Smoke and Bones (Smoke #4)

[ 52 ]

It had been rough recently, and it seemed that it would get even more challenging as I was finding out quite quickly. When Todd had assigned me to speak with a high-profile AFL coach, I immediately thought it would be a breeze. With a backlog of interviews conducted with many coaches across different sports, it seemed that I had it in the bag.

But given the flicker of annoyance in the eyes of Carlton's brand new coach, the downfall for me looked pretty grim.

"You've already asked that question Miss Wilde." David Teague remarked as I immediately felt my heart sink to my chest.

"Yes, but you haven't answered me David -"

"You asked about the outgoing coach. I already told you my answer. So are we gonna move onto the next thing?"

"But I -"

"Scarlett, just move onto the next question already." Ethan, the cameraman jeered from behind the lens, as I just sighed, feeling down that I was stuffing up what I had known like the back of my hand. I had done hundreds of interviews and yet, this one was tripping me up quite badly.

"Look, I'm actually needed at the moment by the club. So if you have no more questions about the new job, then I think I'll be on my way. But if I'm still needed, then Carlton can organise another time for you." David added with contempt, as he shot a glare at me.

"Apologies Mr Teague. Miss Wilde is usually on the ball, not quite sure about what happened." Ethan jeered as I rolled my eyes. I wasn't completely sure why the cameraman was being an ass.

"Well she certaintly wasn't on the ball today." David mumbled to himself. I watched on in silence, recieving one last look of annoyance from the new Carlton coach, before watching him walk away.

"Ethan, I am -"

"Save it Wilde. That would of been an exclusive scoop from Fox Sports, but now we'll be left scraps from another broadcaster who'll speak to him first. God. I can see that Tony Jones gloating about getting the exclusive." Ethan angrily added as I just sighed.

"I'm sorry Ethan, okay? I just had a rough day."

"We aren't supposed to have off days here. It's how we stay in competition with Channel 9 and the rest of them."

"Right. As if getting handouts from a billionaire media moguel doesn't help keep us afloat." I mumbled as I noticed Ethan flicker his eyes with anger.

"Scarlett -"

"It's an off day Ethan. Nothing more, nothing less. I can't help it if my off day occurred when we got the first interview with Carlton's new coach. Oh well, we did have the first."

"Scarlett, we don't have off days. Or at least we pretend we don't, we hide them. I thought you of all people would have known that? I get your having relationship problems with that Essendon player, but please don't let those issues get in the way of your work."

"You know about the wedding being called off, don't you?" I asked him, as I felt my expression soften.

"It's hard to not know when it's everywhere and on everybody's lips. I even heard a few of the interns gossiping about it when I took them out and showed them how to use the cameras."

"God. It seems like the media attention is worse now than when I was with Marcus." I admit, crouching on the ground and looking down at the tiles below us.

"You're one of the most popular presenters at Fox, so I'm not surprised that everybody wants to know what's going on. You're lucky the new editor has shifted the content that Fox Sports does. If Cassidy was still around, then I'm sure your breakup would have been covered many times already."