to Cade’s room and find the boys in there laughing. I stand in the doorway for a beat and watch them.
It’s clear which boy is mine. Jonah has my light hair, hazel eyes, and golden skin while Cade is all his mom with nearly jet-black hair, blue eyes, and pale skin, though he has his dad’s mass of curly hair instead of his mom’s straight hair.
I chose the name Jonah for two reasons. For one, I liked that it continued the tradition of Jo names in my family: my parents are Joseph and Joanna, and they named me Jolene. But for another, the name means dove and as I was going through my pregnancy largely alone, I loved the symbolism of peace and tranquility.
They’re as close as two seven-year-olds can be, and I will forever be grateful that I found Sam in a random working mom’s play group back when I was a single new mom and had no idea what I was doing.
She’s become a sister to me over the last seven years, and our boys are like brothers. Or cousins, I guess, if we’re sisters.
I walk in and plant a kiss on the top of my son’s head. He says a quick hi back without taking his eyes off the game.
I give him another kiss, and he playfully bats me away, but I will never, ever stop kissing my boy.
I head back to the kitchen.
“So how was your day?” Sam asks carefully.
“It was…” I trail off, and then I grunt. “Ugh.”
“That good?”
