“Oh, and I told Frank that you were beating the hell out the bag and he cancelled your workout,” Ben says, phone already to his ear. “He said you can take it easy for a couple days after the win but to make sure that you do cardio in return for his generosity.”
I chuckle. “Noted.”
Ducking back into the gym, I grab my towel and water bottle. The home gym is one of my favorite parts of my new place. The prize money from the fights that I’ve won were enough to really change my lifestyle. I bought a house on the outskirts of Nashville near one of the rivers on a big piece of property. The sponsorships those wins landed me were even more lucrative.
But in the end, that didn’t matter to me. Now that I have the house, I am happy. I always wanted a place that was just mine. And I have it now. All the rest of what I live for is in between the ropes. And at the foot of my bed.
Walking into my living room, I let out a whistle and smile as the pounding sound of feet comes from every direction. Seven dogs of various shapes and sizes emerge from every corner of the house, swarming around my feet.
“Time for cardio.”
They are all jumping and barking and panting; excited by the idea that we are going outside. They missed me while I was away. I clip a leash to each of their collars in turn and grab the device that I had to order from a place that specializes in products for dog walkers.
The group in front of me is definitely a bunch of misfits, but I love them. There are a handful of missing ears and a couple of missing eyes, some with less visible injuries, too. All of them are rescues from a dog fighting ring that was exposed a few years ago, and when I saw all of them, I couldn’t imagine leaving a single one behind. So they all came home with me.
I know what it is like to be abandoned. What it is like for other people to use you as a punching bag and not care about you for anything other than what you might be worth to them. These dogs have gotten me through some tough times, and in return I spoil them.
Closing the door behind us, I start to run at an easy pace down my long driveway toward the road. The dogs are used to this. They keep perfect pace and space between each other. It’s almost like they’re psychically connected to each other, the way they can anticipate how each other will move. I never expected when I adopted them that they’d be such a tight knit family.
There are rumors floating around that Jack is out of prison and trying to start the whole thing over again. I’m not sure what would possess a man who’d been caught to try to pull off the same scheme that landed him in prison, but Jack Singleton is as single-minded as his name. He knows what he wants, and he wants the adrenaline and the money that comes with running something as illicit as dog fighting.
Two minutes alone in a ring with him and I’d show him what I really thought about him now. It would have a different outcome than the way our fights always ended as kids, that’s for sure. I am a very different man now.
The air is crisp, as it always is in the fall around Nashville. Perfect weather. In a few weeks it will get colder, and I’ll be tempted to skip these early runs and stay inside. Preferably with a warm companion in bed.
In this case, I’m not thinking about my dogs, but about the woman that I never thought I’d see again. My Cinderella.
The way she looked behind that desk wasn’t even close to the way that I’ve imagined her in my mind this past month. In the back room of the club, she’d been unrestrained and wild. She took control, and she let me have control as well. Honestly, if I’d known that she would leave without giving me her phone number or even her name, I would have held on to my pleasure harder and let her mouth tease me more.
I have dreams about those moments and what it might have been like to come in her mouth, feel her sucking me through my orgasm.
Fuck. No boners while running. That is just uncomfortable, and if I ran into anybody, gym shorts aren’t exactly the type of clothes you can hide behind. I push her out of my mind and continue my run.
But as I finish my loop and slow to a walk back up my driveway, I let her into my thoughts again as I shut the gate and release the dogs from their leashes so they can run around freely in the yard.
Sadie Crawford.
Even though she didn’t give me her name, I have it now. And I didn’t have to stalk her to get it. It was purely an accident. I bet she thought that I lived in Atlanta when we met, a safe wager for something without strings. It was the same thing I had thought when I walked down the stairs toward her in the club.
But what we did? The chemistry we had? Those were strings that I didn’t anticipate and that I can’t seem to let go of. Now that she is here, and we are living in the same city, I want to see her.
I will take Cinderella her damn shoe and see if she wants it back.
3
Sadie
“Thank you for watching,” I say. “Tune in tonight for more news from WNSV, your local news source.”
The red light turns off on the camera, and the production assistant announces that we’re clear. I breathe a sigh of relief. Even though it’s been two weeks since I started being on air full time, I still get a flurry of nerves being live.
“That was good,” Bill says. “Though you might not want to wear that color again. Not the most attractive on you.”
I struggle not to roll my eyes. So far the worst part of my job has been my co-anchor. I wish there were a more delicate way to put it, but he’s a pig. Misogynistic to his core. There hasn’t been a day where he hasn’t commented on my appearance or my performance. And I’ve been holding myself in check, smiling because I’m the new girl. But I’m tired of it, and so I smile tightly at him.
“If I need your opinion on my clothes, Bill, I’ll ask you for it.”
He raises one eyebrow, surprised that I’m talking back to him this way. “Whatever. I’m just trying to help you. You know female anchors have to look good to get views, or else…”
Or else they’ll replace me, is what he’s saying. Fucking asshole.
Gathering my notes, I head back to my office. It’s hard not to feel defeated when he says things like that. All in all, the first couple of weeks here haven’t gone as smoothly as I’d hoped they would. I came prepared with a list of stories that I wanted to investigate and present—since WNSV prides itself on the journalism of their whole team. But every story I’ve pitched, the producers have taken and given to Bill.
Clearly they were good stories if they gave them to him, but I can’t exactly crack why I’m running into this wall of blatant sexism. Everything I’ve heard about this station was that it is a great place to work.
But I’m not going to give up. Not yet. Not only am I determined to make this work until it is time to trade up to a better place, but I refuse to believe that what I thought was my dream job is actually a nightmare. After leaving everything behind for this, I don’t think that I could handle that.
I still have lots more story ideas, but I’m not going to pitch them until I have a clear and indisputable angle of why I’m the one that needs to be reporting them. My job isn’t to give Bill unearned opportunities for journalism while I sit behind the desk and look pretty, no matter what he thinks.
A soft knock on my door grabs my attention.