Ch. 16 – Rico
R ico’s pulse still hadn’t returned to normal by the time they made it back to the station. That’d been a close one. He’d faced off against plenty of desperate and furious men in the past, but the look on Jeff Turnbill’s face—along with his massive red fists—had promised shattered orbital sockets and splintered nasal cavities.
Chuck pulled the van into the station’s parking lot, and they all filed out silently.
“Let’s head back to my office,” Rico told Jax. “We’ve got to get this story ready for air tonight.”
She merely nodded. Jax had been suspiciously quiet on the drive back, though he’d caught her eyes on him in the rearview mirror. A small part of him wished she’d seen him standing up to a corrupt goon like Turnbill. But a much larger portion was eternally relieved she’d stayed put in the van as far away from that volatile situation as possible.
If anything had happened to her . . .
The sudden constriction of his throat made Rico uneasy. Why did he care so much for the young woman clomping at his side in her too-big boots? Especially when the feeling was so obviously not mutual?
When they entered his office, Jax plopped into the chair across from his desk, immediately opened her laptop, and began typing. Rico watched her for a second, wondering what words were filling her screen. Then he focused on his own computer. He had to start on the sewage story immediately. He’d just opened the video file Chuck had sent on their secure messaging platform when Diane leaned into his office.
“You were gone for three hours.” The woman was a bloodhound. “Those giraffe twins must have been pretty interesting.”
Rico gave his producer a wide smile. “Oh, it was. I’m going to have a great story for the six p.m. show. You said five minutes, but I’m going to need ten.”
Diane’s eyes burned with suspicion. “Ten minutes . . . for baby giraffes?”
“You said it yourself, people looooove giraffes,” he responded. “And Susan the zookeeper had so much interesting information to impart.”
“She was, um, really excited to see Rico,” Jax added, twisting in the chair to face Diane. “She asked him to sign a commemorative giraffe plate.”
“Of course she did,” Diane groaned. She gave Rico a long silent stare as if she were trying to peer into his soul. “You have seven minutes,” she finally said, then disappeared into the hallway.
Rico let out a breath.
“So, why exactly are we lying to your boss?” Jax leaned forward on the desk.
“Because I’m going to surprise her with this incredible blockbuster story,” Rico explained. “Obviously.”
Jax huffed a laugh. “Yeah, Diane seems like a person who loves on-air surprises. ”
“Makes her day. Adores clowns and peach daiquiris, too.” Rico glanced at his reflection in the hand mirror he’d hung on the wall behind his desk. The wind had done a number on his hair, and he carefully rearranged it.
“You didn’t get the green light for that story, did you?” Jax’s light brown eyes were alive with curiosity. Her fingers hovered over the keys of her laptop. To buy time, Rico took a few more moments to perfect his hair, then check his teeth in the mirror.
He had to change the subject. “Want to see how the magic happens?” He gave her his best smile.
“If that means what I think you think it means . . .” Her mouth turned down.
“Get your mind out of the gutter,” he chided her. “Do you want to see how a story is created?”
“Really?” Interest sparked in her eyes. “Yeah, that’d be great.” Then she seemed to remember herself and stifled her expression. “You ignored my question.”
But Rico had seen the truth. She might have zero interest in him, but she was clearly hot for journalism. Rico smiled at his reflection. Now he finally knew how to show the beautiful Jacklyn a good time.
He cracked his knuckles. “Let’s get started.”
*
The task was utterly simple and gut-wrenchingly complex. Rico had to turn months of painstaking sleuthing into a compelling, understandable, and hard-hitting news story . . . all in—Rico checked his watch—six hours.
Step one: Write a script. Minutes streamed by like seconds as Rico reviewed his copious notes and built a basic outline of the story. He felt Jax’s eyes on him as he worked, but she didn’t ask any questions or interrupt his concentration .
When he finished the outline, he printed it out and slid it across the desk to her. “Look that over. Tell me what you think.”
Her eyebrows popped up her forehead. “Me?”
“You watch the news, right?”
“I get all my news on TikTok.” The lift of her lips told him she was joking, thank God. Still, he shuddered.
“Just read it. Tell me if it makes sense or if something’s missing.”
Building out a story was the kind of thing Diane normally helped him with, but since she wasn’t exactly in the loop on his little “surprise,” Jax would have to do in a pinch.
“Give me access to your research,” Jax spoke. It wasn’t a question.
“You’re not trying to scoop me, are you?” he teased.
She rolled her eyes. “You want me to tell you if something is missing? I can’t do that if I don’t know what you have.”
Good point. After a moment of thought, he emailed her an invite to his project folder.
