The newsroom was completely deserted except for the soft hum of the massive industrial printers and the rhythmic, aggressive clicking of Mara’s keyboard. The glowing clock in the corner of her computer screen read 8:43 PM. She had been staring at the same paragraph for twenty minutes, endlessly deleting and rewriting a sentence about the basketball team’s defensive coordination.
It was useless. Every time she tried to focus on the tactical breakdown, her mind aggressively supplied the image of Adrian leaning over the scorer’s table. She could still feel the phantom heat of his body radiating against hers. She could still hear the low, private tenor of his voice bypassing her carefully constructed defenses.
“Don’t believe everything you read on a stat sheet.”
Mara let out a frustrated br
