Hi, readers! Below is the opening chapter of The Hoe-stories entitled, “The Rise of the Phoenix” written by my best friend. I hope you enjoy it! I look forward to your comments!
The Rise of the Phoenix
Chapter One
The breakroom at NorCal Nine smelled like burnt coffee and someone’s three-day-old meal prep going off in the fridge. The fluorescents hummed, the microwave ticked down, and Jenny Cruz stood watching her tamales turn behind the scratched plastic door, one hip against the counter. White blazer, crisp. Fitted white slacks. The coral blouse underneath was tailored close — professional, but hers. Dark hair fell past her shoulders in the blowout she’d spent twenty minutes that morning making look like she hadn’t. Liner sharp and winged, brows arched, lips in a nude that filled out her mouth without announcing itself.
She’d labeled the container SÚPER PICANTE — NO COMAS in red Sharpie when she made them two nights ago, because her Irish roommate would see those words and back the fuck off. The tamales weren’t even that spicy — just her salsa verde, the recipe she’d learned watching her abuela before everything went to shit — but Bella didn’t need to know that.
The microwave screamed its final warning. Jenny pulled the door open, peeled back the plastic, and the smell hit her — masa, pork, cilantro, lime. Perfect.
“Ay Dios mío,” she said to no one, that smoky rasp that made people lean in to catch her. “Mira, I outdid myself this time.”
“Damn, Cruz.” Ray Delgado was already in the doorway, following his nose. The camera operator had been at the station since the nineties, salt-and-pepper hair, permanent squint from too many years behind a lens. “What’d you bring?”
“Tamales, güero.” Jenny grabbed a plastic fork and carried her container to the breakroom table like an offering. She didn’t sit so much as claim the chair, one leg crossed over the other, the Cruz Cakes pushing against the back of her slacks. “Made them Sunday. Spent the whole pinche day wrapping these little bastards.”
Desiree Thompson pushed in behind Ray, production badge swinging from her lanyard. “Why’s it say super spicy?”
“Porque—” Jenny jabbed the fork toward the label, “—mi roommate is a five-foot Irish hurricane who eats everything she sees, sabes que? I gotta protect my shit or I come home to empty containers and her looking at me like, what? I was hungry.”
“The fighter?” Ray pulled up a chair.
“Bella, sí.” Jenny took a bite, fork still in the air as she talked around the food. “This güera eats like the world’s ending mañana. Pizza for breakfast, raw eggs in the blender — I swear to God, Ray, raw fucking eggs — whatever she finds in the fridge. One time I left Chinese food and came home to licked-clean cartons. Didn’t even leave the fortune cookie.”
Desiree laughed. “So you label everything super spicy?”
“Her pale Irish ass can’t handle heat for shit.” Jenny gestured with the fork, sauce flying a little. “I write súper picante and she treats it like I’m threatening her with La Llorona herself. Meanwhile?” Another bite, chewed slow. “Just my regular salsa. Nothing a normal person can’t handle.”
“That’s cold,” Ray said, grin spreading.
“That’s survival, mijo.” She pointed the fork at him. “You don’t live with Bella Kelly and keep your leftovers by being nice. You gotta be estratégica.”
“Speaking of strategy—” Desiree was already settling in, sensing a story.
“Órale, escuchen esto—” Jenny leaned forward, voice dropping into something conspiratorial, hands coming up. “Yesterday, I’m at la tienda, the grocery store, right? Safeway over on— ¿Perdón, I’m talking here?”
She’d turned her head sharp at Tommy Nguyen, who’d started to say something from the doorway.
Tommy held up both hands. “My bad.”
“Gracias.” She turned back without losing a beat. “So I’m in produce, just trying to buy some mangos, ¿verdad?, living my life. And there’s this man.” She drew the word out, heavy. “Probably forty-something, polo shirt screaming I peaked in high school, and he’s just—” a flick of her free hand, eyes wide “—staring. Not even trying to hide it. Full-on eye-fucking me next to the avocados.”
“Jesus,” Desiree muttered.
“His WIFE is like three feet away comparing tomatoes, completely oblivious, and this pendejo’s got his eyes glued to my ass like it’s got the meaning of life written on it. No manches.” Jenny was up now, couldn’t help it, working it with her whole body. “So I walk right up to the wife. Big smile, real friendly.” She put the smile on, saccharine. “‘Excuse me, mami, your esposo misplaced something.’”
Ray was already grinning.
