Chapter 4

“It can’t have been that bad.” The voice at the other end of the phone was soothing.

“Trust me,” Penelope said. “It was worse.”

There was a moment of silence as her younger sister thought this over. “And you say he just stared at you?”

“Like I was an animal in the zoo. An exotic one, but not a pretty, exotic one,” Penelope said, taking a bite from the hot dog she’d gotten from a vendor in Central Park.

Street meat, she’d heard it called. Sounded so disgusting. Tasted so good.

Penelope had always imagined that Central Park would be crazy crowded, being the crown jewel of the most populous city in the country and all.

But on a cooler than usual Wednesday in April it was nearly deserted, and Penelope felt as though the park were her personal playground.

“What’s that noise?” Janie asked. “Are you eating?”

“Hot dog,” Penelope said.

Her sister groaned. “And here I was thinking that the only good thing about you leaving Chicago was that it would get you away from those things.”

Penelope sucked a drop of mustard off her thumb. “Nope. New city, new dog.”

“You say that as though it’s a common phrase,” Janie said. “It’s not.”

“Not to a vegetarian who’s doing yet another juice cleanse, maybe,” Penelope said, crumpling up the foil in her fist and leaning against the bench. “But did you know that different cities have different styles of dogs? The Chicago dog, for instance—”

“Stop. Just stop,” Janie cut in. “If I’m not allowed to tell you what’s in them, you’re not allowed to tell me all the disgusting things that go on them. Let’s get back to this guy—”

“Cole,” Penelope said. “Cole Sharpe.”

“Hmm. Good name.”

It was a good name.

Looked really damn good on a byline too, as Penelope well knew. She’d done her homework.

She knew everyone in the industry.

Being one of the few females in her line of work, Penelope hadn’t exactly had a plethora of mentors to pick from. The senior sportswriters of Chicago thought her an abomination. The sports columnists who were her own age had been both annoyed and threatened by her very existence.

For all of today’s talk about feminism and equality, female sportswriters were still few and far between. Nobody had exactly been banging down the door to show Penelope the ropes, so…

She’d taught herself.

She subscribed to dozens of newspapers across the country and read their entire sports sections, every day.

Then there were the magazines. And the blogs. And the apps. And the Twitter feeds. So, yeah, she’d known who Cole Sharpe was, even before she decided to move to New York.

And if Penelope was honest, she wished she were up against someone less, well, good.

Cole Sharpe’s work was amazing. He had an impressive knack for seamlessly blending analysis, stats, and summary in a way that read like a really good story.

Add in the fact that he had a distinctive writing style—a “voice” that came through in the written word—and, well, he was just about as worthy an opponent for the editor position as she could have dreamt up.

So much for her hopes that her rival would be someone a bit older—an old-school “boys’ club” type of columnist. At least then Penelope could have gotten the edge by playing the “I’m youthful and technically savvy” card.

But Cole Sharpe barely looked a day over thirty. Chances were he was not only as well versed in social media as she was, but also understood its importance in the future of sports reporting.

There went her edge.

“Pen?”

“Hmm?” she asked, realizing she’d completely zoned out and missed whatever Janie was talking about.

“I asked if Cole Sharpe was as hot as his name implies. He sounds…yummy.”

Penelope smiled. It was exactly the sort of question she’d expect from her sister. Granted, Janie was no longer a boy-crazy teen, but marriage hadn’t done much to temper her appreciation of the opposite sex.

Younger by two years, Janie was Penelope’s opposite in just about every way. In looks, certainly. Janie was tall and blond, with an hourglass figure—as different from Penelope’s petite, brunette boy-shape as could be.

But it was their interests and personalities that really set them apart. The only sport Janie believed in was shopping. Still, her sister was her best friend, and one of the people it had been hardest to leave behind in Chicago.

Harder, even, than leaving Evan.

Penelope’s smile dimmed at the memory of her former co-worker and friend.

She struggled to push thoughts of him aside, and hated how hard it was. The man had betrayed her—personally and professionally, and she could still see his beautiful smile every time she closed her eyes.

