“Oh, were you talking to Annie Ross just now? I had no idea.” Yeah, I really sounded believable. Oscar-worthy, in fact.
Drake didn’t take the bait, in fact he decided to cut through all my nonsense, which I found refreshing this time. “I asked her about that rumor she started. She tried to lie about it, but it was pretty easy to trap her in it.”
I narrowed my eyes. He was talking to her about the rumor? They weren’t going to hook up? “Is that all you talked about?”
“Of course, what do you take me for? Why would I want to talk to her about anything else after what she pulled on you? That’s bush-league, and I won’t stand for it. And I told her that.”
He went to bat for me with a national sports reporter. I could feel the tears coming back. Wow, I had misjudged him completely. I figured he would have just let that rumor wash over him.
“I know you’ve been mad at me these last couple days because I asked about the Bill Thompson thing. I apologize for that, I went off half-cocked because I was just so shocked about the rumor itself. As soon as I thought about it for more than 5 seconds I knew you’d never do anything like that.” He looked down. “But sometimes, as you know, I have a bad habit of not thinking things through before I say anything.”
“You really do, you know that?”
He smiled again, and I knew by then I was smiling, even if I hadn’t consciously decided to do so. I really couldn’t understand why Drake had this effect on me. It was more than any other man I had ever met.
“Oh, Drake, it was horrible,” I found myself saying as I threw the door open and charged into his arms. Luckily for both of us he had taken off his pads and was ready for me, cause I jumped into him, and Drake caught me, pulling me like one of his touchdowns.
“I know, I know,” he said, his arms wrapping around me and pulling him closer to him. I suddenly realized we were in the middle of the corridor; if anyone came around any of four corners they would see us all tangled up like this. Drake must have had the same idea because he gently walked forward and took me into my room, closing the door behind him.
I leaned back, comfortable that he wouldn’t let me go, and cradled his head in my hands, puling my face into his and kissing him like my life depended on it.
When I finally pulled back from the kiss, Drake smiled. “It’s been too long since we’ve done any of that.”
“I know, I’ve been in a bit of a mood.”
“Totally understandable. Is it all better now?”
My face clouded. “Some of it, yeah, but there’s still other stuff.”
Drake frowned. “Tell me about it.”
I pointed down to the floor. Drake got the hint and set me down, light as a feather. I smoothed out my outfit and turned and headed into my tiny little room, sitting on the bed. Drake came in and sat next to me, taking my hands in his.
“I just…” I trailed off.
“There, there,” he soothed, which was really weird coming from such a huge guy, but also totally congruent with the real Drake I had come to know over the last couple weeks. “Tell Drake all about it.”
“I just…don’t know if this is the right career for me.”
Drake sat back. “What? Why? You’ve been doing great! Are the numbers from the website not good?” He smiled. “Am I not doing enough crazy shit? Because I can turn on the crazy if you need me too!”
I laughed, pushing him away. “No, you dummy, it’s not you, you’re great. The numbers are great, the Globe is happy with my work. You could dial up the crazy maybe one notch if you wanted, though.”
Drake saluted. “Message received! Commencing craziness.”
“Don’t go all nuts on me now, save it for the field.”
“Right, right. OK, so what’s the problem, then?”
“This whole thing with Annie Ross just has me questioning whether this is what I really want to do. Do I really want to be in a field where people tear each other down like this, just to get a story?”
“But isn’t that every career? You’re always gonna have some bad apples to deal with.”
“True, but at least outside of media you don’t have people tripping over each other just to get the story first. And Annie didn’t even really have anything to gain by spreading that rumor about me! We aren’t even competing against each other for anything anymore.”
Now it was Drake’s turn to cradle my head in his hands.
“Listen to me, Lily. Listen to what I’m saying. You’re so close to making it. You’re so closed to getting exactly what you’ve always wanted, you just have to keep on going. You’re doing great right now, you just gotta make sure you stay the course.”