“She’s confused, right? ‘¿Qué?’ And I go—” the smile went sharp “—‘His eyes, mami. They’re stuck up mi culo, sabes que?’”
Desiree snorted into her hand. Ray shook his head, laughing.
“The wife looks at him, looks at me, back at him.” Jenny paused, savoring it. “You know what she says?”
“What?” Desiree asked.
“‘You can have him, honey. Good luck with that.’” Jenny sat back down and took another bite. “Then she just walks away. Leaves him standing there like a statue. Couldn’t even close his mouth.”
“Did he know?” Ray asked it carefully, testing the weight of it. “I mean—”
“That I’m trans?” Jenny met his eyes, steady, unbothered. “Probably. I’m hot.”
Ray grinned. Desiree nodded, still smiling.
“Straight men, gay men, confused men — they all look the same staring at the Cruz Cakes.” She gestured at herself with the fork. “Man probably went home and had a whole crisis about it, Googling trans women en el baño, ¿verdad?”
She finished the first tamal and reached for the second. This was the good part of her day — not the green screen and the cold fronts while management congratulated themselves for hiring a checkbox, but this. The breakroom, Ray and Desiree and whoever else wandered in, people who’d bothered to know her.
“You should come out with us tonight,” Desiree said. “That new place in Oakland with the rooftop.”
“Can’t. Bella’s teaching one of her self-defense classes and I promised I’d help set up. Plus someone’s gotta make sure she doesn’t accidentally hospitalize anybody on day one.”
“She sounds like a lot,” Ray said.
“She is a lot,” Jenny said, grinning around another bite.
That’s when Doug’s voice came from the newsroom, sharp and confused. “What’s going on? Why are there police here?”
Jenny’s fork stopped halfway to her mouth. Ray and Desiree looked at each other, then at the door. Tommy was already moving into the hallway, and the rest of them went after him.
The newsroom had gone quiet in the way that meant something was wrong. People stood frozen at their desks, phones forgotten, eyes on the anchor desk. Two uniformed officers flanked Jed Morrison, and a detective in a cheap suit was reading him his rights off a small card.
“You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law—”
“This is a mistake,” Jed said, his voice pitched higher than the anchor baritone. “I want my lawyer. I’m not saying anything until my lawyer gets here.”
“You have the right to an attorney—”
Doug stood off to the side, face pale, one hand pressed to his forehead like he was holding his brain inside his skull. Carol, the station manager, had appeared from somewhere with her phone already to her ear, probably corporate.
Jenny leaned against the breakroom doorframe, tamales still in hand, and took another bite. Watched it unfold like a telenovela finale. Ray stood next to her with his arms crossed. Desiree had a hand over her mouth.
The cops walked Jed past them, hands cuffed behind his back, and for a second he met Jenny’s eyes. Cold recognition. The same look he’d been handing her for nine months — disgust dressed up as professional distance. Then he was gone, and the newsroom let out its breath.
“Holy shit,” someone whispered.
Jenny turned and walked back into the breakroom. The others drifted after her, pulled by habit or shock or the need to talk it out. She sat, put her tamales on the table, and waited.
It took about thirty seconds for the speculation to start.
“I heard he was inappropriate with some of the interns last summer,” someone from production said.
From the newsroom, Doug: “I need to know what the charges are—”
A deeper voice, the detective. “This is an ongoing investigation. We can’t discuss details at this time.”
“Sarah from Accounting said he gave her the creeps,” another voice added.
“How long has this been going on?” Doug again, desperate. “I need to make a statement to the press—”
“The charges will be public record once he’s processed. You’ll need to speak with our public information officer.”
“It’s gotta be serious if they arrested him here. At work. During broadcast prep.”
Desiree sat down across from Jenny, quiet. “I always thought he was weird. Every time he talked to me, his eyes were on my chest, not my face. Made my skin crawl.”
Ray nodded slow. “Noticed that too. The way he looked at the younger women. Always made me uncomfortable.”
“You know what I noticed?” Tommy leaned on the counter. “The way he looked at Jenny. Not like that — not sexual. Worse. Like she disgusted him just by existing.”
Jenny kept her face flat, fork moving through the masa. She’d felt those looks for nine months. Every time she passed his desk, every time she handed off the weather during his broadcast. Eyes like ice.
“Yeah,” Desiree said. “I saw that too.”
From the newsroom, Doug’s voice carried through the open door, loud and going under. “Edwin, I need you to come in. I don’t care if you’re sick, we’re live in—” A pause. “You can’t even stand up? Jesus Christ.” A longer one. “No, I don’t want you puking on camera during sports. Stay home then. I’ll figure it out.”