She. Was. Pathetic.

“Pen? You going to fill me in on this Cole guy?”

Penelope tilted her head back, feeling just the faintest hint of warmth from sun mostly hidden behind the clouds. “Um, Cole is—”

“He’s yummy. Isn’t he?” Janie demanded.

“Hot dogs are yummy,” Penelope said. “Not men.”

“Oh, Pen,” her sister sighed. “What I wouldn’t give for you to fall in love. Or at least meet a guy who gives you butterflies.”

There it was again. That pang.

Penelope had never told her sister how she’d felt about Evan, although she sometimes suspected that Janie knew and was too kind to mention it.

Or maybe her sister had just been hoping that silence on the matter would kill Penelope’s silly crush. Her sister had never liked Evan.

“Cole’s…attractive,” Penelope said, forcing her mind away from the past.

“Describe.”

She opened her mouth to try to describe his features to Janie, only to realize that there wasn’t anything particularly distinctive about them, other than that they all went together exceptionally well.

“He has a nice smile,” was what she settled on.

Janie let out a frustrated groan. “You’re hopeless.”

“Well, it doesn’t matter what he looks like,” Penelope grumbled. “He goes from being perfectly nice to being totally grumpy. He couldn’t even respond to my offer of coffee.”

“Sweetie, you’re his main competition for a pretty kick-ass job. Not everyone is as easygoing as you about such things.”

“I know,” Penelope said, running a pinky over the perfect crease of her dress slacks. “It’s just…I don’t really have any friends here. I thought maybe he could be one.”

Janie made a strangled noise. “You’re breaking my heart here. Come back to Chicago. You have a million friends here.”

Penelope squeezed her eyes shut. “I can’t.”

“Why not?” Janie demanded. “New York can’t be that great. And I still can’t believe you moved there before knowing whether or not you got the job. I mean, you’ll get it, of course, but—”

Penelope couldn’t do this right now.

“Janie, I’ve got to run,” Penelope interrupted.

“Why?”

“I forgot that I have the cable guy coming by later. Something’s wrong with the box they installed last week.”

“Oh. Okay. Well…you’ll text me the second you know about the job, right?”

“Definitely,” Penelope promised. “Love you. Tell Josh I say hey.”

Penelope hung up the phone with a long sigh, feeling a stab of guilt.

It hadn’t been a complete lie. The cable guy really was scheduled to come by and figure out why ESPN kept cutting in and out. It was just that he was scheduled to come by tomorrow.

But the alternative to her fib was telling her sister the truth—the whole truth. That the reason she hightailed it out of Chicago was not just because she’d failed to get her dream job but because of a man.

A man who had taken her dream job right out from under her nose.

Penelope stood, tugging her heavy bag over her shoulder as she headed back toward home.

Her apartment on 107th and Amsterdam was too far north to be considered a prime location by most New Yorkers. But in a new-to-her city where she knew nobody, had no favorite restaurants, and didn’t yet know the public transportation system, the cozy one-bedroom suited her just fine.

It was close to the park. Close-ish to the Oxford offices…

If she got the job.

She’d felt pretty damn confident right up until the moment she’d met Cole Sharpe last night.

Granted, until today, she’d only had phone interviews. But in her conversations with Alex Cassidy and a handful of the other Oxford guys who’d vetted her, Penelope had had a sense of rightness.

She’d felt like they liked her. Felt like she belonged.

But Cole Sharpe—he belonged there too.

Something he’d pointedly reminded her when he’d crashed her interview.

Penelope supposed she should be mad about that—it was a crappy move on his part. Immature at best, unscrupulous at worst.

But she’d never been one to waste energy getting mad about the little stuff. Her tolerance for drama was remarkably low, which was part of the reason the world of sports fit her so well.

It was all numbers and scores.

And that was why she’d asked Cole Sharpe to coffee. Someone with whom to talk shop.

At least…that was her story, and she was sticking with it.

It had nothing to do with the fact that he looked every bit as good in a charcoal suit this morning as he had in jeans and T-shirt last night…

But ultimately, the reason didn’t matter, because he’d turned her down.