They worked silently, their laptops almost touching, as Rico continued filling out his script and Jax worked on the overview. He couldn’t help but notice her pen scratching words on the outline. Twenty minutes later, she slid it across the desk covered in notes, questions, and recommendations.
Rico’s eyes narrowed on her. Who the hell did this girl think she was? When he occasionally asked interns to do a first sweep on scripts he thought were particularly messy, they usually handed it back with a few typo corrections. Even Diane didn’t give him this much feedback.
Jax stood her ground, meeting his gaze with steady confidence. It was a silent duel of willpower. Finally, unable to resist, Rico glanced down at the mutilated outline.
And . . . shit. She’d done good work. She switched up his entire intro, moving the confrontation with Turnbill later and starting with kids getting sick at the beach. It was the right call. Beginning with the children neatly set the stakes of the story and would immediately grab the attention of the viewers. He kept scanning. She’d pointed out areas where he went too far into the weeds with his research. Keep it simple, she’d written several times. She’d even suggested where he could add more research to better support his points. Don’t tell the viewers what to think, she chided him in one note. Show them the evidence. They’ll understand.
He looked up at Jax—still staring at him—then down at the outline again. Without a word, he printed his script and put it down in front of her.
“Review this,” he said. She nodded.
By the time he’d implemented a good portion of her recommendations into the first draft of his script, she had already pushed her copy across the desk. The poor thing was massacred. They repeated the process three more times. They argued about the story’s structure, how to tie the pieces together, and how deeply to explain the main points. Jax fought valiantly and won more arguments than Rico felt comfortable with.
By the end of the third read-through, the script was tight. Strong. Possibly one of his best. Even Jax couldn’t conceal the pride that shone on her face as she skimmed the final draft.
“You still explain too much and spend too much time on Turnbill instead of the systemic issues of price cuts in vital infrastructure,” she said.
He tugged the script from her hands. “Turnbill is the embodiment of the problem. He makes it easier for the viewers to understand.”
“But—”
“My story. My decision.” He grinned as her mouth turned into a pout. “Come along, now.” He stood from his desk .
“Where are we going?” Jas asked, following him out of his office.
“To see some very good friends.”
*
“No fucking way.” Pierce crossed his hairy arms over a T-shirt featuring some vaguely familiar spaceship. “I’d rather eat gawk .”
“Come on, you’re my best friend,” Rico wheedled as he and Jax stood in the station’s cramped technician booth.
The video engineer gave him a stink eye that could clear a stadium. “I’m only your best friend when you need me to produce a video under some insane deadline.”
“The story’s just seven minutes,” Rico said. “You can do seven minutes. Also, what’s gawk ?”
“The broadcast is in three hours!” Pierce exploded.
“Gawk is serpent worms, a Klingon delicacy,” Jax noted.
Pierce did some of his own gawking at the girl. “You watch Star Trek ?”
“Do Ferengis like gold-pressed latinum?” she answered.
“Marry me.” Pierce rolled his chair up to her and clasped his hands in a begging motion.
Jax gave him a smile. “How about you make our video and I’ll think about it?”
“For this P’Tok never,” Pierce said, nodding to Rico, “but for you, fair lady, I shall.”
“Thanks, Pierce.” Jax held up her hand and split her fingers in a way Rico only knew from memes. “Live long and prosper, friend.”
Pierce practically drooled as he mimicked the gesture.
When Jax and Rico re-emerged into the hallway, he stopped and turned to her. “ Our video?”
Jax shrugged. “It worked, didn’t it?”
“I didn’t realize you were such a nerd. ”
Jax didn’t back down an inch. “Haven’t you heard? Nerd is cool now.”
“What’s a P’Tok ?”
“You don’t want to know. Where to next?”
Next was the station’s sound booth where Rico showed Jax his own rather well-developed skill set.
“Yo-lan-da,” he sang to the squat, silver-haired sound technician. “Mi amor, I need to steal some time in the recording studio.”
Yolanda shook her head, causing her huge hummingbird earrings to sway. “Would if I could, honey, but we’re all booked for the day.”
Rico gave Jax a watch this look, strolled to Yolanda’s desk, and leaned against it. “Yolanda, I’ve got the story of the century here. Breaking news. I need to record it for the six p.m. broadcast.”
“It’s always the story of the century with you,” Yolanda answered, but she batted her eyes, and Rico could tell she was already beginning to give.
He sat on the edge of her desk, nudging aside a few of the hundred framed pictures of her grandchildren. “Mi amor,” he said again, busting out his puppy dog eyes. “You can make room for me.”
“Maybe if you could have Diane call me . . .” she murmured.
“Diane’s super busy right now, but she’d definitely back me up on this,” he assured Yolanda. “Those earrings are gorgeous. Where’d you get them?”
