Hard and Fast

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9780373793433_PL.inddExtracted 1 threads from 9780373793433-exw.PDFUntitled Article 01: UntitledAMANDA WRIGHT was living a dream. New shoes. Expensive outfitalso new. Press pass around her neck allowing entry into a professional baseball players locker rooma room certain to display hot male bodies in various stages of undress. It was the perfect female fantasy come to life. Or it should have been. But right now, Amanda felt as if she were about to walk into the lions den and those lionsaka ballplay- erswere going to eat her alive. Her high heels clicked on the concrete floor of the tunnel leading to the LosAngeles Rayslocker room, her toes pinched and her mind raced. Her journalistic in- stincts buzzed with the thought of the after-game activity on the other side of the door. Still, she hung back, wishing like hell she could tap her heels together and transport herself back to Dallas, Texas. Dallas, the place where shed had a position reporting high school sports for one of the daily newspapers. It didnt matter that her work had lacked any semblance of challenge and leaned dangerously close to boring. Shed had job security.And her parents and her sister. Shed had her comfortable little downtown apartment overlooking White Rock Lakeshe really loved that view. Nerves flooded her system, and she stopped. For a moment, Amanda stood, watching people pass. What would she do if she went into that locker room and made a fool of herself? What would happen if she didnt impress her editor with her first column? Or didnt attract readers? What had she been thinking? She must have been insane to leave her comfortable life behind. And for what? A sports column with her name attached? Didnt seem like such a sweet deal at this moment. She took a deep breath. Adreamcolumn, she reminded herself. On game days she got space in the paper no matter what, just as she had back home. But now shed hit the big time. Twice a week she had her very own feature in the sports section. And this wasnt high school baseball. This was the majors. An oppor- tunity shed fantasized about for years. But, of course, the job had come with extreme pressure. There was one tiny condition she hadnt shared with her family because theyd only worry more than they already were. Her new boss, Kevin Jones, had given her a short time frame in which to build a readership or shed be gone. Seemed her predecessor had left and taken many of his fans with him. When shed asked Kevin how short, hed simply said, oeShort. The ringing of her cell phone offered a welcomed excuse to continue to stall. She shoved a wayward strand of long, auburn hair behind her ear and reached inside her purse, a petite Louis Vuitton bag her sister, Kelli, had given her to celebrate the new job. The minute Amanda hit the Answer button, her sisters voice snapped through the line, a lightning rod of reprimand. oeI knew it. oeKnew what? Kelli ignored the question. &