Nova is a recent law school graduate, clinging to her dream of becoming a sports lawyer through an internship with New York City's NHL team, hoping she can land a full time position. One problem though, the captain of the hockey team is someone she...
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"Morning, Mack."
"Good morning, love. How are you doing today?"
Mack squeezes me in a bear hug, something I still am not used to even after being here for a few months now. After a moment of hesitation, I return the hug and can feel Mack laugh against me.
"Good, you?"
"Great! Come on, I saved you a seat."
Mack waves me over to our usual spots in the conference room. This morning we have our weekly in-office meeting, with assignments for this weekend's game against the Bruins being announced. I put in my requests for the games I was willing to travel for, but as the lowly intern I would be the last opinion they considered when making assignments.
This was the one game I really did not want to go to. I could watch to support the team and Declan from home, but going back to Boston is more trouble than it's worth for me. The last thing he needs is to be distracted by more of my family drama during one of his most important games of the season.
Declan has continued to bring this game up a few times since my brother came into town, but I change the subject pretty quickly, and he's finally gotten the hint as he hasn't brought it up at all the last few times we've seen each other. I hope he understands that this is just something I can't do.
Every time I travel back to that city, my past continues to blow up my present. I already struggle enough with everything going on from afar, but being in the thick of where everything happened is a recipe for disaster.
Mack and I take our seats as John, one of the senior lawyers for the team, starts the meeting. I fidget throughout the entire thing, knowing he won't announce who is traveling with the team this weekend until the very end. We go through new contracts first, determining any fine print that needs to be edited or changed.
It's tedious work, and I find myself getting easily distracted, spacing out and having to read the same sections over and over again. I'm the slowest in the room today, which is unusual as my perfectionism strives for me to constantly be ahead.
"You okay, Nova?"
Mack is looking at me with worry, seeing that I'm more than a page behind everyone else.
"Huh? Oh yeah, I'm fine."
I do my best to reassure her with a smile, but I know she picks up on my leg bouncing under the table and my fingers picking at my cuticles, tearing the skin until my nail beds bleed.
"You sure? Anything going on that I can help you with?"
I shake my head, "Nope, just too much caffeine."
I can tell she doesn't buy it, but she doesn't press the matter.
After we finish going through those documents, the group having the wait for me, John hands out folders with the existing contracts we've already gone over. Each of us begins looking through them once more. We all need to reread them in order to double check for anything we missed the last time we went over them.
