#me when i spend a whole weekend thinking about the charter then take a step back and suddenly kronk voice it's all about the living tree

[ivettel]

at 2:00 in the morning on the day my first year of law school ended i finally. Finally. had my constitutional law big picture lightbulb moment

[slapshot-to-the-heart]

Flatbush & Atlantic: part v

Here we have part v! Took me a little longer than usual, but I’m really happy with how it turned out - it’s All Star Weekend with our favorite couple, folks! I haven’t been getting as much engagement as usual with the posts, so please feel free to reblog it and pop into my inbox!

part i part ii part iii part iv

part v

January 28

Cass sat on a metal bench at JFK, legs propped up on her carry-on, eyes flitting between the departures screen and her phone. Mat walked through the sliding doors to her left, catching her eye with a quick wave and smile. If he wanted to travel incognito in Long Island, though, the suit bag and “these-are-more-expensive-than-they-look” sunglasses weren’t helping his cause. “You’ve got the tickets?” She asked. After much convincing, Cass finally agreed to let Mat buy the tickets; he said it would be easier to make sure they were seated together, and had told her to think of it as a belated Christmas present if she’d like. 

Mat nodded, gesturing towards the check-in counters. “Shall we?”

Cat grabbed his hand in her own as they walked to the counter. It hadn’t even crossed her mind that they’d be travelling anything but economy — she never had, after all — so she was more than a little surprised when he steered her and their bags towards American’s first-class check-in. He looked down at her. “What? You think I’d let you go to the All-Star Game in anything but the best? Nah, we’re travelling in style, babe.” Cass flushed, handing over her bags to be weighed and taking the boarding pass from the flight attendant with a harried thanks. 

“Qu-est-ce que c’est, chère?” Mat asked, brushing a kiss over the top of her head as they headed up the escalator. French had been her foreign language in high school and college; it had gotten rusty, but Mat and Tito had been more than happy to practice with her, though Beau’s Québécois accent sometimes proved a little difficult to understand. 

“I’m just really excited for this weekend. I know how much it means to you to be on the team and competing in the skills competition again, and I’m lucky to be able to see you do what you love.” 

After a less-than-ideal forty minutes in the security line, Cass handed her license and Mat’s passport over to the TSA agent, who gave them a cursory once-over before marking their boarding passes and letting them through the scanner. 

They boarded the Delta flight some 40 minutes later, after a much-needed pit-stop at the Starbucks. The flight attendants took their coats and showed them to their seats, and before Cass knew it she was seated in a very large, very comfortable chair that had more legroom than she thought humanly possible, a glass of champagne perched on her tray table. “Is this how you live? All the time?” She whispered to Mat, stunned. 

“Sometimes,” he admitted. “The team charters a plane for games and I usually don’t do first class to go back home, but this is a special occasion. It deserves it, you deserve it.” He pressed a kiss to her cheek, pulling out his Airpods. “We’ve got just enough time to get through Pirates of the Carribean before we land. What do you say?” 

Their plane landed a few hours later, the two catching an Uber to the hotel about twenty minutes away. Apparently there had been “a car” coming for them, but Cass balked at the idea, insisting that the Toyota Corolla coming to pick them up was more than enough for her. 

“Hi, checking in for Barzal,” Mat said, smiling at the receptionist. 

“One moment,” she replied, tapping on the computer and turning around to grab two key cards. “You two will be in room 307, third floor. Elevators are that way. Enjoy your stay!” Mat took the cards, handing one to Cass as they turned towards the row of elevators. As excited as she was, Cass was also just the tiniest bit apprehensive about sharing a room with Mat for a whole weekend. She had spent the night once or twice since the Christmas party, and had officially been granted “a drawer” in his dresser, but it was still the longest (relatively) uninterrupted time she’d spend with him. 

There were a few hours before the festivities kicked off with some sort of red carpet-type thing, so Cass pulled out her laptop and got to work while Mat went off to exercise in the hotel gym. None of her professors this semester recorded lectures, so she was relying on good friends and a strong Wifi connection to get the notes from the one class she was missing. Cass wasn’t one to skip out on responsibilities and she did feel bad about not being there, but she had earned a break. 

