Filling up the Virgin(190)

“I really can't,” I said.

He stepped over to me and put his arms around me, then kissed my shoulder. “Why not?”

“Because this was a mistake.”

He pulled away, a hurt look on his face. “What? Why?”

“Because,” I said. I huffed and searched for my jacket. “Because of who you are. Because I'm not in a good place right now. I...”

I looked up at him. My heart ached at the pain in his eyes. I reached up and caressed his cheek. “It was nice, Hal. It really was. But we have different lives, from different worlds.”

“That doesn't mean...”

“Yes, it does,” I said. “I'm sorry, Hal.”

I gathered my things and hurried out the door before he could try to change my mind. I didn't want to regret what we'd done. It had been a wonderful experience. But now, in the light of day, I had to remember all of the reasons that it had been a bad idea. I had a life to get back to, and it was a life that this billionaire football player had no place in.

I went back home, my car trudging through the snowy roads amidst all the backed-up traffic. Plows passed by me here and there, and the main roads were mostly clear, but a lot of local roads were still covered in a few inches of slush. When I finally got over the bridge and back home, my back was sore from being in the car for so long. Though the workout I'd gotten the night before might have been a contributing factor.

I spent the next few days working from home, typing up both the Jonas GMS story and the separate story on Hal Masterson. I obviously left out any details of what had happened between Hal and I, focusing purely on the financial aspects. I was none too flattering. My story painted Hal as a lucky man who'd stumbled into his fortune, making his millions off the hard-working backs of people like Brett Jonas. I gave him credit where credit was due: his investments had surely helped the Jonas Corporation to grow, and without the money they would never have achieved the success that they had. But Brett Jonas and her family had done the hard work, and Hal had simply gotten rich off of it.

Which was not to mention how overpaid Hal was as an NFL quarterback. I ripped right into the economics of sports player salaries and how ridiculous it was that fans were charged ridiculous prices for tickets, food, and merchandise at the games, while the people who worked at the snack bars were paid little more than minimum wage, and the rest went to the players. It was a scathing review of the football industry specifically, and the sports business as a whole

I sincerely hoped that Hal would never read it.

I emailed the final drafts to Jim down at the office so he could look them over. A few days later, when I was back at the office, he called me in to go over the stories.

“Well,” Jim said, looking over the pages I'd sent him, “I'll say this, you sure didn't pull your punches.”

“I'm a reporter,” I said, standing in front of his desk with my arms crossed. “It's my job to tell it like it is.”

“You're right,” he said. “And I like what you did here. I've got a few edits—you were a bit harsher than you needed to be, and I want to give these a more neutral tone—but all in all you've done good work. I'd like you to expand on this. Do some more research into the goings-on in the sports world. Research the economics of it. Ticket prices, those crazy high markups on beer and hot dogs, that sort of thing.”

“Jim...”

“Come on, Jane,” he said. “This is good stuff. I want to see more of it.”

I had no interest in having any more involvement in the sports world, but it seemed like I was stuck with it. At least I'd found an angle that I could embrace, attacking the economic disparity between the overpaid players and their underpaid concession stand workers. People always talked about how the workers at places like Walmart and McDonald's were underpaid, many of them barely able to live off their minimum wage salaries. I could draw on that area, lay out some parallels, and write some compelling pieces on the subject.

I went back to my office to see what else I could come up with. While I was sitting there, my phone rang. It was Hal. Again. He'd called more than a dozen times in the last few days, but I'd ignored every call. I couldn't deal with getting involved in another relationship right now. But I also knew I didn't have it in me to hear the heartache in his voice when I shot him down. The easiest solution, even if it was the cowardly solution, was to ignore his calls until he moved on. I was sure that soon enough, he'd find some nice young honey among his fans, and he'd forget all about me.

A few weeks later, our lead sports writer, Frank Gafferty, stuck his head into my office and said, “I think you broke Hal Masterson.”