“I’m wondering if taking this job was a mistake,” she confessed.
Since she’d graduated, she’d been plugging away, ghostwriting sports pieces for a bunch of online sports blogs. Hockey, basketball, baseball, football, golf...you name it, she wrote it. Not that anyone knew, since all her painstaking work was credited to “staff writer.” But it was the only way she could continue to write for enough outlets to make a living. She spent what little free time she had busting her butt trying to get one of her sports op-eds picked up.
That was the kind of writing she really loved—not spewing facts and stats and scores, but interpreting them, putting them in context, figuring out what was making a team successful, suggesting what they could do to become more so, having a go at dumb managerial decisions and underperforming athletes.
That sort of in-depth analysis was the key to getting where she really belonged—on television, just like her mom used to be. She wanted to read her pieces aloud, share them with people who loved sports as much as she did. Anyone could read a teleprompter; Holly wanted to make an impact.
“I mean, Jay and I made the Women’s Hockey Network video as a joke. And now it’s gotten me closer to my goal of being on camera than any article I’ve ever written.” Holly looked down, picking at the red lacquer Paige had insisted on slicking over her stubby nails. “But instead of feeling great about that, I feel like I’ve sold out. I’m a joke. I mean, can you even imagine what my mom would think of all this?”
“Woah. Back up the pity bus. I will not let you go down the mom road. She loved you and she would want what’s best for you. But Hols, even if your mom was still alive, what’s best for you would be your choice, not hers.”
Holly flopped onto the couch. “I know. But I still worry about letting her down. When I accepted this gig, I thought it was going to be a case of ‘all publicity is good publicity.’ Now I’m not so sure.”
She ran her hands down her face. “Luke Maguire believes I’m a total idiot! How can I ever do an in-depth interview with him now? And I don’t even get to travel with the team! That’s how dumb the questions I ask are supposed to be. I’m not worth a seat on a chartered plane that’s already been paid for.”
Paige glanced up from a picture featuring a shirtless LA Laker. “Lighten up, would you? It’s been one day. This job is a stepping-stone—one with over a hundred thousand hits on YouTube so far. You never know where this opportunity could take you. Besides, what do you think the rest of your former sports broadcasting classmates are doing right now? Interviewing team mascots and reporting on who scored the most baskets in soccer games played by twelve-year-olds? I’ll bet you’re closer to a real gig than any of them.” Paige shut the magazine and tossed it onto the coffee table. “You’re working with a real hockey team, interviewing some of the best players in the game. And yeah, it’s not perfect, but it could be a hell of a lot worse. So to quote a good friend of mine—” Paige arched one perfectly winged eyebrow “—suck it up, Princess. Go out there and do the job.”
Holly sighed. “I hate it when you’re right.”
“Then you must hate me all the time,” her friend lamented with a grin. It faded after a moment. “Was that enough of a pep talk? Because I’ll bail on my date and we can go out for a drink if you want to talk this out some more.”
“Oh, right! You have a date.” Holly shook her head. “I keep forgetting since you’ve been so secretive about this mystery man of yours.”
“It’s new. We’re still feeling each other out. Once we start feeling each other up, then I’ll have some details to share.” Paige was the only person in the world Holly knew who could pull off a wink with such aplomb.
“Of that I have no doubt. Now go and have fun. Besides, I’m already in the middle of a sports-related crisis. There’s no way I can muster the fortitude and patience it would take to teach you that you don’t score baskets in soccer right now.”
Paige laughed at the jab.
Holly squared her shoulders. “Like you said, I made this choice. I’m going to honor this contract. Maybe I can even convince them to let me do some real reporting. Wow ’em so they give me a chance to document the Storm’s first time in the play-offs with the gravitas and seriousness that it deserves.”
“That’s the spirit! You show those men who’s boss.” The phone rang just as Paige stood to leave. “See? That’s probably some titan of the hockey world, impressed with your journalistic integrity and calling to poach you for his own team.”
“Who else could it be?” Holly agreed drolly. “Say hi to your date for me.”
“No way. Get your own man, which I hope you do soon. You’re in desperate need of some hunky distraction in your life,” Paige advised, heading for the door. “At the very least, this job will be great for that.”
Holly rolled her eyes in a silent goodbye as she grabbed the handset of her phone, recognizing Jay’s number on call display. Paige didn’t like him very much, but Holly and Jay had hit it off immediately in broadcasting school.
When the Storm offered to let her pick her own cameraman, she’d eagerly snatched Jay away from filming weddings and local stories. It was a relief not to have to fake sports stupidity with at least one person.
“Hey. The footage looks great.” Embarrassing as it might be for her personally, she had to admit that Jay had edited her interviews with Luke and the rest of the team into a professional-looking comedic montage that could now be viewed by the world at portlandstorm.com.
“I’m glad you think so, because the boss man agrees.”
“What?”
“That’s why I’m calling. Check your texts.”
“Or you could just tell me since we’re, you know, on the phone,” she pointed out.
“Okay, smart-ass. It seems your big-haired alter ego can do no wrong. Hits on the Storm’s website have increased twenty percent since your interview was posted last night. Usually after a loss, website traffic goes down. They’ve decided to give us an extra assignment.”
“Oh, God.” Holly cringed. She couldn’t help it. A twenty percent uptick? That did not bode well for Operation: Journalistic Integrity. She’d be stuck asking about favorite childhood breakfast cereals for the rest of her career while important stories, like Luke Maguire’s scoring drought that had now entered its twelfth game, went unmentioned.
On the upside, at least the team captain was so annoyed with her about the play-off beard thing that she could focus her insipid questions on the rest of the players. “What do they want us to film?”
“Some fluffy pregame interviews with the guys, tomorrow after their morning skate. The brass plans to air them as teasers between periods to help drive up website traffic. We’re starting with the big three, then we’ll try to fit in as much of the rest of the team as we can manage.”
The big three: goaltender Jean-Claude LaCroix, centerman Eric Jacobs, and, because sometimes life sucked with a vengeance, captain and left-winger Luke Maguire. Holly couldn’t bring herself to speak through the impending sense of doom.
* * *
THWACK.
Luke’s slap shot missed the net completely.
God—thwack—damn—thwack—mother—thwack—fuc—
“Mags!”
Luke looked up