Mat came back a little while later, and Cass took that as her cue to start getting ready. After he got out of the shower, she took over the bathroom, spreading her makeup, brushes, and precisely-3.4-ounce bottle of hairspray over the counter. This was the first big event she was going to as a WAG, and nerves were flying. Cass was already well aware that she didn’t fit into the typical mold, and hated the fact that she felt like she had to justify herself everywhere she went. And it didn’t help that Mat wasn’t just one of the best young players in the NHL in recent memory, but also a total smokeshow of a man who had hundreds of women falling at his feet. 

But galas, parties, extravagant events were nothing new to her. She had been the president of her sorority at UConn, organizing and attending more than her fair share of her own formals and semiformals or accompanying a friend or boyfriend to theirs. And law school called for dressing up more than occasionally. She was no stranger to impressing people. The dress was light blue to coordinate with Mat’s suit, heavily beaded, and absolutely gorgeous. This was the one part of the trip that she had absolutely refused to let Mat pay for, even though he offered. The league covered the room and he had gotten the flights, and her ego needed to pick up at least a marginal part of the expenses. 

She twisted her hair up into a bun, bobby pins stuck in her mouth as she pulled out a few strands of hair. Setting spray? Check. Lipstick? A deep rose shade that she’d had since her first year of law school, so, check. “You almost ready to go, chou?” She asked, leaning down to her suitcase and grabbing the strappy heels she’d picked out for the night.

“Uh, yeah,” Mat said, buttoning his suit jacket. He usually had pretty good taste even before they started dating, but the navy blue velvet suit he was wearing was really something else. “Wow, you look amazing, Cass.”

She smiled, stepping towards him. “The lipstick’s kiss-proof, you know.”

He raised one eyebrow. “You wanna try that out?”

---

It was a fifteen minute drive to the venue, the car the league had sent packed with players and their partners, or whoever else had managed to wrangle a spot. She thinks there were some cousins involved? Mat got out before her, holding the door open while he leaned down. “The reporters are usually fine, they get that most of you guys aren’t used to this,” he murmured, “but you don’t have to answer anything you don’t want to, I’ll say something if I see it getting out of line.” 

She squeezed his hand in appreciation, taking a breath to steady her nerves before following him onto the red carpet. After posing for a few photos, they moved onto the reporters, Mat getting steered towards someone who Cass was pretty sure was from SportsCenter, but she couldn’t be positive in the crowd of hundreds. Cass briefly introduced herself, stepping slightly to the side as the conversation’s topics veered towards strategy and expectations, how best to manage playing with only three players and how he was feeling about his chances for fastest skater. 

“And you’ve brought your lovely girlfriend Cassidy along, how did you two meet?” Cass heard her name mentioned, quickly snapping out of the daydream she had been lost in. Fluff pieces were nothing new and she knew it would come up, everyone loved getting to know the players outside of a strictly hockey context. 

“Yeah, so I’m in law school, and I got an internship with the counsel’s office for the Islanders,” Cas started, “and I helped Mat with some visa stuff. He kept trying to drop hints that he was into me, but—”

“They weren’t hints. I was being as obvious as possible,” Mat deadpanned. Cass giggled. 

“Well, yeah, in retrospect I was just being incredibly oblivious, but came to one day, and the rest is history.” Mat leaned down, brushing a kiss over her cheek, and Cass could see camera flashes go off in her peripherals. She’d have to track that picture down later.

The interviewer nodded, asking a few follow-ups on her exposure to hockey growing up, her dress, and one more. “So, you hardly live the typical life of a hockey girlfriend. What do you think about that?”

Cass was confused. “Pardon?”

“Law school, being a lawyer. That’s not something that you typically see WAGs pursue, especially considering the salaries NHLers make. It’s not like they have to do much.” Cass was floored. How could someone be so disrespectful, not only to her, but to every other woman in her position? She was struggling to come up with a response. As it would happen, she didn’t need to. 

