Chapter 28
Brooke
My apartment is quiet in a way that used to feel like peace. I drop my bag by the door and stand in the entryway for a moment, taking in the space I’ve called home for the past eight years.
There’s the exposed brick, the vintage leather couch I found at an estate sale in Brooklyn and bribed three friends to help carry up four flights of stairs, and the bookshelves crammed with everything from Pulitzer-winning journalism to the trashy novels I keep on the bottom shelf where no one will notice them.
The floor-to-ceiling windows that sold me on this place look out over a city that’s currently gray with late autumn drizzle, and normally that view makes me feel like I’ve made it, like every sacrifice was worth it.
Tonight it just feels empty.
I kick off my heels and walk across the hardwood to the kitchen, the cold floor a shock against my bare feet.
The wine rack has a nice Rioja that’s been waiting for a special occasion, and I decide that surviving a week in Phoenix covering the WNBA Finals counts as special enough.
The cork comes out with a satisfying pop and I pour myself a generous glass, not bothering with the pretense of moderation.
The Finals had been incredible, actually.
A Cinderella story, a fifth-seeded team clawing their way to a championship behind a rookie point guard who played like she had something to prove to everyone who’d ever doubted her.
I’d filed three pieces in four days, conducted a dozen interviews, and watched some of the best basketball I’d seen all year.
The kind of assignment that reminds me why I fell in love with this job in the first place, with sports and storytelling and the privilege of bearing witness to people achieving impossible things.
But the whole time I was there, through every interview and every press scrum and every late night filing stories on deadline, my mind kept drifting back to Mexico City. To Dominic.
In another life, we’d said.
I press my forehead against the cool glass of the window and close my eyes, letting myself feel the weight of it. I miss him.
My phone buzzes on the coffee table, startling me out of the spiral, and I glance at it expecting Dara or maybe my mom checking that I landed safely.
Instead it’s a voicemail notification from Harrison.
I stare at the screen. After I’d reported David, Harrison had assured me he was taking it seriously, and a few weeks later David was put on probation.
Progress, but not resolution. Then right before Phoenix, Harrison had pulled me aside and told me to hang tight, that he had something in the works.
He wouldn’t say more than that, but the look on his face told me to be patient.
A voicemail from him at this hour suggests the wait is over.
I set down my wine glass and press play.
“Brooke, it’s Harrison. I know you’re traveling, but I wanted to reach you as soon as possible. There’s been a development with the David situation, and I’d like to discuss that opportunity I mentioned. Call me back when you get this, please. Doesn’t matter how late.”
I stare at the phone for a long moment, then dial his number before I can overthink it.
He picks up on the second ring. “Brooke. Thanks for calling back so quickly. How was Phoenix?”
“Exhausting but worth it,” I say, settling onto the couch and tucking my legs underneath me. “Hell of a series and that rookie is going to be a superstar. What’s going on?”
“David,” Harrison says, and I can hear him settling back in his chair, the creak of expensive leather coming through the phone.
“Remember when I told you I was taking your complaint seriously? I meant it. But I’ll be honest with you, Brooke.
David’s been here a long time. Untangling someone like that from an organization takes more than one incident, no matter how egregious. ”
“So nothing’s changed,” I say flatly, frustration rising in my chest.
“Actually, everything’s changed.” Harrison sighs.
“He did it again. Worse this time. Burned a source publicly, named someone who’d been promised anonymity in a piece about referee corruption in the NBA.
The source is threatening legal action, the league is furious, advertisers are pulling contracts.
It’s exactly the kind of disaster that finally gives the board the ammunition they need to act. ”
I let out a slow breath, because it’s David’s arrogance finally catching up with him, that same dismissive attitude that made him think he could publish my notes without permission, the same belief that rules were for other people and consequences were for lesser men.
Dara is going to lose her mind when I tell her.
“So what does this mean?” I ask.
