My eyes were puffy and red the next morning. My self-will wasn’t what it used to be, apparently, since I had spent three too many hours crying over Nathan. I felt truly foolish, allowing my hormones to get the best of me. Guys aren’t the only ones that get led by their pants, I told myself, as if it would make me feel better. It didn’t. Because it wasn’t just my hormones that were muddled. I was afraid my heart was starting to get involved and I was not comfortable with that. I had never been the kind of girl to put a guy before my career. Even with Nick, I had made it clear that my job was important. I tried to ignore the voice that told me that maybe that same mentality had been the death knell for that particular relationship.

But Nick was a jerk. Nathan, well, Nathan was not. Or so I had assumed. Guess I just had really shitty taste in guys. Thanks, Mom, I thought. Why couldn’t I have inherited your giant boobs or your perfect skin? Why did I have to get your taste in men and your tendency to drink when things go shitty?

No, I was being unfair. Nathan wasn’t a bad guy. It was just a bad situation. I stared at my tired, sad face in the mirror and took a deep breath. Nope. I wasn’t going to let some fucking guy ruin this for me. Not Nick, not Nathan, and certainly not Tim, who had left a message saying he was going to meet me in the lobby at ten. I glanced at the clock and grimaced. The last person I wanted to see looking and feeling like this was Tim fucking Malis, but at this point I didn’t have any choice. I squared my shoulders and prepared for battle.

When I got to the lobby, Tim was standing at the reception desk yelling at the person behind the counter.

“I told you I just wanted whiskey in my room, but when I checked the mini bar this morning half of it was tequila.”

As I approached the desk, I saw that the person he was screaming at was the kid from the day I had arrived. Greg. The poor kid was practically white, cowering in fear. I couldn’t blame him. Tim knew how to make a scene.

“I’m sorry sir,” the receptionist said, flipping through the notebook on his desk. “I was sure that I had made a note of it. Usually we keep the minibar stocked with an equal amount of both beverages, but I’ll make sure to have the cleaning person replace the tequila with whiskey.”

“Better make a fucking note,” Tim said, leaning over the counter. “And if I don’t get comped for my trouble, you are going to hear from me. And your boss will too.”

“Yes, sir.” The kid was trembling at this point. I knew I had to step in.

“Tim,” I said, walking over to them. “Good to see you,” I lied through my teeth. God, I hated this fucking guy.

He glanced back, and when he saw it was me he made sure to give me a good, long, inappropriate leer. He had a special talent of making me feel like I was naked even when I was wearing a coat in the winter. My current outfit provided very little protection from that feeling.

“Saucy Sophie,” he said, stepping away from reception, much to the kid’s relief. “Looking good.”

I had done my best to look as unadorned as possible, barely any make-up, hair pulled tightly back and my most professional outfit —a suit and jacket that would be murder in this heat but provided decent coverage for my boobs and butt, the two parts of my body that Tim enjoyed ogling. Not that having it hidden would protect me from his lusty stares. I wore a version of this each day to work and I still felt dirty every time he walked by. He had a special knack for making the workplace especially uncomfortable. What a fucking slime ball.

“Hi Tim,” I said, dodging the arm he reached out. He always wanted a hug. A hug that always turned into a grope. It helped to keep my arms crossed around him, though I couldn’t always protect my ass from his wandering hands. He had pinched me so hard once that I had had a bruise for a week. I complained to HR but they all said that getting him fired was nearly impossible. It was his word against mine and he had been there far longer than I had. Plus, the rest of the staff—mostly men—loved him. They would eagerly gang up on me and say that I was lying. Anything to get a guy from their alma mater, or a woman who wouldn’t take such offense to what they considered “harmless jokes,” hired instead of me. I was just a humorless bitch, according to them.

Tim glanced back at the kid behind the desk.

“I’ll be back at three,” he snapped. “And there better be a fridge full of whiskey upstairs. Getting you fired is easier than getting laid with the help of a roofie.”

I cringed. Who allowed this asshole out in public, let alone on a campus to interview college-aged students? I could only imagine how Nathan was going to react to him. In short—not well.

Tim wrapped his arm around my shoulders and led me away from reception before the kid could answer.

“Fucking idiot,” he said with a smirk.

“I’m sure he just forgot,” I told him, reminding myself to include as big a tip I could manage to the receptionist before I checked out.

“Of course he didn’t.” Tim waited until we were outside before bursting into laughter. Thankfully he let go of me at the same time. “I never told him to put only whiskey in my room.”

I gaped at him. “What?”

“Yeah.” Tim slapped his leg with glee. “Oldest trick in the book. Make them think they made a mistake so they’ll always get you what you want and they’ll comp half of it. It’s the only way I’d drink something from the mini-bar.”

I was speechless. He frowned, clearly not pleased that I was disapproving of his scam.

“Oh come on, sweet cheeks,” he sneered. “They jack up the prices anyways. It doesn’t matter to them if they lose a few bottles to a guy like me.”