“Excuse me?” Mat’s response was dripping venom. “Why would you ask something like that?”

The interviewer tried to backtrack, but ended up digging himself into an ever deeper hole. “Well, I just meant that you don’t see it often, which is true—”

“Maybe you don’t, but that shouldn’t matter,” Mat said. “Being a stay-at-home mom or running charity events is awesome if that’s something that they want to do, but it’s not for everyone. And don’t you dare ever suggest that Cass hasn’t worked hard as hell to get to where she is. She’s graduating in five months from an Ivy League law school, and she’s the smartest person I’ve ever met. Don’t ever talk about her that way. Don’t ever talk about any woman that way.” He turned away, his hand on Cass’ upper back. “Don’t ever let anyone undersell you. You’ve worked too damn hard and come too damn far.”

 Jan. 29 (fri)

 Cass smoothed out her dress, taking a last-minute look in the mirror to make sure nothing was stuck in her teeth. “How do I look?” She asked, turning to Mat. 

“You look great, babe. Stop stressing.” She had picked a floral dress and denim jacket for breakfast with Mat’s family, but couldn’t stop wringing her hands in worry. Mat crossed the room in three steps, holding her hands still and looking at her more intensely than she had ever seen. “Remember when I was losing my shit meeting your parents?” Cass gave a tearful nod. “And it all turned out okay and now I text your brother probably more than you do?” 

She laughed. “Noah worships you, and my dad loves you. Thinks you’re ‘good for me,’ whatever he means by that.”

“I think,” Mat said, tapping her temple with one finger, “that sometimes you get a little stuck up here. You’re so smart, and it’s incredible, but you overthink things sometimes, pretty girl.”

She ducked her head. “That’s probably true.” 

“But what I meant to say is that it turned out I had nothing to worry about. And neither do you, my parents will love you and Liana’ll just be excited to have another girl around to complain about me to. It’s going to go great,” he added with finality. 

“You promise?” Cass asked.

Mat kissed her, soft and sweet and slow, the kind of kiss that wasn’t born of passion and lust but of just genuine deep trust and affection. The kind of kiss that brings your feet back to the ground when your head’s stuck off in the clouds. “I promise.”

Cass flashed a small smile, squeezing Mat’s hand in hers and heading towards the door. “Then I guess we’d better get going.” She had been up late the night before, searching on Yelp for the perfect restaurant, despite Mat’s continual claims that they’d “love wherever, they just want food.” Though, she’s not sure what she expected when asking a 20-something man what he wanted to eat. There was a cute place a ten minute drive away, with four-point-seven stars and reviews that said their quiches were the “best thing on this godforsaken planet,” according to IridescentGymRat44. Cass loved quiches. 

It was a quick Uber over, Mat’s mom having texted him that they had already arrived and snagged a table in the back for privacy. It may have been a family event, but it was still All-Star Weekend and Mat was still, well, Mat. It wasn’t likely he could fly under the radar for too long. He rubbed his thumb over the back of her hand reassuringly as they turned the corner, and his face split into a wide grin at the sight of his family. Hugging each of them quickly, he stepped back to introduce Cass, one hand lightly resting on the small of her back. “This is Cass, my girlfriend.”

“Yeah, we figured,” Liana said pointedly, causing Cass to poorly cover up a snort of amusement, which in turn just caused everyone to laugh even more at their efforts trying not to laugh so hard. 

As it would turn out, Mat was right. She really had nothing to worry about; his parents embraced her (literally and metaphorically) as soon as she set down and his sister immediately whipped out her phone to show his worst baby pictures. “Hey,” she said, as Mat glared at her, “you deserve to know what you’re getting yourself into.” They were interested in her work and school, and Mat gladly took the liberty of explaining how they met, earning a slap on the back of his head from his mom when he got to the part with the visa slipup. They said their goodbyes sometime around eleven; Cass would have liked to stay longer, but everyone needed to get back to their hotels and ready for the skills competitions in the afternoon. 

