Chapter Six
How’d your presentation go?”
Robb makes a noise of malcontent.
“No,” Denise gasps, abandoning picking at her green hair’s split ends. “How could John say no? A Modern Classics vertical would be brilliant.”
Robb sighs. “He didn’t say ‘no,’ not really, just ‘not yet.’ It’s ‘under consideration.’”
I lean back slightly, out of the danger zone of her overzealous finger quotes, my shoulder squeaking against the glass conference room wall.
The Monday pitch meeting ended half an hour ago, but as the only women on staff, Robb, Denise, and I always congregate in the hallway after to bemoan whatever pitches we didn’t get approved and celebrate each other’s wins.
Before I can press Robb for details, the door to John’s office opens.
“Donavan, a word, please,” he barks.
I straighten automatically, feeling like a kid about to be grounded. Mentally, I run back everything I could have done wrong, ever.
I exchange a nervous look with Robb, who shrugs in a way that says, Your guess is as good as mine.
Crossing over to John’s office, I poke my head in trepidatiously.
“Come in,” he calls, already settled back behind his desk. “Take a seat. Shut the door. Not necessarily in that order.”
I close the door behind me, but with the glass walls, it does little to provide privacy beyond muffling our voices to passersby.
Settling into the leather chair that, to my horror, squeaks like a fart as I sink into it, I suppress a childish giggle as John surveys me over his steepled fingers.
“Donavan,” he says. I think he intends it to sound fond, almost paternal, but the alarm bells in my head remind me this is how my father used to sit us all down before extracting truths out of his five half-feral children, who might or might not have been colluding on a lie about what really broke the oven door / couch / bunk beds / you name it.
I smile weakly at him, unsure what the purpose of this meeting is.
I scan his face for clues, but I’ve never really been able to figure John out.
With his salt-and-pepper hair, he’s like the George Clooney of music journalism.
His light blue eyes are always twinkling with a scintillating story that he’ll tell a little too close to your face, enveloping you in his ever-present cigarette-and-coffee aura.
John shakes his head at me, and I have no clue why.
“What do you have on your plate right now?” he asks, taking a sip of his coffee with one hand and clicking his computer mouse with the other.
Am I being fired?
I open my mouth to speak but no sound comes out, panic throttling my vocal cords.
Swallowing, I take a deep breath before trying again.
“Just the next Artists to Watch piece,” I admit pathetically.
He could totally be firing me. Robb could take back that recurring piece, and I could be let go, my five-year plan blown to smithereens.
Before my thoughts can spiral further, John speaks.
“Good,” he says with a grin. Surely that’s not an I’m firing you grin. “Your Hollow Graves piece is doing really well online,” he tells me.
I know this already. It was my first big online article with AP, and I check its stats every morning from bed in a way that I’m entirely aware is unhealthy.
I feel bad for Hudson, his band’s article completely overshadowed by who I quoted, the internet abuzz with conspiracy theories about why Dax has come out of the woodwork, most of them correctly deducing the band would be announcing something soon.
“Good work getting that Dax Nakamura quote,” John says with a slight widening of his eyes. “I thought I was hallucinating when I read your draft.”
I nod, forcing a small smile. Not hallucinating hard enough that he didn’t eviscerate my draft with his red pen. His repeated note of Voice? over and over in the margins still haunts me, affirming my fears that my previous mentor beat it out of me.
“More importantly,” he continues, entirely comfortable being the only one really speaking in this conversation, “you impressed Hollow Graves’ manager. Do you know who else they manage?”
“Final Revelations, Nocturnal Creatures, Undead Kings,” I rattle off, unsure where this is going.
John leans across the desk, light blue eyes sparkling as he nods slowly. He beckons me closer with one finger, like he’s about to let me in on some big secret. This man is dramatic as all hell, a true storyteller.
“Final Revelations,” he echoes in an awestruck whisper, his coffee-cigarette breath clouding my senses.
“I don’t understand,” I whisper back.
John’s Cheshire grin widens. “They want you to write another article.”