The breakroom went quiet. Everyone heard it. The defeat in it. The math.
No anchor. No sports. Live in an hour and fifteen.
Jenny set down her fork. Stood. Smoothed the blazer.
“Jenny?” Desiree looked up. “What are you doing?”
“My job,” Jenny said. She picked up her tamales, snapped the lid shut, and walked out.
The newsroom was still in pieces. Phones, Carol pacing by the windows, Doug standing in the middle of it watching his career come apart in real time. Jenny crossed to him, heels clicking on the industrial carpet.
“Doug.”
He turned, eyes wild. “Cruz, not now—”
“I’ll do it.”
“What?”
“The anchor desk. I’ll do it. And sports. I can do both.”
For a long moment he just stared, and she could watch him run it — the desperation against the doubt, trying to decide if this was the worst idea he’d ever heard or the only one he had.
“You’re the weather girl,” he said finally, but there was nothing behind it.
“I’m a broadcaster who’s been wasted on weather for nine months, papi.” Her voice settled into the register that made people pay attention. “Poli-sci degree, perfect Spanish, and I know more basketball than anyone in this building, Edwin included. You need somebody who can anchor and cover sports?” She gestured at herself with the hand holding her tamales. “Aquí estoy.”
Doug looked at her. Looked at the empty desk. Looked at his watch. His finger started its slow twirl — fuck it, roll with it.
“Get her ready,” he barked at no one. “Hair, makeup, wardrobe, briefing on tonight’s stories. We’re live in forty-five. Move.”
The newsroom came apart into motion. Ray went for his camera. Someone from production took Jenny’s arm, steering her toward makeup. Desiree appeared with a tablet, pulling the evening’s lineup.
Jenny handed her tamales to Tommy on the way past. “Put these in the fridge for me, yeah?”
“You’re really doing this,” he said, somewhere between awe and disbelief.
Jenny smiled, that wicked curve of her mouth. “You only get one shot, mijo.”
The makeup mirror gave her back a face she’d done herself that morning and barely needed touched. Jenny Cruz, weather girl. Jenny Cruz, the diversity hire they wheeled out and patted themselves on the back for.
Day one had been the green screen and the crew watching her like an experiment, waiting to see if she’d crack. The first hate mail came on day three — slurs, a threat, the disgust spelled out in shaky handwriting. She read it on her lunch break, folded it back up, threw it away, went back to work.
Jed’s eyes every time she passed his desk. Not lust, not even curiosity. Contempt, like she was wearing a costume in a room meant for real people.
But Ray bought her coffee on week two and asked about her weekend like she was a person. Her first broadcast switching to Spanish mid-forecast, Doug’s voice cracking in her ear — what are you doing — and then the phones lighting up. Viewers calling to say their abuela finally understood the weather. More hate mail after that, sure, but letters too: trans kids, Latino families, people saying it helped to see her there. She kept those in a drawer and read them on the bad days.
The crew came around. Drawn by the stories, the leftovers, the way she held a room. Jenny explaining defensive rotations during March Madness. Jenny making people laugh until they stopped clocking her as different. Doug nodding at her after a clean broadcast — not effusive, just a nod, but it meant she was good and they both knew it.
Nine months of doing a job she could do in her sleep, waiting on a door that might never open. Now Jed was gone, Edwin was sick, and the desk sat empty.
Someone touched up makeup that didn’t need it. Hair check. Mic pack clipped to the back of her slacks, earpiece fitted. The coral caught the lights.
Forty-five became thirty-five became twenty-five.
Doug was in the control room now, and his voice came through steadier than she expected. “Cruz, you’re getting the teleprompter. Fire in Vallejo leads, graphics are ready. Just — just do what you do. Be smooth.”
“I’m always smooth, papi,” she said, settling into the chair for the first time. It sat different than the weather desk. Heavier.
Ray adjusted his angle and gave her a thumbs up. Desiree was stage left with the tablet. Tommy stood by with his clipboard, counting.
Fifteen minutes. Her heart was going but her hands were still. The old Eminem line about one shot was running on a loop behind her sternum. She wasn’t missing.
“Cruz, you ready?”
Jenny looked into Camera 1, the red light dark and waiting, and gave it that wicked grin.
“Nací lista, papi.”
Born ready.
The red light blinked. Once. Twice. Solid.
