Page 4 of #Awestruck

Brenda smiled at me like I was her new best friend, and it was honestly a little unsettling. Like the way a great white shark might smile at a sea lion she was about to devour whole. “Excellent pitch, Ashton. I’ll let you know.”

It wasn’t quite the response I’d been anticipating. I’d thought for sure she’d tell me right then and there that I had the story. I stood up and walked out of the room, hoping she’d call me back.

She didn’t.

If I didn’t get this assignment, I was going to be super pissed. Mostly because I had promised to become Aubrey’s reunion beck-and-call girl, and that would not be fun.

And because no one else was as personally invested as I was. No one else wanted to see Evan Dawson pushed off his pedestal as much as I did.

“Didn’t go as well as you thought?” Rand asked as I flopped down into my office chair.

“It went just fine,” I told him through clenched teeth. Now was not the time to poke the bear. There might be teeth, claws, and blood in response.

He didn’t get the message. “Too bad. The Winnowing is coming, and I bet this would have helped you get hired on to an actual paying position.”

As Rand kept talking about how he was sure his own job was secure, I realized I’d been so focused on what I could do to ruin Evan that I hadn’t even thought about the Winnowing. Brenda talked about the Winnowing often—she hired a lot of interns and a year later gave only about a quarter of them a job. It was an effective scare tactic to keep us all in line and doing whatever she asked.

Our year was nearly up. We’d been hired in January, and it was November.

I had to stay here. I had to become an announcer for ISEN. It had been my dream my entire life.

“May I have your attention?” Brenda stood on a low coffee table just outside her office. “I wanted to thank everyone for their pitches, but I’ve selected the intern who will break this story wide open for us.”

The interns from the outer cubicles came forward, all eager to hear her announcement. I’d been so cocky about getting the assignment, it just occurred to me that despite my history with Evan, I realistically had a one-in-thirty chance.

My heart leaped up in my throat, making it impossible to breathe.

Rand waggled his eyebrows at me, as if to say the story was his, and I couldn’t even give him a good sarcastic retort since my nerves and displaced heart were threatening to suffocate me.

“The intern I’ve selected is ... Ashton Bailey!”

Relief washed over me, and there were some mumblings and halfhearted claps in response to Brenda’s announcement.

I’d done it. I’d won.

It was the first step to making all my dreams come true.

“Ashton, can I see you in my office?”

I nodded and hurried forward. I sat back down in the seat I’d recently vacated.

“I want this to be your first priority. Spend your days getting this story. You don’t need to physically be here every day while you’re working on this. Come into the office once a week to check in with me, and send me an email every time you get new information. All of your other responsibilities are suspended. I’ll have the other interns pick up your slack.” Oh, they would love that. “You probably won’t be keeping normal business hours while you investigate, but anything you need to do in order to uncover the truth about Evan Dawson, I want you to do it. Got it?” Brenda’s voice was strong and determined. And strangely invested in getting the result she wanted.

“Got it,” I said. She was offering me a lot of freedom. Which I planned on taking full advantage of.

When I got to my cubicle, I should have been a good sport about winning, but I couldn’t keep the grin off my face.

“Huh. Maybe I was wrong about Brenda’s preferences,” Rand remarked.

“Stereotypical man. A woman turns you down, she must be gay. I already told you, I’m better at this than you. When are you going to learn that I’m always right?”

He smiled at me, showing that despite our teasing, he didn’t hold a grudge. He’d still take every advantage, but that was just how things worked on this floor.

Despite my bragging to Rand that I was always right, there was something I’d been wrong about.

Apparently Brenda wanted Evan Dawson off that pedestal every bit as much as I did.

It made me wonder why.

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