“Excited to defend the title?” Cass said, bumping her shoulder against Mat as they walked down the hallway to their room. 

“Yeah, I guess,” Mat said, shrugging slightly. “Obviously it would be great to win, but there’s still McDavid and Eichel and a ton of other guys that have just as good of a chance to run away with this thing.” After his win last year, it was no shock that Mat had been picked for the fastest skater competition again, but the hordes of fans and reporters who were expecting him to go back-to-back weren’t helping his nerves. They reached the door, Mat shoving his hand into his pocket to dig out the key card. 

“Look at me,” Cass said softly, once they had gotten their shoes off and were propped up next to each other in bed. Mat’s head turned, his hand still absentmindedly tangled in her curls. “You’re going to do great. Win or lose. I believe it, your family believes it, the other guys on the team believe it. Now all we need is for you to believe it yourself.”

---

Cass was walking through the tunnels of the BB&T Center, phone pressed to her cheek as she tried to listen to her dad on the other end of the line. A few players and their families were milling about, some getting ready to compete in their skills competitions, others catching up with old friends. “Oh, and you booked the tickets to Hermosillo, yeah?” It was a family tradition for them to spend a few weeks every summer back in Mexico with her grandparents; they had split their time between San Antonio and their hometown ever since retirement. Cass always tried to make it, but the past summer she wasn’t able to wrangle the two weeks off from her job that she’d need for the trip, and it had crushed her. They weren’t getting any younger, and her abuelo had suffered a nasty stroke the year prior that made her all the more anxious to visit. 

“Yep, layover in Mexico City like usual, I’ll send you the ticket when the trip gets closer,” Patrick responded.

“And you’ve got everyone’s passport info?”

She could imagine her dad rolling his eyes. “Yes, Cassidy. Everything’s booked, everything’s fine. Have fun in Florida, tell Mat good luck from us.”

“Okay, I will. Love you, dad.” Cass said, running a hand through her hair. 

A voice that she didn’t quite recognize called her name, and as she turned around she was more than a little surprised to see Auston Matthews waving at her. “It is Cassidy, right?”

She nodded her head. “Cassidy, Cass, I’ll answer to both.”

The confusion on her face must have still been evident, because he followed up. “I follow Barzy on Instagram, he brags about you all the time.”

“Yeah, sounds like him,” she said, tapping her fingers on her thigh. 

“Are you going to introduce me?” His mom asked from beside him. 

“Oh, yeah, ‘course,” Auston said, stumbling over his words. “Mom, this is Cassidy, obviously. Cassidy — Cass?” He questioned, looking over at her. She nodded. “Cass, this is my mom Ema.” She greeted her with a warm hug, and Cass just about melted. Moms really do give the best hugs. 

Ema spoke up. “Do you have family in Hermosillo? I heard you mention it on the phone.”

“Mhm!” Cass’s head almost bounced from how fast she was nodding. “My grandparents split time between there and San Antonio, we try to visit for a few weeks every summer.”

“That’s where I grew up,” she responded, beaming. “It’s wonderful, but the summers get so hot, don’t they?” Cass and Auston both nodded. 

“I think it got up to 110º when I was there once? Maybe 115º? I want to lock myself in a freezer sometimes, I swear.” The whole group collapses into laughs, and spent a few minutes talking before Cass had to tear herself away and find her seats with Mat’s family for the fastest skater competition. Ema had left her with no fewer than three restaurant recommendations, making her swear to try them all. “Best tacos I’ve ever had,” she had said about one. 

Cass greeted Mat’s family with a wave as they settled into their seats, one row up from the ice on the right side. The players had just come out, and it only took a few seconds to make eye contact with Mat. She was wearing his — her — jersey, and had long since abandoned trying to roll up and cuff the sleeves. It wasn’t going to happen, and she kind of liked the feeling of being buried in it. She blew him a kiss as the announcers voices echoed through the stadium, and the heat was on. 