In the control room, Doug Martinez stood behind the director’s chair, both hands pressed to his face like he could hold himself together by will. “I’m fucked,” he muttered. But his eyes stayed on the monitor — on Jenny Cruz in that chair like she’d grown into it.
Tommy counted it down on his fingers. Five. Four. Three. Two. One.
He pointed.
“Good evening, I’m Jenny Cruz.”
Her voice went out to every set in the Bay Area — that rasp carrying authority and warmth in the same breath, not borrowed from any anchor before her. “We begin tonight with breaking news from Vallejo, where a three-alarm fire at the waterfront district has displaced twelve families. Fire Chief Rodriguez reports no injuries, but the blaze destroyed two apartment buildings and damaged a third.”
Clean. No stumble, no hesitation. The teleprompter scrolled and she rode it like a conversation, the kind that makes people lean in instead of reaching for the remote.
“The Red Cross has set up temporary shelter at Lincoln Elementary, and the city has established a relief fund for affected families. We’ll continue following this story as it develops.”
In the control room, Doug’s hands came down off his face. His mouth hung open a little.
On screen, Jenny turned to Camera 2, and everything about her shifted — warmer, more direct, family instead of strangers.
“Para nuestras familias que hablan español—” the Spanish came easy, unaccented, none of the sanitized textbook the other stations used “—doce familias perdieron sus casas esta noche en un incendio en el distrito del puerto. Nadie resultó herido, gracias a Dios, pero estas familias necesitan nuestra ayuda ahora.”
She wasn’t reading. She was telling them — where to donate, where to volunteer, how to show up for each other. Her hands moved as she talked.
“La Cruz Roja está en la escuela Lincoln Elementary si pueden ayudar. Somos una comunidad, y cuidamos a los nuestros.”
We are a community, and we take care of our own.
Then back to Camera 1, code-switching mid-breath. “Now let’s turn to sports, where the Warriors continued their hot streak with a 118-109 win over the Lakers at Oracle.”
Doug grabbed the edge of the console. “She’s doing sports too?”
“She said she could,” the director muttered, just as locked on.
The highlights rolled. Jenny leaned in, the broadcaster polish loosening into something with actual heat in it. “Let’s break down what happened here. Watch Curry set the screen for Thompson — watch this spacing. The Lakers’ help defense rotates, but they’re a step slow. Right there — that’s textbook pick-and-roll. Thompson’s got the angle, and once he gets that first step, it’s over.”
“Holy shit,” someone in the control room said. “She actually knows basketball.”
“That’s why Golden State is so dangerous,” Jenny went on, and there was real joy in it now. “They don’t just run plays, they build math problems the defense can’t solve. Lakers switched to a zone in the third to slow the ball down. But watch what Curry does when he sees it—”
She was breaking down the league like she’d played in it, making the casual fans feel smart and the diehards nod along. Doug’s phone was already lighting up in his hand. Through the control room glass he could see the lights on the station’s main line blinking, one after another.
When the segment cut to commercial, Jenny sat back, adjusted the earpiece, took a breath. Not rattled. Just settling for the next one.
Doug’s voice came through, and for once there was no panic in it. “Cruz… where the hell did that come from?” A beat, then lower, impressed in spite of himself: “You got balls, Cruz—”
He caught himself. The comm went dead silent as he heard what he’d said.
Jenny didn’t key her mic. She just looked into Camera 1 — at him, really, through the glass — and grinned.
Commercial ended. Red light. She kept going.
She covered the city council meeting with the same weight she’d given the fire, pressed the mayor on the housing initiative until he had to actually explain it instead of hiding behind buzzwords, then turned a local teacher’s free tutoring program into something people three towns over would care about. Every transition held. Every camera found her ready. Because she’d watched Jed fumble these same beats for nine months from behind a weather desk, knowing she could do it cleaner.
By the last commercial before the close, Doug wasn’t standing anymore. He’d dropped into the director’s chair, watching the monitor like a trick he couldn’t take apart.
“Sir?” The director glanced over. “She’s… she’s really good.”
“She’s not good,” Doug said, somewhere far off. “She’s incredible. How did we have her doing weather?”
Nobody had an answer.
The broadcast ended at seven. Jenny closed it out — thanked the viewers, pointed them back to the relief fund, told them to come back tomorrow — and the red light died.
For a second she just sat there with the weight of it. Then the studio came apart in applause. Not polite clapping. Ray grinning behind his camera, Desiree clapping and crying at the same time, Tommy on his feet.
