by E. J. Larson
"Wow, everything is so clean in here. I don't even dare come in here with shoes on."
"Then take them off. You're home here now," he declared with that smile that seemed chiseled into his face. She followed his advice and slipped out of her sneakers. A real relief for her feet. Only now did she realize how insanely exhausted she was. All the stress and anxiety was slowly falling away from her now. She had made it. Together with her precious luggage she had reached her new apartment and her roommate had not turned out to be a monster.
"Come on, I'll show you your room and everything."
She would have preferred to fall asleep on the spot, but Jonah's enthusiasm was contagious. Quinn forced herself to smile and let him show her around the rooms.
He showed her the kitchen with its hygienic refrigerator, lacking only cooking ingredients, and countertops from which one could have eaten entirely without plates. Even the bathroom shone and the surfaces reflected the light from the overhead lighting.
"This is your bathroom," he explained. "Mine is right next to my room. So you can hang out here to your heart's content."
Quinn marveled. She had never had her own bathroom before. She had firmly assumed that she would have to share the bathroom with her new roommate, just like the kitchen and living room.
It was lovely. Just perfect. Only unfortunately it would never be so wonderfully clean and tidy again once she had spread her mess in here. But at least no one would be bothered by it except her.
When he showed her his own equally spotlessly clean room, Quinn finally burst with curiosity.
"Spit it out, who cleaned this place?" Dumbfounded, she shook her head. "I just can't believe this place always looks like this. I mean, who are you? DirtDevil personified?"
Jonah smirked sheepishly.
"I may have pushed myself a little to make you like it here," he admitted. "Did I overdo it?"
"Definitely lost a cleaning superhero on you." The fact that he was going to such lengths to impress her touched her. "You could open a restaurant on the floor. Honestly."
"Then at least my efforts were worthwhile. I've been cleaning, tidying, and polishing the heck out of it all week."
"The fact that it took a whole week makes me a little skeptical now, but at least you know how to do it." She gave him a genuine smile. He had probably been just as nervous as she was before their first meeting. Comforting, in a way.
"No, of course I didn't clean all week. Just a little bit here and there," he qualified his statement. "I am rather neat, but just not quite so perfect."
She wrinkled her nose and put her lower lip between her teeth.
"I hope you're okay with me not being quite so neat. I promise I'll try," Quinn stated sheepishly. She had to come clean with Jonah, because she could never keep up the facade of being a neat person long enough. Better she didn't even start any hide-and-seek games she couldn't win.
After taking in her own room as well, Jonah gave her time to arrive. Sighing, Quinn threw herself onto her already made bed. It smelled like fresh laundry detergent. She curled up under the covers, clothes and all, and inhaled the smell that reminded her comfortingly of her sheltered home. If she called her mum now, she'd howl like a castle dog. So she pulled herself together to take some photos to send her with a few greetings. That way, her family knew she'd arrived safely, and Quinn saved herself further drama.
She was typing the last few characters on her smartphone when Jonah knocked on the open door.
"Shall we get something to eat?" he asked solicitously. "You probably don't feel like going out after your long trip, do you?"
"That's a great idea. I'd really like to eat at home in peace," she agreed enthusiastically. The thought of having to leave the house again was hard to bear. She was so exhausted and just wanted some relaxation. She would probably fall asleep at the table in the restaurant before the food was on the table.
"Okay, what do you like?" Jonah pulled a stack of cards of delivery services out from behind his back. "Pick a place. I can find something at all of them."
She marveled at the variety of choices she had, then decided on something as simple as possible. "How about pizza?"
"Pizza's perfect," Jonah confirmed with a grin.
She selected one, leaving the order to Jonah and his smartphone, who sent it with a few practiced clicks, and took the chance to send her own message.
"Do you feel like maybe tomorrow I could show you around a bit?" He turned his head to the side, as if afraid of her reaction. "You don't have to. I just wanted to offer because I thought you might not know anyone yet and would like to know where you ended up here."
"You don't need that much convincing, Jonah. I'll be very happy to let you show me around. Thank you so much." She couldn't bear to see him so unsure, when really she was the one who didn't know her way around and needed help. She wouldn't even have found the place on her own. But he didn't know that, after all.
6. Milo
"JASPER, COME ON,” Milo now demanded for the umpteenth time. The vain cock had been hanging around the bathroom for a solid forty minutes. He popped a new lozenge of gum into his mouth and chewed on the crumbly piece until it felt soft. “If you're not done in a minute, I'll go alone. The fight won't wait for me.”
He still had a short note to write about the Burton-Dacapo fight that evening. That would be very difficult if he didn't even get to see the decisive punch because he was staring at the closed bathroom door instead. He was sure someone could write a fabulous piece about it, but it really had no place in the sports section.
Finally, the door swung open and in front of him stood a smug gigolo who just wouldn't fit into the Park Stadium. But so be it, Jasper Blight had no normal clothes in the closet anyway.
“Now don't push it. Good looks take time,” he explained with the smirk that got him so many female acquaintances. The guy could still pick up women even when he was in a potato sack. Milo's successes were limited to the few girls he really made an effort with. He went out, invited his girlfriends over, and usually convinced them at some point. Jasper, on the other hand, winked once and three women were glued to his lips.
