Love's Playbook

chapter one: can we talk

Get the internship. Become a member of paid staff. Promote up to columnist. Become an editor and eventually, Editor-in-Chief. These were the carefully laid out steps and the plan that she was going to focus on. Keeping this in mind, Olivia Baker was going to make sure that before 30, she achieved all that she had planned out. That left her four years to work her ass off and impress Cristal. That was easier said than done.

Olivia had hope her passion for the truth and talent for fleshing out real stories would do the trick but so far, she's found no such luck with Cristal. She felt like her boss liked her enough, but she wanted to prove that she was solid as a journalist and in turn, the one to be positioned for her job when Cristal eventually retired. The dream for this came as a natural progression of her career so far. Her love and interest in journalism sparked in undergrad. She created a podcast after her brother Jordan was hazed terribly while on the Golden Angeles football team. Though resentful at first, Jordan was eventually grateful for his sister being the light that created change within the system and university as a whole. It created a bond that helped heal later wounds and resentments. The biggest of those being the now former teammate and friend who would turn into Olivia's ex-boyfriend.

It wasn't unusual for Olivia to blame Jordan when things went wrong. It was pretty easily and usually was accurate. From the time they were toddlers, he was usually the catalyst for chaos that Olivia was typically more than willing to either participate in or clean up. The situation with Asher was different though. Despite Olivia's knowledge of who to blame for the extremely terrible break-up, that connection was one that was difficult to work past. After a lot of uncomfortable conversations and Jordan proving that his loyalty did indeed lay with his day one, they were able to heal. Not fully, but it was progress.

Progress was exactly why Olivia had decided to focus on herself and her career. It had been six months since everything happened and though it was hard, she had managed to make a lot of progress internally as well. It helped that she swore off dating and men. Athletes especially. Knowing first hand that it only led to heartbreak, she settled on never doing it again. She had seen enough and dealt with enough. Work would be her boyfriend for now.

That boyfriend was definitely high needs. Especially true for a day like today when she was up at 5:30 to try to get to the office for 7:00 to prepare for the 8:00 staff meeting. She wanted to get there early to give herself time to go over notes, prepare any questions or pitches and maybe squeeze in a bathroom run. She had a bunch of ideas for the Social Issues column and was hoping that it'd be the day one of them was picked.

As she rummaged through her closet, she decided on an olive green bodycon shirt with black pants. Something that was simple and cute but still said, I'm a serious commentator.

Making her way through her morning routine, she was interrupted when her phone dung with a notification. First rolling her eyes before seeing that it was her best friend and that Ryan would most likely being saying something important, she opened it.

my ancestors did not go through all that they did for me to be up for work this early. i'll do coffees this morning, you want your usual?

an iced venti french vanilla with oat milk and i'll love you forever, thank youuu!

got you boo 😘

Smiling at the idea of having a source of energy waiting for her when she got there, Olivia threw her phone in her purse and got on her way to the office. It was going to be a good day.

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Staff meetings were never Olivia's favorite thing about Monday mornings. She usually sat and passed notes back and forth with Ryan as they played tic-tac-toe or doodled faces on the corners. Today was going to be different though. It was go time.