“Please!” I exclaimed as I shot to my feet.
He pointed toward his office door. “Get your shit and get out of my face. You’ll never work as a reporter in this town or in California as far as I’m concerned. Now get. The fuck. Out.”
I fought back tears as I stormed out of the man’s office. I walked toward my desk and ripped things out of drawers, stuffing as much as I could into my purse. I hated this place. It reminded me of why I had never wanted to fucking come home in the first place. And as I stormed out of the front doors one last time, I went to the only place that I knew would be safe.
I went to my sister’s apartment.
“Nadia? Are you there?” I asked.
I pounded my fist on the door and tried my best to keep the tears at bay.
“Nadia, please! It’s important!”
She whipped her door open. “What in the world? Are you—crying?”
And at her words, I fell into her arms.
“Oh, no. Come on,” she said as she helped me into her apartment. “Come on. I gotcha. There we go. Let’s get you on the couch. I just made some smoothies, would you like one?”
I cried into her shoulder. “It’s not fair. None of it is fair. All I wanted was to do my fucking job, Nadia. The damn job they hired me to do!”
“There we go,” she whispered as she eased me onto the couch. “Let’s get those smoothies going first. Hold on. Just stay there.”
Our conversation passed in a blur. I told her about how I had gotten fired and what led up to it. How all I wanted was to pursue the only story worth talking about in this God-forsaken town. All I wanted was to prove myself. To show them that I was worth the money they were paying me for my job. I told her how I honest to God thought there was a story with these bikers. With that club. A story that was worth telling. A story the public needed to know about.
I even told her about the kiss I had shared with Bender and how it took my knees from beneath me. How I, quite literally, melted into him the seconds our lips connected. And God bless my fucking sister, she just sat there, nodding her head and sipping that pink smoothie while mine melted in a mason jar between my legs.
And after I had blabbed all of it to her, she placed her hand on my knee. “Jobs come and go, Aria. You’re going to find yourself another one. I mean, this Randy guy seems like a bit of a hard-ass, but it’s not like he runs Fox News. He works as an Assignment Desk Editor at KTTB, which—at most—reaches to all ends of the town. No one’s ever heard of their news station outside of town, so I hardly think he can blacklist you.”
I wiped at my eyes. “I don’t know, he seemed pretty certain that he could.”
She squeezed my knee. “But at any rate, you can find a new job. Working isn’t the entire meaning of life.”
I scoffed. “Says the social worker that buries herself in work on the weekends.”
“Because I genuinely enjoy helping these women and children that need help. You’re acting like I’ve never been fired before. I’ve been fired three times from three different jobs I’ve held in the past, and all of it pushed me toward a career I love in a place where I’m respected. And that’s the big thing, Aria. That man didn’t respect you, and he probably never would have.”
I plucked the half-melted smoothie from between my legs. “You’re probably right.”
“But as far as this Bender guy goes?” she asked as she leaned against the cushions of the couch. “Sounds like a hell of a kiss.”
I mindlessly sipped the drink. “It really was.”
She smiled. “Sounds like you’re really attracted to him.”
I shrugged. “Doesn’t really matter if he’s part of some dangerous gang that kills people for a living.”
“Is that what you think they do around here? Kill people and cover it up?”
“That’s what Mr. Romano made it sound like they do.”
“Have you done your own research?”
I nodded softly. “Yeah.”
“And what did you find?”
I scoffed. “Nothing but community service and money donated to underprivileged areas all throughout Twin Bays and Los Angeles.”
