Love the One You're With(13)

Following the bullshit Yankee gig, Jake had every intention of jumping on the next plane to anywhere, but then he’d met Bill Heiner. Jake hadn’t been looking for a mentor, but Bill had the type of personality that sucked people into his vortex.

And Bill’s vortex was Oxford magazine.

It wasn’t that Jake didn’t admire Oxford—he did. Any magazine that could claim the title of best-selling men’s magazine for more than sixty years deserved a nod.

The magazine itself had never been the problem.

It was everything that had come with it. The nine-to-five. The suits. The like-clockwork deadlines. The uptown office building that never changed. Ever.

Ultimately, though, Jake had caved out of loyalty and admiration for Bill. The old editor in chief had been a friend in addition to being a kick-ass mentor. Being a member of Bill’s team had been worth the desk job and multiyear lease on his apartment. And it wasn’t without perks. The 401(k) and health insurance were handy. And responsible.

And boring.

But Bill was gone now, probably sitting on a beach in Barbados.

And Jake was realizing too late that he didn’t want to be just another NYC salaried columnist scrambling up the journalism ladder.

It was time to get back on the going-places track. Preferably somewhere that involved a plane ticket. Jake was creeping up on thirty-four, and while he loved New York, he’d been here for over six years.

It was starting to feel a lot like the rest of his life.

He wanted to reclaim the old Jake. The fly-by-night, who-knows-what’s-next kind of guy that all of his friends and family had expected him to become.

He wanted to be the version of himself that his parents could brag about, and he knew exactly how to get there.

After years of Jake’s badgering, Oxford was finally, finally adding a Travel section to the magazine.

Jake was the perfect person to take it on. He was the most senior columnist, had no wife or kids to keep him in New York, and was willing to try anything, eat anything, live anywhere.

He was the best man for the job. He knew it. Bill Heiner had known it.

And then Bill had retired.

Now Jake just had to make sure that newbie Alex Cassidy knew it.

So far, they weren’t off to a good start. Cassidy had gotten it into his well-groomed head that Jake would be the perfect candidate to do some fluffy “let’s cooperate with the girls” joint article with one of the Stiletto women.

Over his dead body.

He loved women. On a personal level. He loved the way a woman’s eyes went dark when he pinned her hands above her head. He loved the way no two women applied perfume in the exact same way. He loved the rarity of finding a woman who could make him laugh—really laugh—although the numbers on that were low enough to be depressing.

But professionally? He’d already done his time writing the tawdry sex advice and the insipid when-to-let-her-pay-for-dinner bullshit.

“Look, I know you’re new in the business …,” Jake started.

Cassidy’s gaze sharpened, and Jake quickly reversed. Wrong tactic.

He started over. “I hear what you’re saying. I do. Women have always hated Oxford, and men hate Stiletto. Each side is objectifying the other sex, yada yada.”

Cassidy’s eyebrows lifted. “I don’t get the sense that you’re losing sleep over this.”

“No. Because it’s what we do,” Jake said, leaning back in his chair. “I’m not writing for chicks any more than the gals over at Stiletto are writing for men. There’s no reason to complicate shit.”

Cassidy silently leaned down and pulled an impressive stack of envelopes onto his desk. “See this pile? This is about two hundred reasons why we absolutely need to ‘complicate shit.’ The readers have spoken. The way it’s always been isn’t working.”

Touché.

Score one for the new guy.

But it didn’t mean Jake was going to be the one to bend over.

Journalism wasn’t about spoon-feeding your readers. Well, okay, sometimes it was. But mostly it was about having grit. It was about good writing, and going with your gut. And Jake’s gut told him that pussyfooting around with some short-skirted writer wasn’t going to help his resume any.

Jake Malone was a good journalist. A good team player, he was not.

He understood Cassidy’s situation. Really, he did. Times were changing, and there were probably a decent number of guys who swiped their girl’s magazine off the nightstand for a shitter read. Just like there were plenty of women who probably snuck a peek at their brother’s Oxford subscription to try to discern what men were “really thinking.”

But the way Jake saw it, both sides were bound to be disappointed.