even if he was stupid enough to ask for one. The three weeks she’d been at the Herald hadn’t changed a thing between them.
“I’m cool,” Davo said.
“White for me,” Hilary said.
Jake glanced over his shoulder as Poppy moved to the back of the press box. The room was buzzing with conversation and suppressed excitement. In ten minutes, the Brisbane Lions and the Hawthorn Hawks would duke it out for the Australian Football League Premiership.
Jake still couldn’t believe that Leonard had assigned the newest, greenest writer on the staff to cover the AFL Grand Final. It was the biggest event in the Australian sporting calendar, bar none. Even The Melbourne Cup didn’t come close. The Herald would dedicate over six pages to the game tomorrow—and Poppy hadn’t even clocked a month with the paper and had only a handful of columns under her belt.
Granted, her articles had been a pleasant surprise. Warm, funny, smart. She needed to loosen up a little, relax into the role. Stop trying so hard. But in general the stories hadn’t been the disaster he’d been anticipating. Which still didn’t make her qualified to be here.
They’d flown into Brisbane two days ago to cover the teams’ last training sessions and interview players before the big event, and he’d been keeping an eye on her. What he’d seen confirmed she was a rookie in every sense of the word. She interviewed players from a list of questions she’d prepared earlier, reading them off the page. She studiously wrote down every word they said. She was earnest, eager, diligent—and way out of her depth. Yesterday, Coach Dickens had brushed her off when she tried to ask him about an injured player. She’d been unable to hide her surprise and hurt at the man’s rude rebuff.
Better toughen up, baby, Jake thought as he watched her wait patiently in the catering line for her chance at the coffee urn. Most journalists would eat their own young for a good story. As for common courtesies such as waiting in line.
As if to demonstrate his point, Michael Hague from the Age sauntered up to the line and slipped in ahead of her, chatting to a colleague already there as though the guy had been saving him a place. Poppy frowned but didn’t say anything.
Jake shook his head. She was too nice. Too squeaky clean from all that swimming and wholesome food and exercise. Even if she developed the goods writingwise, she simply didn’t have the killer instinct a journalist required to get the job done.
He was turning to his computer when she stepped out of line. Hague had just finished filling a cup with coffee and Poppy reached out and calmly took it from his hand. She flashed him a big smile and said something. Jake couldn’t hear what it was, but he guessed she was thanking him for helping her out. Then she calmly filled a second cup for Hilary.
Jake laughed. He couldn’t help it. The look on Hague’s face was priceless. Poppy made her way to their corner, her hard-won coffees in hand. Her gaze found his across the crowded box and he grinned at her and she smiled. Then the light in her eyes died and her mouth thinned into a straight, tight line.
Right. For a second there he’d almost forgotten.
He faced his computer.
He was on her shit list. Which was only fair, since she’d been on his ever since he’d learned about her appointment.
He shook the moment off and focused his attention on the field. The Lions and the Hawks had run through their banners and were lined up at the center of the ground. The Australian anthem began to play, the forty-thousand-strong crowd taking up the tune. The buzz of conversation in the press box didn’t falter, journalists in general being a pack of unpatriotic heathens. On a hunch Jake glanced over his shoulder. As he’d suspected, Poppy’s gaze was fixed on the field and her lips were moving subtly as she mouthed the words to the anthem.
It struck him that of all the journalists here, she was the only one who could even come close to understanding how the thirty-six players below were feeling right now. He had a sudden urge to lean across and ask her, to try and capture the immediate honesty of the moment.
He didn’t. Even if she deigned to answer him, just asking the question indicated that he was softening his stance regarding her appointment. Which he wasn’t.
The song finished and the crowd roared its excited approval as the two teams began to spread out across the field. Jake tensed, adrenaline quickening his blood. He loved the tribalism of football, the feats of reckless courage, the passion in the stands. It was impossible to watch and not be affected by it. Even after hundreds of kickoffs over many years, he still got excited at each and every game. The day he didn’t was the day he would retire, absolutely.
The starting siren echoed and the umpire held the ball high and then bounced it hard into the center of the field. The ruckmen from both teams soared into the air, striving for possession of the ball.
Jake leaned forward, all his attention on the game. Behind him he heard the tap-tap of fingers on a keyboard. He didn’t need to look to know it was Poppy. What in hell she had to write about after just ten seconds of play, he had no idea. Forcing his awareness of her out of his mind, he concentrated on the game.
POPPY CHECKED HER WATCH as she stepped into the hotel elevator and punched the button for her floor. By now, most of the players would be drunk or well on their way to it, and probably half of the press corps, too. She’d been too tired to take Macca up on his invitation to join him, Hilary and Jake for a postcoverage drink. Even if she hadn’t been hours away from being ready to file her story by the time the others were packing up to go, she’d had enough of The Snake over the past few days to last a lifetime. She wasn’t about to subject herself to his irritating presence over a meal. Not for love or money.
She scrubbed her face with her hands as the floor indicator climbed higher. She was officially exhausted. The leadup to the game, the game itself, the challenging atmosphere of the press box, the awareness that she was part of a team and she needed to deliver—all of it had taken its toll on her over the past couple of days and she felt as though she’d staggered over the finish line of a marathon.
She was painfully aware that she’d been the last of the team to file her stories every day so far. She’d sweated over her introductions, agonized over what quotes to use, fretted over her sign-offs. Writing didn’t come naturally to her, and she was beginning to suspect it was something she would always have to work at. No wonder her shoulders felt as though they were carved from marble at the end of each day.
She toed off her shoes as she entered her hotel room. She’d given up on high heels after the first week in her new job. Not only did they make her taller than most men, she couldn’t walk in them worth a damn and they made her feet ache. She shed her navy tailored trousers and matching jacket, then her white shirt. Her underwear followed and she made her way to the bathroom and started the shower up. She felt ten different kinds of greasy after a day of being jostled by pushy journalists and fervent football fans and hovering over her laptop, sweating over every word and punctuation mark. She tested the water with her hand and rolled her eyes when it was still cold. Stupid hotel. No one had warned her that the Herald were a pack of tightwads when it came to travel expenses. It was like being on the national swim team again.
She glanced at her reflection while she waited for the water to warm. As always, the sight of her new, improved bust line made her frown. She’d never had boobs. Years of training had keep her lean and flat. But now that she’d stopped the weights and the strenuous training sessions and relaxed her strict diet, nature had reasserted itself with a vengeance over the past few months.
She slid her hands onto her