No, not even turned her down—he’d responded with an uh.

That was so much worse.

Penelope tried to tell herself that it didn’t sting as she unlocked the door of her apartment and dropped her bag by the front door.

She was used to it—rejection in all its forms.

Penelope had no illusions about her place in the world of men: the friend zone.

She was the girl next door you could always count on to pick up your mail when you were out of town, provide input when you needed to shop for an engagement ring for your girlfriend, serve as that last-minute date to the wedding of an extended family member you didn’t really like.

Unless, of course, she was among fellow sportswriters, in which case she was neither one of the guys nor was she appealing as a woman, which left her chronically on the outside.

Penelope wandered into her apartment, trying to ignore how empty it was. She’d thought that finally getting some art up on the walls—some gorgeous canvas photos of her favorite stadiums—would make it feel less empty.

But pretty as the new art pieces were, they were no substitute for human company.

Penelope felt a pang of regret that she hadn’t been brave enough to ask Emma Sinclair for her phone number when the other woman had been so friendly.

Not that she exactly fit in with the high-heeled glamour of the Stiletto women, but at least then she’d feel like she knew someone in this huge city.

Penelope sat on the edge of her couch and wondered what to do with the rest of her day.

She’d managed to get through her first two weeks in the city by prepping endlessly for her interview, but now that was over, and she had nothing to do but wait.

Wait to find out if her spontaneous move to New York would pay off in the form of a job offer from Oxford, or if she’d have to go back to square one in the job hunt.

In the meantime, of course, there was always freelance stuff. Some of her old contacts back in Chicago would likely jump at the chance to have some dedicated coverage for the American League East games.

There could be good money in freelance. Especially if one wrote fast, which she did.

But freelance also meant a hell of a lot of time alone.

If Penelope was honest with herself—and she usually was—the appeal of the Oxford position wasn’t just about the chance to build out an entirely new section of a nationally acclaimed magazine.

It was about belonging to a team. To have someone to bounce ideas off of, after-work happy hours to attend, the corporate holiday party. Someone to grab coffee with.

She winced at that last one, remembering the babbling, overeager way she’d all but thrown herself at Cole Sharpe, all because he’d shown her the tiniest scrap of kindness.

It would have been bad enough if she’d been asking him out on a date. It was all the more pathetic because she’d asked a perfect stranger—and competition—out as a friend. He hadn’t even gone for that.

Penelope groaned and threw herself onto her right side. “Could I be any more pathetic?”

She rolled onto her back, pulling one of her throw pillows against her chest.

Maybe she should think about getting a dog.

Or even a fish.

Yes, a fish would be better. Less poop.

She reached for her phone, intending to look up local pet stores, when it buzzed in her hand with an incoming text message.

It was a 212 number—no name, which meant it wasn’t one of her known contacts.

Her eyes narrowed in confusion before widening in surprise as she sat back up.

She read it again, just to be sure.

Hey. It’s Cole Sharpe. Any chance I can swap your offer of coffee for beer?

Penelope let a dopey smile crawl over her face as the loneliness eased—just slightly.

Absolutely, she typed back.

She started to ask when and where, but decided that sounded a little too desperate. Penelope had learned the hard way that We should grab a drink sometime was right up there with I’ll call you…

It didn’t mean that the other person actually wanted to share a drink.

But then his next text came through, and she realized—happily—that Cole Sharpe might be for real.

Good. How do you feel about day-drinking?

She smiled as she typed back. Depends on the day. And the occasion.

Penelope didn’t realize she was holding her breath until it whooshed out at his next response.

The day: Wednesday. The occasion: receiving an apology for intruding on your interview.

She grinned. Well, I DO like beer and apologies.

Glad to hear it. And by Wednesday, I meant today. Dubliner on 82nd and Broadway in a half hour?

Penelope hopped to her feet in excitement, and then did an unabashed happy dance.

The very existence of Cole Sharpe might mean a step backward in her New York job search, but it also might mean a step forward in something much more important: making her first New York friend.