Mat was slated to go last, which was either the best or worst thing depending on how you thought about it. Cass was always someone to sign up for the first slot for speeches and presentations, and hated having late games in tournaments during her lacrosse days. She liked being able to get it over with. Mat was the opposite. He was competitive and stubborn to a fault, needing to size up the competition and get ahead of the game. Needed to know what to expect. There first few she didn’t recognize, a few first-time faces to the All-Star competition, a rookie from Winnipeg who was a favorite for the Calder. Everyone was doing well, really well — all the times but one were under 14 seconds, but nobody had broken Mat’s time yet. 

Eichel got close, McDavid got closer, and then Mat was up to defend his championship. She blew a kiss to him as he stepped up to the line, murmured a prayer, and the whistle blew. Clean straightaways, tight turns, gaining speed on the curves, and in the blink of an eye it was over. Cass knew he had won, the roar of the crowd told her as much, but she didn’t realize his time. She didn’t realize until the announcer reported that with a time of 13.080 seconds, Mathew Barzal had just set the record. His face was stunned for a moment, looking up at the screen and then down at the ice and then back up at the screen again, while being hugged and congratulated from all sides, as if trying to process what had just happened. 

It was the last one of the night, so Cass said her goodbyes to Mat’s family, with a promise to meet up before the game the next day, and hurried down to meet Mat. There wasn’t anything formal scheduled for the rest of the night, so he came out of the locker room in just a pair of athletic shorts and an Islanders t-shirt. Cass ran up, jumping into his arms as he dropped his bag to catch her. “Woah, babe,” he said, steadying his hands on the back of her thighs, “coulda given me a warning there.”

Cass kissed him. “Wouldn’t have been nearly as fun that way, though, huh?”

“You’re right.” Mat shrugged good-naturedly, setting Cass down and grabbing his bag and her hand. 

“How does it feel having beaten the record?” Cass asked. 

Mat ran his free hand through his hair, still shower-damp. “So surreal. I wasn’t even sure I’d win, not with how stacked the lineup was, let alone get anywhere near breaking the record. It’s ridiculous, but it’s amazing.”

“You’re amazing.”

 Jan. 30 (sat)

 Mat was busy doing media and catching up with some of the guys before the game later that day, and Cass had elected to stay in the room. Mat had offered for her to come along, “you might think it’s interesting?” he had noted, but she’d be damned if she let herself fall behind in her last semester, she was just too close. It had already been a bit of a stretch for her to take a day off and come for the whole weekend, so her afternoon was instead filled with some utterly thrilling reading on advanced contract theory and a thick-as-all-hell review book for the New York state bar. She leaned back in her chair, taking the last remaining sip of the mediocre Lipton tea she had snagged from the basket by the room’s coffee maker. She could finish it later.

Cass picked up her phone, pressing play on a voicemail from Fiona that had been left earlier in the afternoon. 

Uh, hey, it’s me. Cass, I don’t know if this is what you want to hear, but I don’t think I’d be a very good friend if I didn’t say it. Uh-oh. Conversations that started like that never ended well. I’m happy about you and Mat, I know you like him a lot, but I’m worried that he’s distracting you. I know you told us you’d be gone, but we missed you at the study group, and I know you skipped your law review meeting today. The rest of the message was more of the same, but one sentence stuck out to her. Think about where your priorities are. Think about where you want them to be. 

Fiona Chan had a one-track mind. And Cass loved her for it — she was one of the most dedicated people she knew and an incredible friend. But she sometimes found it hard to understand when people had priorities that extended beyond the bounds of law school, when their sole focus wasn’t on their Contracts final or clinic or clerkship they were doing for some top-tier appellate judge. 

She flopped back on the bed. Think about where your priorities are. She had been spending a lot of time with Mat lately, but no more than anyone would spend with their significant other — right? And it wasn’t a sin for her to have a life outside of law school. She was still more than competent at her job, got most of the reading done, was prepared when professors would cold-call on her. She still showed up to meetings. 