“Blah, blah, blah,” he acknowledged his roommate's much overheard phrase. “We still have to walk through the entire park. I hope you wear something without heels tonight for once, Cherie.”
“Ha ha," Jasper commented dryly at the teasing and slipped into his favorite shoes. Milo had long since finished dressing and stood in the doorway, watching as Jasper calmly picked out a jacket to match the outfit. Exasperated, he sighed. The girl comparison wasn't even that far-fetched.
They shared a passion for computer games and a stocked fridge in a tidy apartment, and they liked the same movies. Likewise, they shared the dislike of keeping things tidy and shopping. But at the latest when it came to how long they took in the bathroom, the differences between them gaped open like the Grand Canyon. Milo was into sports and action. He liked to be outside and experience his environment with all his senses. Jasper, on the other hand, was a graphic designer at heart and was into everything that had anything to do with art and design.
When the male diva finally finished, he pulled the door into the lock behind him and pranced past him into the stairwell. Milo shoved his hands deep into the pockets of his jacket and did his best not to tumble down the stairs. The park was only a few doorways away. With quick steps, they crossed the sprawling grounds. They passed the small cottage at the edge of the green where Finch, the park gardener, lived with his white shepherd dog. This striking pair were known to every one in the neighborhood who had ever entered the park. The bluish light of a television flickered through the living room window.
“Finch and Maze are home,” he commented. Something in him had taken a burning interest in other people's lives for years. Also, because he was interested in sports, at least in theory, he had gone the newspaper route after college and now wrote game reports week after week. But he wanted more out of life. That became clearer to
him with each passing day.
Jasper shrugged his shoulders. His mate knew the gardener and his white shepherd well, but something had happened between the men. If Milo was correct in his assumption, it had to do with a woman, but Jasper was keeping very quiet about that. He turned his gaze back to the lit stadium in the distance.
“I hope we make it to the hall before the knockout,” he gasped breathlessly. Thanks to Jasper's dawdling, they really had to hurry. Gabriel Burton was famous for his impressive fights - especially since they had been extremely short lately. People came to celebrate him, not to see him fight. Most of the time he only needed a few powerful punches to put his opponents down.
With his press pass, Milo and Jasper passed through a side entrance to the hall. They made their way swiftly along deserted corridors into the centre of the complex. Several thousand spectators had gathered in the stands and were cheering the boxers. Julien Dacapo's music blasted from the speaker towers as he strutted to the ring making fighting gestures. The dark-skinned heavyweight fighter warmed up the crowd. Although most already thought he was the clear loser of the evening, they were fired up.
“Hey Dave,” Milo greeted a gaunt colleague who had a few years more experience on the job. They ran into each other at most events. There weren't too many reporters covering local sports. Only the Chronicle, the Post, and the Tribune, for which Dave worked, regularly provided representatives for events like this. “How did the undercard go?”
“You're doing it right, kid.” Dave raised two fingers in salute and shook his head. Unobtrusively, Milo disposed of the used gum in a trash can. “I should have come later, too. College boxing will never be able to stir my passion.”
He told him the result. Milo noted it down on his tablet to use in his text snippet if necessary when there was little to report from the main fight. He didn't want to get into the embarrassment of having to comment on the colors of the boxers' trousers just to exhaust his given 300 words.
They were standing in the immediate vicinity of the ring, where journalists from the regional and national press were gathered, hoping for headlines. He fished a new dragée out of the plastic box he always carried in his pocket and popped it into his mouth. Fresh mint torpedoed his taste buds.
Several times Burton had been subjected to doping tests because of his impressive fight record in the past six months, but nothing could ever be detected. In the past he had been an average professional boxer at best. But in a short time he would enter his first world championship fight and in all probability take the title without any danger. Nobody could hold a candle to him in this form. He'd had the obsession a few months ago of trying to write a tell-all story about Burton.
The story still appealed to him. Still, absolutely no one in the industry wanted to talk to him about it or even speculate as to why Burton had made such a leap in development. He was no longer one of the young talents. Gabriel Burton was already in his mid-thirties and wasn't going to get any better by leaps and bounds. If Milo had any chance of getting the boxer or anyone on his team to talk, it would propel him to Olympus. That was exactly where he wanted to be.
And then there was Delia, who had promised to help him with the investigation. Her disappearance seven weeks ago without a trace gnawed at him. He feared her disappearance had something to do with her snooping around Burton's background for him. Delia had always worked on exciting stories. She'd even been up for an award for one of her recent reports, and then she'd just disappeared from one day to the next. Meanwhile, the editor-in-chief had even backfilled her job.
Gabriel Burton's march-in song boomed from the speakers. He was playing with them all. Not for nothing had he chosen a remix of 'White Rabbit' as his song. Burton couldn't have been much clearer about the fact that they weren't on to him. He had to be damn sure if he was thumbing his nose at the whole world. Mind you, the beat wasn't to be scoffed at either.