It matters to the kid at the front desk, I thought, but said nothing. That was usually the best method with Tim.

He tried to drape his arm over my shoulders again, but this time I was too fast and avoided him.

“Ready to head to the field?” I asked.

“Sure thing, Saucy,” he leered. I didn’t even bother asking him to call me something else. It hadn’t worked in the past, it wasn’t going to work now. “Mike told me you need a lot of help on this one,” he said as we headed towards the parking lot.

“Mike just wants a good article,” I said, trying to be as diplomatic as possible.

“Yeah, and clearly he regrets sending a girl to do a man’s job.” Tim unlocked his car—some vintage model that he was trying to rebuild himself and doing a really, really bad job. The whole thing looked like it was Frankenstein’s monster gone very wrong. I yanked the door open, knowing there was no way Tim the jerk was going to open it for me. This, of course, was the same guy who complained about women being too independent these days. He always seemed to long for the era when his car and his imagined ideal woman existed. Not like he practiced any of the manners men exhibited during that time.

The seatbelt in the car was broken, and the entire thing smelled like fast food and cigarettes. I was incredibly grateful that I wasn’t hung over, because if I threw up in Tim’s car, he would have surely found a way to get me fired immediately.

“So, I took a look at what you sent Mike,” Tim was saying, pulling out a cigarette with one hand, driving with the other. I had sent a very rough draft of my article last night after my cry fest, half hoping that Mike would call off Tim, but knowing that was very unlikely. He had been right—I didn’t have anything. Everything I had on Nathan was off the record and I wasn’t going to cross that line, not even to forward my own career.

Tim was swerving all over the road and I held tight to my useless seatbelt, thankful that the car ride would be over soon and praying that it wouldn’t end in a wreck. He grinned, clearly enjoying my fear and blew smoke over at me. I tried not to cough. The windows were open and the A/C was either broken or not on, so I was being blasted with hot smoke and thick, humid air. How someone could smoke in this heat baffled me. Even my mother, who loved her cigarettes, found air-conditioned dive bars to do it in.

“It’s rough.” I wondered if I could hold my breath until we got to the field as Tim blew another plume of smoke in my direction.

“You can say that again.” Tim shook his cigarette at me, raining ash down on my slacks, which I quickly brushed away. This was my nicest suit and I couldn’t afford to replace it. “It’s a mess, babe. It’s got no balls.”

If it had been anyone else, if it had been Nathan or Mandy, I would have made some joke about baseballs, but it was Tim so I said nothing and just gritted my teeth.

As we pulled into the lot next to the field, my stomach was twisted up in knots. And it wasn’t from the smoking or even Tim’s shitty driving. I was nervous about seeing Nathan. I wanted not to care, but I hated that he thought that I might have planned all of this—that this was all some big, elaborate plan to get him to spill his deepest, darkest secrets. Secrets I hoped he did not have. Because if he did, Tim was going to find them. That’s what Tim did. It’s why he kept his job after years of complaints from female employees and inappropriate pranks and the occasional public intoxication—because he knew how to find a story, and the dirtier, the better.

We got out of the car and Tim squinted over towards the stands. I could see Mandy there with Chris and Nathan. My stomach did an unpleasant flip-flop. My heart did the same, much to my annoyance. How had I let myself get in so deep, so quickly?

It was the kiss, I decided. Nathan was an amazing kisser, I admitted to myself, lost for a moment in the memory of last night. His wonderful, hot, perfect mouth. Fuck, I thought, desire surging through me. This was the wrong time to be turned on. I mentally poured a bucket of ice water over myself, but it did as much good as one would expect a mental bucket of ice water would do.

“So where is this guy?” Tim asked, grabbing his leather jacket from the backseat. Yep. Tim was the kind of guy who wore a leather jacket in the summer in Texas. He had some serious (and delusional) James Dean fantasies.

I pointed in the direction of the stands, half expecting Nathan and Chris to scatter the moment they saw us. But then again, neither of them seemed to be the kind of guys who ran away from trouble. And I appreciated that they weren’t leaving Mandy to fend for herself against Tim. Not that I would let him do anything to her. Being an inappropriate shithead to me was one thing; if he said anything to Mandy, I’d slash his fucking tires. Maybe cut off his balls, too. But that would be more for me than anything.

“Let’s go, Saucy,” Tim ordered, as if I was his personal secretary. Behind his back, I rolled my eyes, but followed him over to the field. I saw all three pairs of eyes widen as we approached, but I wasn’t sure which surprised Mandy, Nathan, and Chris more, my unusually professional duds or Tim’s ridiculous ones.

Most men Tim’s age weren’t especially known for their fashion savvy, especially if they worked in journalism, and especially if they worked in journalism in Texas. It just wasn’t that important to them. What mattered, of course, was the article, or so they said. The women in my office, of course, had to care about both, or risk getting called a slut or a slob. I had gotten both descriptors tossed my way, though it was mostly the former. Most of the guys at my office lived in wrinkled shirts, often flapping untucked from their ill-fitting jeans. Tim, however, was a special kind of unfashionable.