But even she would admit that her head wasn’t in the game all the time, if she could hazard another High School Musical reference. She’d sneak texts, meet him for lunch instead of going to office hours, and now, take weekends off to be with him. But that wasn’t a bad thing. Or was it? Her grades weren’t really suffering, and nobody else had mentioned anything. Friends notice things, though, Cass thought. And Fiona was one of the most perceptive people she knew. She groaned. Why wasn’t there ever an easy way to figure these things out? She really liked Mat — she might even love him — but Cass couldn’t help but feel like she was gambling on something that wasn’t a sure thing. And her future wasn’t something to play games with. 

[winnipegpatty]

to all the boys i’ve loved before [pt. vi] | s.m. series

a/n: here’s the ski trip yay!!!! feedback is MUCH appreciated. all other parts are linked in my master list!

SKI TRIP

I remember writing those words on the contract thinking there was absolutely no possible way this would last that long. Three months I’d been faking it with Shawn, but when did it become real? I couldn’t pinpoint the moment, but as my dad dropped me off at school on the fateful Friday morning, I felt my entire world shifting. I was going on an overnight trip with Shawn Mendes. School sponsored, sure, but everyone knew that meant nothing. It felt monumental. Ground breaking. Earth shattering. Like something that shouldn’t be happening when it’s all fake.

I stared up at the large charter bus, as if it somehow held the key to calming the anxiety that was running rampant in my heart. It did nothing but heighten my awareness of what awaited on the other side of the drive. Finally mustering up the strength, I threw my backpack over my shoulder and stepped into my fate.

Shawn was sitting a few rows in, clearly waiting for me. He hopped to his feet the moment he saw me, but I avoided all contact and tried to push past him.

“Hey, hey wait. Where are you going?” He looked concerned. I’m not really sure why exactly, like he felt like something was wrong between the two of us. But nothing was wrong.

Except that everything was wrong.

“I think I’m just going to go sit with Chris,” I gestured towards my friend in the back.

“What? Chris? Come on, look at her. She’s sleeping. I saw on her Snapchat, she was up all night partying at an EDM concert or club or something.”

I nodded, trying not to consider the idea that Shawn was keeping up with my friends. “All the more reason for me to sit with her then.” Stepping away from Shawn’s obviously hurt face, I landed in the seat next to Chris.

Following right after me was Gen, who of course found Shawn right off the bat. “This seat taken?” She hummed sweetly.

Shawn looked back at me, unsure. “Uhhh,” Shawn turned around, “No.”

And just like that, Shawn was engulfed in the presence of Gen. I knew he’d completely forget about me if I only just let him.

Chris mumbled, “I hate you for making me get up this early,” before she turned towards me and cuddled into my side. At least I’d always have Chris. No matter what.

___

The lodge was beautiful. The ceilings were high with giant wood beams, and it looked like something out of a Magnolia magazine. Perfect touches of farmhouse chic sprinkled everywhere. The fireplace was lit, comfortable blankets strategically placed around the couches. It was cozy.

“And listen they said to me, ‘Greg, make sure everyone sleeps in their assigned rooms’” I heard one of the student council members, Greg apparently, speaking as I entered into a lobby area. “And I said, ‘Overruled! Sleep where you want sluts!’” He made a dramatic move of throwing all the room keys on the floor, and suddenly it made sense how people lost their virginity on this trip. I wonder how many got pregnant too.

“Those are the chaperones?” I muttered to Chris, ignoring the mad dash for room keys.

“See you on the Black Diamond, Shawn?” Gen hollered from across the room. Shawn looked up at the mention of his name, as the entire room looked at him. “Last one down owes the other a hot toddy.”

Shawn didn’t respond, just continued talking to the boy he was standing next to.

“Go get your man,” Chris nudged me.

I scoffed, annoyed at my existence on this trip in the first place. “Are you kidding? I can’t go down a ski slope! I don’t even know how to put on the boots!”

“If you don’t plan on skiing, what do you plan on doing all weekend?”

As my best friend, Christ really should have saw it coming. “I came prepared,” I said, pulling out my backpack full of romance novels.