“Don’t even think of flattering me,” she gushed, clearly loving every minute of it.
“Five minutes. That’s all I need,” he purred. “You’re such a talented scheduler. I know you can make it work. And I’d owe you a favor.”
“You already owe me eighteen favors.”
Shit, she was counting ?
“Now it’s nineteen.” He turned his puppy-dog eyes to full power. Yolanda bit her lip, looked away. He could practically feel her walls crumbling against the onslaught of his charm.
Yolanda sighed. “You’re impossible. Fine. As soon as Janice is done in there, you can slip in. I’ll push everything else back. BUT.” She waved a long-nailed finger at him. “Five minutes.”
He crossed his heart and sang her praises. When he turned to Jax, she gave him a silent slow clap in appreciation of his efforts.
A few minutes later, Jax sat next to Yolanda at the recording panel. Rico gave her a thumbs-up through the window of the recording studio as he affixed his headphones, then read the lines they’d written together. Pierce would lay Rico’s narration over the video he was developing, introducing the story, laying out the evidence, and bookending the live recording he’d done earlier in the day.
After twenty minutes and three rounds of recording, Rico felt confident that he’d given Yolanda enough to work with. She’d edit the best takes together and send it to Pierce. In an hour or so, the video technician would have a first run for Rico to review. Some reporters basically walked away from the story at this point, but Rico usually did a few more rounds of edits and tweaks until the entire presentation felt perfect . . . or, more often, until the broadcast deadline forced him to let go of the story.
With a short reprieve, he and Jax returned to his office, and he practically fell into his office chair. She settled on the small couch against the wall. He closed his eyes for a moment.
“So there is rest for the wicked,” she said. He could hear the smile in her voice.
“Shhhh, I’m savoring,” he answered. His brain and body felt depleted, proof that he’d put his all into the story.
“You’re kind of weird. ”
He didn’t open his eyes. “Says the girl who speaks Klingon.”
“I just know a few words. My brother is the Trekkie,” she admitted. “I used to babysit him a lot when we were growing up, and he always wanted to watch episodes.”
“So nerd runs in the family.” Rico opened his eyes, spun in his chair, and opened the mini fridge in the back corner of his office. He took out two reusable lidded plastic cups and set one on the edge of his desk for her.
“Can I offer you a late lunch?” He nudged the cup to the edge of the desk.
Scooting to the end of the couch, Jax reached over and grasped the cup in her hand. “Before I went to college, my mom Clarissa told me a million times that I should never take a drink from a man unless I watch him make it.”
Rico chuckled. “It’s a protein shake.”
Jax looked him up and down. “Why am I not surprised that you down protein shakes for lunch?”
“Usually I heat up a chicken and rice bowl, but I don’t have the energy today,” he told her. “Plus, I gotta keep swole somehow.” He flexed his arms, a move he might have occasionally practiced in his bathroom mirror. Any other woman would have drooled at the push of his biceps beneath his shirt sleeves. Jax only laughed and shook her head.
At least her laugh wasn’t mean. Over the past few hours, her quills had started falling away. His beautiful little porcupine had smiled more. Laughed more. Beneath those quills, Rico had discovered an incredibly intelligent, curious, and fascinating woman. Most thrilling of all, Jax seemed to care almost as much as he did about telling their story the right way .
Their story? Rico shook his head as he swallowed a gulp of the smoothie. What was wrong with him? He never shared credit. Ever.
“Thanks for all your help,” he told her.
“It’s been really interesting.” She looked away quickly as if embarrassed by her earnestness. She took a tentative sip of the smoothie. “Mmmm, this is actually good. I kind of expected it to taste like chard and tuna.”
“Peanut butter is the secret ingredient,” he admitted.
She smiled and took a longer sip. “You ever going to do that giraffe story?”
He spun a little in his chair. “I’ll put something together tomorrow. Hopefully Susan the zookeeper won’t be too disappointed if she watches the broadcast tonight.”
“She’ll be crying into that commemorative plate,” Jax said, and he laughed.
She put the protein shake on the desk and leaned forward on the couch. “You’re different than I expected.”
“Really?” What had she expected? Then again, Rico wasn’t sure he wanted to know.
Jax looked at him, her eyes deep and guileless. “You really do love this, don’t you? Journalism.”
He nodded. “I told you I was a good reporter.”
“I know, but . . .”
“Shame on you for doubting the Encinitas Chamber of Commerce,” he mocked, pointing at the 30 Under 30 certificate on his wall.
“What made you get into journalism?” She’d taken her computer from her bag and had it on her lap.
It was far from the first time he’d been asked this question, and Rico had a perfect, polished answer at the ready. But he didn’t give Jax that answer. The words he spoke came from a deeper, less filtered place. Something in him hoped she might understand.