There was the leather jacket, of course, paired with a self-cut version of a 50s pompadour, which lay limp and overlong on half of his forehead. He also dyed it black so it looked like someone had spilled ink onto his head. Beneath the jacket, already beginning to show sweat stains under the arms, was a garish Hawaiian shirt combined with a ridiculously bright pair of yellow khaki shorts that were about two inches too short to be appropriate.

I was used to his attire by now, but I could imagine how shocking it would be to people seeing him for the first time.

“Morning,” Tim shouted, even though we were practically standing in front of Nathan. He thrust out his hand. Nathan shook it cautiously, making a point not to look at me. Behind him, Chris and Mandy seemed to be doing their best not to burst out laughing, their lips tightly pursed. As for me, I wished I were anywhere but there. The hotel, maybe. Or Houston. Or Mars.

“I’m Tim Malis.”

“Nathan Ryder.” Nathan pulled his cap down low.

“Oh, I know.” Tim had a big, fake smile. “But I’m here to learn a whole lot more than just your name.”

“I’ve already been talking to Soph—, to Ms. Hall,” Nathan said, still not looking at me.

“Yeah, well.” Tim slung his arm over my shoulder, smelling of cheap cologne and BO. I wrinkled my nose at the stench. “There’s a reason you should never send a woman to do a man’s job.”

“I’m sorry?” Surprise bloomed on Nathan’s face. Maybe he’d see that I had been telling the truth. That I wanted Tim here just as much as he did, which was to say, not at all.

“You know what I mean.” Tim pointed a thumb in my direction. “When it comes to sports, you need someone who understands it. Not some pretty girl who wants to make goo-goo eyes at players in tight pants.” Tim elbowed me. “No offense, Saucy.”

Nathan’s eyes went round and I saw him take a step forward, his fingers curved in a fist. Before he could do something that Tim would most certainly be thrilled to put in his article, I plastered a big fake smile across my face and unwound myself from Tim’s sweaty grasp, stepping between the two of them. I noticed that both Chris and Mandy had stepped forward to intervene as well. Luckily Nathan didn’t move, just stood his ground, his entire body tense. It wasn’t the time to admire the way his uniform stretched across his wide, wonderful shoulders, but my hormones had been unconcerned with what was appropriate since I had arrived in Austin.

“Tim is here to help me with the article.” I tried to sound as cheery as possible.

“More like totally rewrite it,” Tim snickered before turning to the others. “We want our readers to get to know you, Nate. The real you.”

“It’s Nathan,” Chris interjected. “No one calls him Nate.”

Tim squinted at him. “And you are?”

“That’s Chris,” Mandy said from the stands. Immediately I saw Tim’s attention shift. This time it was Chris who clenched his fists, but thankfully Nathan put a hand on his shoulder.

“We should get to practice,” he said, finally making eye contact with me.

“We’ll be here,” I told him, hoping that he and Chris both understood that I wasn’t going to let anything happen to Mandy. That I would take care of Tim if he got too, well, Tim-like.

Nathan nodded, but practically had to drag Chris away.

“I’ll see you after practice,” Mandy assured him, waving.

Tim, on the other hand, had settled into the stands and was extending his sweaty hand in Mandy’s direction.

“I don’t believe we’ve had the pleasure.”

“Mandy,” she told him.

“Enchanté,” Tim said, taking Mandy’s tiny hand in his and giving it a kiss. I saw her squirm and I didn’t blame her a bit.

“Mandy is a photographer,” I told Tim. “She takes pictures for the college paper.”

“Does she?” he asked, leering openly at her. “Does she take private portraits as well?”

I felt like punching him in the face. “Don’t you want to watch the practice?” I asked him.

He sighed and leaned back in the bleachers. “I think we have enough of your rapturous prose describing the practice. We need something substantial. Something intense. Something personal. That’s why they brought me in after all. I need to talk to Nate.”

“Nathan,” Mandy corrected quietly. Tim didn’t hear her.

“He doesn’t like to talk about personal things,” I told him.

“Clearly not with you,” Tim sneered and gave me a once over. “Though I can’t understand why you didn’t just put on a pair of cut-offs and a bikini top before you interviewed him. Do you even understand how stupid guys like this are? Just flash some tit and they’re goners.”

I glared at him. I thought for a moment what he would do if I had done as he suggested. Probably call me a slut and make some comment about how I only got my information through sex. I also thought for a moment about what it would be like to knee him in the balls. Pretty damn satisfying, I imagined.

But I didn’t have time to daydream about causing Tim bodily harm as he began listing the things he needed me to do while he was interviewing Nathan. After the tenth personal item, like dry cleaning and finding him a place for a good cup of coffee, I realized that I was no longer a fellow journalist sharing an assignment. Nope, I had just been demoted to Tim’s assistant. Fuck.