I blink, still confused. “About… who?”
John slaps his hands against the desk like he’s playing the drums, an outlet for the boyish cheer now crinkling the corners of his eyes. “About Final Revelations.”
I understand what he’s saying, in theory. I know the words, but what he means doesn’t make sense. Final Revelations doesn’t speak to the press. They haven’t in eight years. There’s no way Dax agreed to this, much less agreed to do it with me. A quote is one thing, but a whole article?
John’s face falls. “Donavan,” he says, clearly disappointed by my lack of reaction. “This is the article of the fucking decade. Why are you not jumping out of your chair? Are you in shock?”
My jaw moves, an attempt to speak is made, but I have no idea what to say.
“She’s in shock,” John says to what I presume is his ever-present invisible audience. Then his reporter instincts must kick in, his eyes narrowing. “Or is it something else? Something I should know?”
His gaze pins me to the spot. If this is really happening, if Final Revelations wants to do their first interview in eight years, then our history is absolutely a conflict of interest. Right?
Or is there a statute of limitations on such things?
Does three years of silence undo six weeks of Technicolor?
An article of this caliber was in my five-year plan, not my five-month plan. I’d be a fool to pass this up.
The memory of Dax walking me to my car replays in my mind, the false stops and starts as we attempted to make conversation.
Conflict of interest aside, I’m not convinced we could pull this off.
I should say no. John should give the article to Robb.
She’s been here longer, is friends with the Final guys, could write this in her sleep. The words get stuck in my throat.
“Could I think about it?” I manage.
John looks like his eyes are going to bulge out of his head. “Is there,” he says slowly, emphasizing each word, “something I should know?”
I’m hurtled back in time to being sat down by my father at the kitchen table, the shattered oven door over his shoulder.
Him asking me if the story my brothers and I all told about the barstool falling over and shattering the glass was true, how I wiped the memory of Bryce and Nate playing WWE with the folding chair, the oven door a casualty of their animated wrestling match.
I take all my memories of Dax from that summer, the box I’ve kept them in, and shove them inside another box, and another, like the Christmas prank my brothers pull on my dad every year.
My face impassively blank, I tell John the same thing I told my dad about the oven door, the basement couch, and the bunk beds’ suspiciously early demise. “No. Nothing you need to know.”
John’s eyes flick over me inscrutably, and I shrug.
I’m perhaps a bit too good at lying after all my brothers’ shenanigans.
“I met them, the Final guys, a few years ago at Punkapalooza. They were nice.” The trick to a convincing lie is to tell as much truth as you can.
If I gave him the full truth, I’d only be confirming what everyone thinks of female music journalists anyway—that we’re groupies, starfuckers, not actual journalists.
“It’s just… like you said, this will be huge.
I wouldn’t pitch you something I hadn’t done my research on first. I want to make sure I’m the right person for this, that I have an angle, before I say yes.
Otherwise, it should go to Robb. She knows them well. ”
John finally leans back, swiveling side to side slightly in his desk chair. “They said to give it to her if you passed,” John admits, and I realize his inquisition was not spur-of-the-moment but intended to catch me off guard.
“That’s fair,” I say diplomatically.
“But they asked for you,” John continues, suspicion still present in the downturn of his mouth.
“They believe in paying it forward,” I say, referencing my Dax quote in the Hollow Graves piece, sending up a silent thanks to him for such a perfect cover.
“I haven’t spoken to them in years”—mostly true—“but maybe they just want to give me a leg up.” True?
I have no idea why they’re doing this—blindsiding me with this—but I will be finding out as soon as I’m free of John’s too-piercing gaze.
He hums noncommittally. “Well, it would be quite a leg up, to be sure.” He folds his arms on the desk.
“Full transparency? If we weren’t on a hiring freeze right now, I’d have brought you on full-time already.
Nailing this article is how I can make a case to get you on board.
I believe you can do this,” he says emphatically.
I want to believe him. “But I’m not going to kick you out of the nest either.