“It means David is being transitioned to a consulting role,” Harrison says, and I can hear the corporate speak for what it is. Not fired, because men like David are never quite fired, but irrelevant. Powerless. Done. “Which creates a vacancy at the top of the masthead. And I want you to fill it.”
I almost drop my wine glass. “I’m sorry, what?”
“Senior Editor,” Harrison says. “Not just David’s old position.
We’re restructuring, expanding the role.
More authority, more budget, more control over the direction of the entire publication.
You’d have final say on which stories we pursue, which writers we hire, how we allocate resources across the magazine.
You’d be shaping what sports journalism looks like at one of the most respected publications in the industry. ”
My heart is pounding so hard I can feel it in my throat.
This isn’t just a promotion. This is everything.
The corner office with the view of Bryant Park.
My name on the masthead in a font size that actually means something.
The power to greenlight the stories that matter and kill the ones that don’t.
But more than that, it’s the chance to fix what’s been broken for so long.
All those years watching David hand the big breaking stories to the same handful of writers who looked like him while questioning everyone else’s sources and credentials.
All those times he called me dramatic for having legitimate grievances, or assumed I got access because I flirted my way in.
“The compensation reflects the expanded scope,” Harrison continues.
“We’re talking a significant increase. And there’s something else I want you to consider.
” He pauses. “David was old school, needing to be physically present because his authority depended on people seeing him exercise it. But we’re open to a different model for whoever takes this role.
Remote work when it makes sense. Travel for the stories that matter.
The flexibility to be based wherever you need to be, as long as the work gets done and the magazine keeps thriving. ”
My throat tightens. I’ve had recruiters from other publications dangling exactly this kind of flexibility for years, trying to lure me away.
I never even considered it. The Sporting Standard is the top of the mountain, the place I clawed my way to and refused to leave no matter how frustrating David made things.
I’d just accepted that this was the tradeoff: prestige and platform in exchange for the old-school grind.
“Brooke?” Harrison’s voice cuts through. “You still there?”
“Yes. Sorry. I’m just...” I let out a breath that’s half laugh, half disbelief. “This is a lot to take in.”
“I know it’s sudden,” he says. “And I know you just got off a plane. But I wanted you to hear it from me before the rumor mill got spinning. You’ve earned this, Brooke. You’ve been carrying more weight than your title reflected for years, and it’s time we fixed that.”
“Thank you,” I say. “I’m very interested. I just need a day or two to wrap my head around the logistics.”
“Of course,” Harrison says. “I’ll email you with the specifics, and take until end of week. Call me when you’re ready.”
We hang up, and I sit there in the silence of my apartment, the city lights blurring through the rain-streaked windows.
Senior Editor. The authority to shape the magazine instead of just writing for it.
The chance to mentor the next generation of journalists who are fighting the same battles I fought, and give them the support I never had.
The opportunity to build something bigger than my own byline, something that will outlast my career and make the industry better for the people who come after me.
I get up and walk to the window, pressing my palm against the cool glass. The restless energy that’s been building since Phoenix finally demands movement, so I pace the length of my living room, turning the decision over in my mind.
Harrison said flexibility. Remote work. The ability to be based wherever I need to be.
Which means I could be in New York when I need to be in New York, for meetings and events and the face-time that still matters in this industry. And I could be somewhere else when I don’t.
Somewhere like Dark River, Washington. Where my parents are getting older in ways I noticed during my last visit, my dad moving a little slower and my mom squinting at menus like her reading glasses need a new prescription.
Where I grew up and ran away from and have kept at arm’s length for so long because going back meant confronting everything I left behind.
Where Dominic lives.
I sink back onto the couch and look out the window at the city I love, millions of lights glittering through the rain, a thousand possibilities spread out in every direction.
Normally that view settles something in me, reminds me why I fought so hard to get here and stay here.
Tonight I just feel overwhelmed, my mind spinning with everything Harrison said and everything it could mean, and I pull out my phone and scroll to my mom’s contact.
Right now I just need to hear her voice.