Any questions?”
Yes. Is it just my imagination, or is Jake Stevens an arrogant smart-ass?
“No, it all looks good,” she said.
It was a relief to be left to her own devices for a few minutes. All those new faces and names, the new environment, the—
Who was she kidding? She was relieved to have a chance to pull herself together because Jake Stevens had rattled her with his mocking eyes and his sarcasm. He’d been one of the reasons she took the job in the first place—the chance to work with him, to learn from the best. Out of all her coworkers, he’d been the least friendly. In fact, he’d been a jerk.
Disappointing.
But not the end of the world. So what if he wasn’t the intelligent, funny, insightful man she imagined when she read his book and his articles? She’d probably hardly ever see him. And it wasn’t as though she could take his behavior personally. He barely knew her, after all. He was probably a jerk with everyone.
Except he wasn’t.
Two hours and one department meeting later, Poppy was forced to face the fact that the charming, witty man she’d imagined Jake to be did exist—for everyone except her.
The first half of the meeting had been a work-in-progress update. Everyone had multiple stories to file after the weekend so there was a lot of discussion and banter amongst her new colleagues. She didn’t say anything since she had nothing to contribute, just took notes and listened. Jake was a different person as he mixed it up with the other writers. He laughed, he teased, he good-naturedly accepted ribbing when it came his way. He offered great ideas for other people’s stories, made astute comments about what their competitors would be covering. He was like the coolest kid in school—everyone wanted him to notice them, and everyone wanted to sit next to him at the back of the bus.
The second half of the meeting consisted of brainstorming future stories and features. With the Pan-Pacific Swimming Championship trials coming up, there was a lot of discussion around who would qualify. Naturally, everyone turned to her for her opinion—everyone except Jake, that is.
He didn’t so much as glance at her as she discussed the form of the current crop of Australian swimmers, many of whom had been her teammates and competitors until recently.
“Hey, this is like having our own secret weapon,” Macca said. “I love that stuff about what happens in the change rooms before a race.”
“Yeah. We should definitely do something on that when the finals are closer. Sort of a diary-of-a-swimmer kind of thing,” Leonard said. “Really get inside their heads.”
“There’s plenty of stuff we could cover. Superstitions, lucky charms, that kind of thing,” she said.
“Yeah, yeah, great,” Leonard said.
Her confidence grew. Maybe this wasn’t going to be as daunting as she’d first thought. Sure, she was a fish out of water—literally—but everyone seemed nice and she understood sport and the sporting world and the commitment top athletes had to have to get anywhere. She had something to contribute.
Then she glanced at Jake and saw he was sitting back in his chair, doodling on his pad, clearly bored out of his mind. A small smile curved his mouth, as though he was enjoying a private joke.
It was the same whenever she spoke during the meeting—the same smile, the same doodling as though nothing she had to say could possibly be of any interest.
By the time she returned to her desk, she knew she hadn’t imagined his attitude during their introduction. Jake Stevens did not like her. For the life of her, she couldn’t understand why. They’d never met before. How could he possibly not like her when he didn’t even know her?
She’d barely settled in her chair when her cell phone beeped. She checked it and saw Uncle Charlie had sent her a message:
Good luck. Come out strong and you’ll win the race.
She smiled, touched that he’d remembered this was her first day. Of course, Uncle Charlie always remembered the important things.
She composed a return message. She’d bought him a cell phone a year ago so they could stay in touch when she was competing internationally, but he’d never been one hundred percent comfortable with the technology. She could imagine how long it had taken him to key in his short message.
The sound of masculine laughter made her lift her head. Jake was talking with Jonesy at the other man’s desk, a cup of coffee in hand. She watched as Jake dropped his head back and laughed loudly.
She returned her attention to the phone, but she could still see him out of the corner of her eye. He said something to Jonesy, slapped the other man on the shoulder, then headed to his own desk. Which meant he was about to walk past hers.
She kept her focus on her phone but was acutely conscious of his approach. When he stopped beside her, her belly tightened. Slowly she lifted her head.
He studied her desk, taking in the heavy reference books she’d brought in with her: a thesaurus, a book on grammar and the Macquarie Dictionary in two neat, chunky volumes. After a short silence, he met her eyes.
“You do know that A to K comes before L to Z, right?” he asked. He indicated the dictionaries and she saw she’d inadvertently set them next to each other in the wrong order. He leaned across and rearranged them, as though she might not be able to work it out for herself without his help.
“My hot tip for the day,” he said, then he moved off, arrogance in every line of his body.
She was blushing ferociously. Her third Jake Stevens–inspired blush for the day. She stared at his back until he reached his desk, unable to believe he’d taken a swipe at her so openly. What an asshole.
He thought she was a stupid jock. That was why he’d been so dismissive when he met her and why he hadn’t listened to a word she’d said in the meeting. He thought she was a dumb hunk of muscle with an instinct for swimming and nothing to offer on dry land. Certainly nothing to offer in a newsroom.
She knew his opinion shouldn’t matter. It probably wouldn’t, either, if it didn’t speak to her deepest fears about this new direction she’d chosen.
She’d finished high school, but only just. She read a lot, but she wasn’t exactly known for her e-mails and letters. For the bulk of her life, she’d measured her success in body lengths and split seconds, not in column inches and words. Even her parents had been astonished when she accepted this job. She could still remember the bemused looks her mother and father had exchanged when she’d told them. Her brother had laughed outright, thinking she was joking.
She picked up her phone again and stared at her uncle’s text:
Come out strong and you’ll win the race.
God, how she wished it was as easy as that.
She was filled with a sudden longing for the smell of chlorine and the humid warmth of the pool. She knew who she was there, what she was. On dry land, she was still very much a work in progress.
Who cares what he thinks? He doesn’t know you, he knows nothing about you. Screw him.