Doug came down from the control room fast, and Jenny stood to meet him. For a second she thought he might tell her she’d overstepped, put her back where he found her.
Instead his finger did the twirl again. Not fuck it this time.
“The desk is yours,” he said, voice rough. “Full time. We’ll talk salary tomorrow, but Cruz—” He shook his head. “That’s the best broadcast this station’s run in five years. Maybe longer.”
“So no more weather?”
“Fuck the weather. You’re our anchor. You and whoever we find to sit next to you, but you’re the lead. This is your desk.”
The newsroom had gathered by the studio doors. When Doug made it official, most of them erupted — not all; there were a couple of faces already composing the angry email about the trans woman taking over. But most of them had just watched her do it, and now she was theirs.
Doug’s phone rang. He glanced at it. “Corporate. They watched. I gotta take this.”
“Tell them I want the sports pay on top of it,” Jenny called after him. “Since I’m doing both jobs.”
Doug barked out a laugh — the first real one she’d heard from him all day. “You’re gonna bankrupt us, Cruz.”
“Nah, papi,” she said. “Neta, I’m gonna make you money. Just watch.”
She was right. The phones didn’t stop.
The conference room felt smaller than usual, mostly because Stephen Kellerman was pacing in it. The regional VP had driven up from LA at six that morning, which meant he’d left at three, which meant he was running on rage and gas-station coffee.
Doug sat at the table sweating through his shirt despite the aggressive air conditioning, his bald head shining under the lights.
“What the FUCK, Doug?”
Stephen’s palm slammed the table hard enough to make the water pitcher jump. Mid-fifties, expensive suit, an executive who’d clawed up through actual journalism before the business side swallowed him. Right now he looked like he wanted to climb back down and strangle somebody.
“Stephen, I can explain—”
“Explain what? That you hired a goldmine and had her pointing at weather maps for nine months?” He leaned over the table on both hands. “That Cruz woman just ran the best broadcast this station’s seen in years — YEARS — and you had her doing WEATHER?”
“We didn’t know she could—”
“You didn’t LOOK.” His voice cracked off the walls. “You hired her as what, a checkbox? Trans Latina weather girl, pat ourselves on the back for being so progressive?”
Doug opened his mouth. Closed it. There was no good answer, because that was exactly what they’d done.
“Meanwhile,” Stephen went on, pacing again, “you let crusty Jed anchor our flagship. Jed, who I never liked. Who always felt wrong. Who everyone knew something was off about and nobody wanted to deal with because he had decent numbers and didn’t make waves.”
“We didn’t know about Jed’s—”
“Bullshit. You didn’t want to know.” He spun on him. “And now he’s in cuffs, damn near on camera, we’d have been a national embarrassment, and the only reason we’re not is Cruz stepped up and saved your ass.”
Doug wiped his forehead.
“She’s got more talent in her pinky than half the newsroom combined. Poli-sci degree. Real Spanish — not that Taco Bell pronunciation the other stations roll out. And she knows more basketball than our actual sports department.” Stephen dropped into the chair across from Doug, and the anger went somewhere colder, more arithmetical. “And the other thing. The — what is it now. Transsexual. Transgendered. Whatever the hell we’re supposed to call it this year.” He flicked it away. “I don’t care what the word is, Doug. The point is she’s got talent, and I’ll be the first one in the building to say it. And she’s not a headache, which is more than I can say for half the ones who walk in here under a banner. You know the type — hired to check a box, and they know it, so they spend two years wanting this and that for nothing, and the minute they don’t get it they’re down in HR with a list.” His mouth twisted. “I pulled her file before I drove up. Nine months. Not one complaint. Not about the hate mail, not about getting parked on weather, not about Jed. She never asked anybody for a goddamn thing.” A beat. “She waited for the door to crack and she took it. That’s not a diversity hire, Doug. That’s a closer.” He leaned in. “Now let me tell you what a closer like that does for us.”
Doug had learned by now it wasn’t his turn.
“It’s two audiences in one chair. The Anglo Bay Area that’s been watching us out of habit — and every Spanish-speaking house from Vallejo to San Jose that nobody, nobody, is serving with an anchor who talks to them like family. We just took that whole market off the competition for free. That’s share. That’s money.” He started counting it on his fingers. “Two. She’s a story. Trans woman, Latina, walks into the chair the same night the golden boy gets perp-walked out of it — that travels. National picks it up. The activists give her a plaque and tune in, and you know who else tunes in? Every miserable son of a bitch who wants to watch so he can be mad about it. They hate-watch. The meter can’t tell the difference, Doug. A rating’s a rating.”