The boxer reached the ring. He threw his opponent a superior grin and then turned to his team. Dacapo was not intimidated by him. He was an experienced fighter and knew the mind tricks that other boxers used to try to win the fight before the first bell. Julien Dacapo was considered the gentleman among boxers. He was calm, always polite and had a right jab that knocked down especially inexperienced opponents so fast that they hardly knew what happened to them.
The main fight of the evening had potential. Under normal circumstances, this could be a long battle of equals. But, the rumors swirling around Burton left no doubt that tonight's fight would show a definite result.
Ever since they had arrived at the hall, Milo had been watching Jasper poking around on his smartphone. Either his best buddy was making a date for the evening or something was up.
“Don't shoot yourself too hard tonight, we have company coming tomorrow and we need to clean up the battlefield before then,” Jasper tossed him a nugget of information.
“All right, but what do I have to do with it when you have visitors?”, Milo provoked him.
“I said we were going to have a visitor. Aren't you listening?” he answered with a grin.
That was all he let slip. But Milo's attention was more on the boxers facing each other in the ring anyway. The six-foot-eight heavyweight boxer Burton and the slightly shorter Dacapo stared each other down relentlessly. Dacapo wanted the win. For him, this fight against Burton was the last chance to put himself in the WBC's conversation for the title of North American champion. Burton himself was guaranteed the federation already had on the list.
The referee explained the rules to both fighters and asked them to compete fairly. Both opponents nodded, as protocol demanded. Confident of victory, Burton then turned away from his opponent and stalked to his corner, where his team immediately took care of him.
In a few seconds the fight would start. The betting odds were good that it would be over within seconds of starting. Milo was relieved that they had made it in time. The audience was riveted. No one wanted to miss the decisive blow. It could be the first, the second or the third, but certainly it would happen quickly. Tense silence returned to the press lounge as well.
Leaving Jasper with his smartphone, he sat down with his tablet next to Dave, whose eyes fixed spellbound on the boxers. The mood inspired him and he began to type.
7. Olivia
THE AMBIENCE IN the old power plant was simply stunning. This place offered so much industrial charm that an event here could only become great. The cold functional building contrasted the heated atmosphere of the evening. The fashion presented stood out with its color against the grey background of the concrete walls. This had already been proven by the series of photos sent to the editors in advance by the organizers. Olivia could only tip her hat in awe to the organizers. Everything had been planned down to the finest detail. They left nothing to chance.
A carpet had been rolled out for the guests, although she knew full well that high society would not be gathering that evening. It was merely a show by students from the local university, who were competing for the favor of jewelry designers Brooks & Shore. The winner got to contribute their runway fashion to their event at the Fairfield Fashion Fair. By no means did every graduate have this good fortune in their first year out of college - but even while still in college, very few succeeded. Of course, the famous jewelry company had covered the entire cost of today's event and would be showing some pieces from their own winter collection.
Olivia had to get past security and showed her press pass to justify why she was carrying her camera and tablet. Inside the power station, a long bar of illuminated frosted glass served drinks in white glasses. She had a waiter in a black velvet suit hand her a glass of champagne. For the young fashion editor, this was the first event in her new role as an official press representative for a mass media outlet. Previously as a blogger she had always felt a little inferior, but she was still the same person and her blog 'Flourish Hats' still existed. Only it was currently managed by some blogger friends of hers because she had taken six month
s off to give the Fairfield Chronicle job offer a fair chance.
She had been given a temporary contract. The next six months would show whether she was more comfortable with employment and a steady income than with the alternative. It was her dream to expand her blog into a blogazine with a few contributors. Entrepreneurial risk and unlimited freedom on one hand and a regular life on the other. She realized the limitations of her new job when she read the specifications for her report on that evening. For the first time ever, she even had specifications.
So far, she had always been completely free in the content of her posts. The design of her website had made some demands on photos and layout, but what and about what she wrote had always been entirely her decision. Of course, she had to take into account laws, her target audience and the usual search engine optimization, but nothing more. That was over now. She had a concrete guideline how many words she had to write and which aspects she had to address. Of course she had to write about the jewelry of Brooks & Shore and she had to interview the winner of the evening. If there were any lines left in between, she could fill them with comments about the students' presented designs.
If she had written for her site, she would have mentioned the great ambience and the turquoise blue lights that played with the coldness of the location. The fine hairs on her bare arms stood up involuntarily, even though the temperatures outside the gates of the power plant were late summer. But there was certainly no room for any of that in her first editorial.
Before she could fully regret her decision to join the Chronicle, she decided to make a connection. Not far from her stood a group whose members also wore the distinctive badge on a turquoise ribbon. At any significant event, members of the press received slightly more equal treatment than any other guests. The staff sacrificially attended to their every need, while normal guests received only the welcome drink. Celebrities and media representatives were of such fundamental value to the organizers that they had to be kept happy at all costs. Therefore, it was necessary for the staff to be able to distinguish them from the normal guests at first glance. Thus the colored ribbon became standardized. Turquoise blue was the leading color that evening, used not only in the lighting and press ribbons, but also adorning the typography of the event posters.
