Page 23 of Ink & Ambition

Alex puts his papers down and looks at me again. “Who’s going to produce this thing, by the way? You said someone on the newspaper staff is going to help?”

“Oh yeah, my friend Nathan already agreed,” I say, starting to pile the papers back up. I move to take Alex’s too, but he’s clutching them pretty tightly. Looking up to tell him to hand them over, I am momentarily thrown by his darkened gaze.

“How well do you know this Nathan guy?”

“What?” I ask, completely confused. “He’s my friend?” Alex nods with a distant look on his face. I have no idea why the air shifted so abruptly at the mention of Nathan helping us, but the idea clearly upsets Alex. Looking down at my watch, I noticed we’ve been at this for over an hour.

“Shit, I gotta go,” I say, bursting out of my chair. “I told Sydney I’d meet her outside ten minutes ago to ride home together.”

Alex looks up at me and then raises from the chair himself. “You don’t have a car?”

“Nope,” I state. “Anyway, thanks for meeting with me. I guess I’ll see you again next Monday for our first planning session.” I reach my hand out across the table to shake his, sealing our professional deal the only way I know how.

Alex looks down at my hand and rolls his eyes before taking it in his own. We shake twice firmly and then I move away, but Alex holds tight, moving his thumb up and down the back of my hand.

“You know, I’ve got a car.”

“Congratulations,” I say, yanking my hand away. Alex chuckles.

“I mean, I could drive you home if you need. And I could drive you to campus, too.”

I pause while packing my bag, not looking him in the eye. “And why would you do that?”

“Because I’m a nice person, duh.” I can sense the smirk in his voice, and I roll my eyes before looking at him again. Scrunching my nose, I murmur my sarcastic agreement while hitching my backpack over my shoulder.

Alex and I head upstairs to the exit where Sydney is waiting patiently outside the building for me.

“See you Monday,” I say, getting into the passenger side of the car.

“See you, sunshine,” Alex replies, watching me close the door and only walking away from the spot once Sydney has pulled away.

Chapter Twelve

Alex

Thesoundsofaball hitting a bat and a roaring crowd fill the room.

“Score?” Kai asks as he walks in from class, dropping his backpack onto the dining room table. He wanders into the kitchen and comes back with his hands full of beer.

“One, nil. Top of the fourth.”

Kai hands me a cold one as he slides into the seat next to me on the couch. He nods, looking at the TV and taking a sip of his beer. I sip mine as well as I shift my gaze from the television to the computer screen on my lap.

“I think I’m actually liking these business classes this semester,” Kai says. “Maybe I could work for a sports team or something one day.”

“Yeah?” I answer but I’m distracted. Margot had texted me a link to the website that housed a comment box for people to write in questions they wanted to ask me. She was already promoting the podcast, name and all, and suddenly it all seemed to be happening so fast.

“What’s that?” Kai asks, extending his beer toward the screen.

“The podcast I’m doing with Margot,” I say, absentmindedly. I scroll through the pages but all I see is me, me, me. The cover page has a giant picture of me, not a bad one I’ll admit, I just don’t know where she got it from. There’s an “about me” page with some seemingly random facts that everybody knows but not a whole lot else. It leaves more to be desired, but I guess that’s the point of the podcast.

As I continue to scroll through the colorful, well-designed site, I notice something that causes an ache to grow in my chest. The only thing that’s missing from the page is any information about the podcast creator herself. I told her I wanted this to be an equal partnership, but I guess she didn’t take me seriously. I’ll have to remind her again when we meet on Monday.

Margot had granted me access to the behind the scenes of the website so I could see the questions pouring in, many of them incredibly dirty. I am shocked at how many questions have already been gathered seeing as the site only went live about five hours ago. At this rate, we’ll have material to last us for years. I groan internally.

“You good, man?” Kai asks from my right. I guess my groan was more physical than mental.

“Yeah,” I sigh. “Just not really sure what I got myself into here,” I reply honestly.

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