“I hate when powerful people take advantage of the little guy.”
Her brow furrowed. “What do you mean?”
Rico looked up at the ceiling, gathering his thoughts. “There are so many people in this world who think they can step on others to get their way. And they usually do. Health insurance companies make money by denying coverage to their clients. Payday lenders take advantage of people in their most desperate hours. Even the local city councilman gets his kid’s drunk driving arrest knocked down to a speeding ticket because he has the police chief on speed dial.”
He sighed. “Those are the people I want to expose. The corrupt. The cruel. The hypocrites. The ones who think they’re safe from scrutiny.”
He stopped. Jax was staring at him again, those gorgeous whiskey eyes peering into his soul. He looked away. “It sounds so fucking corny when I say it out loud.”
“It doesn’t.” Her voice was a whisper, but her words made roses bloom in his heart.
They were quiet for a moment. Then Jax cleared her throat. “What made you such a crusader?”
“Things I saw growing up.” Rico had to tread carefully here. He couldn’t reveal too much, not when she was finally warming up to him.
“Right. You grew up in Yucca Hills. What was that like?”
Nope. Not going there. Jax was edging into the places and memories he wanted to forget. Rico leaned across the desk.
“Enough about me. What about you? What are you studying at school? ”
Jax sat up straighter on the couch. “I’m interviewing you, remember?”
“Part of interviewing a subject is building rapport,” he shot back. “Especially for a profile piece. You can’t just take, take, take.” He paused. “You’ve got to give a little, too.”
She sat back. Crossed her arms. It was like an artic breeze whooshed through the room. Rico almost shivered.
“What do you want to know?” she asked.
“You look older than most college students.”
“Gee, thanks. I’m twenty-two.”
“Senior?”
“Junior. I, uh, took two years off. This is my first year back.” She crossed her legs. The artic breeze grew into a gale.
What was happening? Just a minute ago, she’d been warm and smiling. Now she seemed to be closing off every part of herself to him.
Rico tried to lighten the mood. “Two years off, huh? Let me guess, backpacking trip around Europe to find yourself?”
She scoffed. “I just . . . didn’t really like my first school. And there was a lot of pressure. I was there on a tennis scholarship.”
“Tennis? Beautiful sport.” Great, now all he could picture was Jax leaping across a court in a skimpy, formfitting tennis dress. “Lots of, um . . . rackets and things,” he floundered.
“Why don’t you want to talk about growing up in Yucca Hills?” She turned the convo back around.
“Because it was utterly boring and forgettable,” Rico replied, and switched the tables again. “What are you studying in school?”
“Originally it was business, but I switched to communications this year.” Her eyes skewered him like they were trying to pry open his secrets. “Do you have any siblings? Do your parents still live in town? ”
“My family is around.” Rico leaned his elbows on his desk and studied her a moment. “You want to be a journalist, don’t you? This interview, it’s more than an assignment.”
“I, um.” Jax squirmed on the couch. It was the first time all day Rico felt like he had the upper hand. The feeling was glorious.
Her phone dinged. She glanced at it, and her eyes widened. “Shit. I didn’t even realize what time it was.” She hurriedly closed her laptop and shoved it into her battered messenger bag. “I’m going to be late for work.”
“Theo will forgive you,” Rico told her. “Call in and stick around. See the story go live.” Jax ignored him and slung the bag over her shoulder. She moved to the door of his office, then paused and looked back at him. “It’s been . . .” Pause. Long pause. Brutal pause. “Interesting,” she finally decided.
Rico stood from his seat. Jax couldn’t go yet. She’d just gotten here. He glanced at his phone. Okay, so it’d been over eight hours, but still . . .
“There’s so much more I can tell you about myself,” he said, the words waterfalling out of his mouth without thought. “You’ve just barely scratched the surface of Rico Torres. Let me take you out to—”
“I’ll text if I have more questions,” she called as she walked out the door.
. . . dinner.
He jogged around his desk and stood in the doorway. “Your shoe’s untied,” he called after her. She flipped him the bird.
With a long sigh, Rico returned to his desk and dropped back into his chair. Over the past few hours, something had sparked between them. Something hot, exciting, and surprisingly deep. As her quills had dropped, one by one, he’d discovered her passion and drive beneath them. He needed more time with her .
But how?
Could he suggest another interview meeting? No. Too formal. A romantic gesture? Rico clasped his hands behind his head. Maybe that could work. But what? It’d have to be something sweet and personal. Something that would melt through her icy exterior like a blowtorch. An idea flickered in his mind.
Thoughtful. Personal. Sweet. And just a little sexy, too.
Rico smiled. It was perfect.