“The basketball breakdown’s already on SportsCenter,” Doug said.
“The breakdown’s on SportsCenter.” Stephen jabbed a finger at him. “That’s national air we didn’t pay a cent for. Three — advertisers. Young, bilingual, every demo they’ve been on their knees begging us to deliver, and she pulls all of it sitting in one chair.” He sat back. “You had that pointing at cold fronts on a weather-girl salary. You didn’t just miss it. You left money on the table for nine months. Do you understand how close you came?”
“Yes.”
“If she hadn’t had the guts to walk up and volunteer, we’d be dark right now. Corporate would be selling the equipment for parts.”
“Yes.”
“Good.” Stephen straightened his tie. “So here’s what happens. Cruz gets the desk. Full promotion, salary to match — no, above match, because she’s doing Jed’s job and the sports desk until we find a co-anchor and a sports guy.”
“Already done. Told her last night.”
“And Reyes stays. The kid didn’t do anything wrong, he’s just wrong at the desk. Put him in the field — sideline, post-game, locker room. He’s better on his feet.”
“He’s been asking for the field for two years,” Doug said. “Hated the desk. I’ll work the handoffs out with Cruz — how she wants the tosses, the back-and-forth on air.”
Stephen nodded like that was obvious.
“And you’re going to apologize. For wasting her. You’re going to make damn sure she knows this station values her and will back her. Because if she walks — if she takes that talent down the dial because you made her feel like a checkbox?” The smile was thin. “I will fire you personally and make sure you never work in broadcast again. Clear?”
“Crystal.”
“Should’ve promoted her months ago.” Stephen stood, grabbed his briefcase. “She turned our worst day into our biggest opportunity, and you had her on cold fronts.” At the door he paused, looked back. “One more thing. The hate’s going to get worse now. Trans woman, Latina, primetime in Northern California — the bigots are going to lose it. Security knows her face. She gets protected. She feels safe. Understood?”
“Understood.”
“And Doug.” The voice came down a notch. “Watch the broadcast again. Actually watch it.”
The door shut. Doug sat alone, hands at his temples. Then he pulled out his phone, found last night’s broadcast, and hit play. Watched her own the desk. Watched her turn to Camera 2 and pull half the Bay Area in with her. Watched her take apart a pick-and-roll like she’d run it herself.
Stephen was right. And Doug had almost missed it.
His phone buzzed. Carol: Cruz wants to talk contract. Send her up?
Doug typed back: Yes. Give her whatever she asks for.
When Jenny walked into his office an hour later she was in jeans and a leather jacket, hair still right, liner still sharp. She sat across from him like she owned the room.
“Morning, Doug.”
“Morning, Cruz. I want to start by saying—”
“I want the sports desk salary on top of mine,” she said, cutting clean through the apology he’d rehearsed. “Plus Jed’s anchor salary. I’m doing both jobs until you fill them, so I get paid for both. And when you do fill them, I’m still lead. My name comes first. I get final say on story selection. And I want a clothing allowance, because I’m not showing up to primetime in the same three blazers on a weather-girl budget.”
Doug opened his mouth. Closed it.
She didn’t need the allowance. There was money behind Jenny Cruz the station would never think to look for — cashed out of a life she didn’t bring up, parked years ago and left to quietly outrun her salary while she pointed at cold fronts. The clothing line had nothing to do with clothes. It was about who funded her, and at what number, and what the number admitted about how they’d seen her. They’d pay it because the principle was the point.
“You got lucky last night.” She leaned in, elbows on the desk. “I saved your ass because I wanted that desk and I was willing to take the risk. But now we negotiate like adults. I know what I’m worth. And you just spent the morning getting screamed at by your boss about how close you came to missing it.”
She wasn’t guessing. She was telling him.
Doug did the smartest thing he’d done in months. He spun his finger.
“Write it up. Everything you said. You’ve earned it.”
“Pleasure doing business, Doug.” She stood, turned for the door — then stopped, and when she looked back the broadcaster was gone. “Oh. Y una cosa más. That chair? Get me a new one. I’m not sitting in Jed’s seat.” A beat, that grin. “Quiero la mía, güey.”
“Done.”
She walked out, heels going down the hall, and Doug dropped his head onto the desk. He’d just been outmaneuvered by someone half his age who’d been pointing at weather maps three days ago.
He’d never felt more relieved in his life.
Copyright © 2025 by Phoenix Kade. All Rights Reserved.
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