I want you and Robb to work together on this.
She brought you in, vouched for you. The two of you work together well, and she’s been wanting more responsibility.
I think this would be a win-win for both of you. ”
Having Robb in my corner does instill a modicum of confidence in me.
Especially after how John massacred my last piece.
I blink, and his chicken-scratch notes of Voice?
Voice? Voice? flash before my eyes. I shake my head on the pretext of getting my hair out of my face, and the red pen clears from my vision.
“I’ll let you know before the end of the day,” I promise. I need to get out of the office, the air suddenly heavy in my lungs, the walls too close and too glass, too visible.
John hesitates for a moment before conceding with a nod.
Gathering my bag from my feet, I slip out of the chair, pausing at the door when John speaks.
“Donavan,” he calls softly. “Don’t pass this up because you’re afraid to be great.”
I nod once, blinking rapidly at the pinpricks stinging my eyes. I’m not used to having a boss who believes in me. If I can pull off this article, perhaps I’ll believe in me again, too.
The moment I’m clear of John’s glass office doors, I’m tugging my phone from my backpack’s side pocket, avoiding everyone’s gazes so I don’t get pulled into a conversation. I don’t know that I breathe until I’m outside.
I scroll through my contacts until I find his name, my thumb bouncing between the dial and message buttons.
The same ones I stared at for weeks after we broke up, never mustering the courage to use either, until eventually the urge dulled, too much time passing for my pride to allow me to use them.
Those old feelings sharpen, intertwining with my insecurities about the opportunity being laid at my feet, then twist into anger.
How dare he. I asked him for an exclusive outside the studio, and he said no.
Now he changes his mind, dangling the interview of the century in front of my boss’s face without talking to me about it first?
I slam the dial button, bringing the phone to my ear, pacing back and forth on the gravel parking lot.
It rings and rings before going to voicemail.
I don’t bother listening to the message, hanging up and dialing again.
After the first few redials, I realize I’m being slightly unhinged about this, but before I can hang up, the call connects.
“’Lo?”
My knees give out. It’s definitely the gravel shifting underfoot and not my body’s innate reaction to Dax’s raspy morning voice.
“Hi,” I breathe, all the anger and fight whisked away on the slight breeze.
“Someone better have died for you to be calling this early,” he grumbles.
“It’s nearly noon, Nakamura.”
He grunts, and I can hear the rustling of sheets on the other side of the line.
I don’t try to picture him in bed, but it’s hard not to when the memory is seared into my brain like graffiti I can’t remove.
Him turning to watch me across the pillows, the curls atop his head sticking out in every direction, his crooked septum piercing reflecting the early morning light, his tattoos dancing as his muscles ripple beneath them.
My fingers twitch, longing to trace the lines of the Ghibli-esque dragon that wraps around his left arm, from the face on the back of his hand up to the tail at his shoulder, where it disappears into the tangled branches that form a canopy over the reaper at his back before joining the tree on his right side, the skulls nestled amongst the tree’s roots, which wrap around his right hip and disappear into the dip there—
I’m grateful for the breeze that coasts along my now-overheated skin.
Banishing the image, I wrap my arm across my chest like armor. “Anything you want to ask me?”
A beat of silence, and then, “Oh, fuck.” I am definitely not thinking about him saying those words in bed, in a very different context. “Sloane,” he murmurs.
I close my eyes against him first-naming me. I’m so used to being called Donavan by everyone that it feels overly intimate.
“I was going to talk to you today—”
“Great,” I say, cutting him off. “Meet me at Grindcore. You’re paying.”
A startled laugh crackles over the line. “Of course.” A moan of pleasure escapes him as he stretches like a cat in sunshine, his morning habits still seared into my mind. The sense memory of it all has me sweating somewhere that’s not my armpits. “I’ll be there in fifteen.”
I hang up without saying anything, because my tongue is in knots at how he can’t help but be indecently sexy, even when half-awake. It doesn’t bode well for my ability to professionally interview him.
Why am I even considering this?
But… how can I not?