Chapter 12
Brooke
* * *
It had been a long time since any man had gotten me interested—interested enough that I’d spent the weekend thinking about him. I saw him going in and out of his house, and Aria too. I even almost got tempted to go over a few times, but I decided not to.
Ryan 101…it was tempting—oh so tempting—but I knew better than to go down that rabbit hole.
I didn’t know how that man had managed to get me from thinking of him as Officer Asshole to loosely agreeing to be in Ryan 101. Maybe it was because I was captivated by the way he cared for Aria.
No…that wasn’t it at all. It was him. Something about him interested me in a way I hadn’t felt in a while, not since Craig.
It was a sad thought on my part but it was true, and I didn’t know why I was thinking about that now or relationships when I had so much on my plate.
Business—I was in Wilmington for business, not learning Ryan 101, much as I wanted to allow myself to be tempted by a gorgeous detective, and business was the first order of the day on Monday morning.
When I walked into the conservatory, Sally was perched in her chair, waiting for me. She was dressed in full black with her hair piled on top of her head in a loose ponytail. Her skin looked pale, and I couldn’t help but notice the dark circles under her eyes. She looked like she’d been crying.
If I hadn’t known of her intense dislike for me, I would have asked her if she was okay.
“Clock’s ticking, so make this quick—I have a hair appointment in an hour,” she cautioned, eyeing me with a sharp gaze.
“Thank you for allowing me to come back.” I thought I would be gracious.
“Yes yes, skip past the pleasantries. Here’s your chance to fix the bad impression I have of you.”
God help me.I said a silent prayer as it looked like I would need the good Lord today.
I sat opposite her and opened my folder. Over the weekend, I’d actually managed to do some more prep work, but what had also helped was Bob sending over the questions he’d used for his interview with her. I couldn’t ask the very same questions, but I thought I could adapt them.
“I wanted to get an idea of your schedule so I could plan with you better. Can you let me know what days work best for you?”
She narrowed her eyes at me. “You know I don’t work, right? It is you who should tell me the schedule and I will fall in line. I’ve got this time with you booked out for the next eight months.”
She might have said that the other day. “Okay, I would like for us to meet on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays from eight to twelve.”
“Only four hours? What could possibly be achieved with four hours?” She frowned.
“I thought we could start with that then increase the time prior to the the marathon.”
“No. We work full days. If you are writing about me for this exclusive, you need to spend enough time with me. I shouldn’t have to tell you this. You would know if you had more experience.”
Fuck.
I was so sick of her saying that. I had enough damn experience for this job. There was actually nothing to it if only she wouldn’t be so abrasive towards me.
“Okay, we work full days.” I glanced down at my folder, deciding it was best to move past this hurdle. At least we’d agreed on me being there. “I’m going to write a preliminary article for the website. I have my own monthly spot, and I thought it would be cool to update it with things you’re doing now, almost like a teaser. We can have seven features that would then lead to the full-on exclusive. We could maybe do different things each month.”
I thought it was an amazing idea. I was going to call the featuresRunning with Sally.Some of the ideas I’d come up with so far were a charity event at the children’s home, hanging out at her favorite local attractions, and maybe burying a time capsule. She’d done something similar at the end of the summer Olympics three seasons ago.
“I hate that idea,” she snapped, crushing me.
“Oh…okay. We don’t have to do it then.”Shit, that was actually my main plan.So much for that.
“What is the point of that? People will get the full exclusive in the end. If they see me every month they’ll probably get bored by the end.”
“I really doubt that. People love reading about you, and I didn’t want to do anything long, just something of around five hundred or so words.”