“No, no! This is a major backslide, Y/N. What, hey, Lucas!” Chris called as Lucas came over towards us, “help me convince Y/N to come ski with us.”

Lucas laughed, “I’m sorry you think I’m going to ski? It’s cold, and I don’t do the cold.”

Chris looked between the two of us completely bewildered.

“I have facemasks!” I offered, knowing Lucas would instantly side with me.

___

“So, let me get this straight,” Lucas said as we sat adjacent on the hotel beds. The timer on my phone rang, signaling the time to take off the masks. “Shawn asked you to fake date him so that Gen would be jealous and you said yes so that Josh Sanderson wouldn’t think you like him. But then somewhere around mile two you realized you actually had feelings for Shawn, and now you think you’re fucked because he’s still trying to get back together with Gen?”

It sounded like a lot when it was said like that. “I know, it’s kind of crazy, but I’m just feeling so overwhelmed.”

“Look,” Lucas waved his hands to get me to stop talking. “I don’t care how this all started, all I know is that homeboy Shawn has it bad for you. It’s so fucking obvious in the way he looks at you. Like he wants to write songs about your or some shit.”

I laughed, kind of feeling the strings in my heart loosen a bit at his words. “It doesn’t matter, he’s still so hung up on Gen, and I’m just another stupid girl who fell for Shawn Mendes. It’s embarrassing”

“Look, everyone gets a little obsessed over their first relationship, first kiss, first time, you name it. Firsts are scary and important and they stick with you, no matter where you go. Let’s just look at the facts for a second. Feelings completely aside. The whole fake relationship was his idea. You made the no kissing rule. And you’re the one who keeps trying to break up with him. And you’re the one who keeps ignoring him. And you’re also the one currently having a spa night with a gay man, while he’s probably down there waiting for you in the hottub. So, I’d say, if there’s anyone who fell for someone stupidly who doesn’t like them back, it’s Shawn. Not you.”

“You think he’s waiting for me in the hottub?”

“Hell yeah, he’d be a fucking idiot if he weren’t.”

___

“All alone out here?” I asked Shawn as I came around the hottub.

He had been waiting, and that may have done something to my heart. His curls had gotten longer since we started dating, and I really enjoyed the way they flopped across his forehead haphazardly.

Shaw looked up at me, and the casually back at the water.

“So, now you’re ignoring me?” I questioned quietly.

Shawn scoffed, swirling the water with his finger a bit. “Oh, I’m the one ignoring you?” He laughed, but it was fake. “That’s funny.” There was this weird tone to Shawn’s voice that I couldn’t decipher, something I hadn’t heard before.

Deciding to take a plunge, well...a dip, I walked around to the stairs of the hot tub and tipped my feet in, feeling the warmth of the water. “Sorry, I can’t ski. You didn’t even offer to teach me, so I don’t know what I’m supposed to be doing here, Shawn. What’s my role?”

“Right, I’m supposed to just be sweet to you, when you don’t even sit with me on the bus ride? Like honestly what the fuck was that? And your role? How about being what we agreed on, my girlfriend. Girlfriends sit with boyfriends on bus rides. They ski together. Spend time together.”

“Shouldn’t you be thanking me? You got to sit next to Gen, and that’s who you wanted to sit with anyway. The whole purpose of the entire trip, our relationship, me being here, it all comes back to Gen.”

“You’re so dense,” Shawn muttered.

“Excuse me?” I said, turning to face him more directly.

“Yeah, I didn’t want to sit by Gen! I wanted to sit next to you, Y/N.” Shawn stressed every word, making it clear that he’d never intended to sit next to anyone but me. “I packed the snacks I know you liked. I literally asked Sof how to make fucking horchata so that I could bring you a nice drink. She had to tell me where to get all these special ingredients, and literally came over to my house to help me make it.”

“That grocery store is all the way across town,” I said in shock.

“I know,” Shawn stressed. “So if I went all the way across town and spent an entire evening with Sofia trying to learn something so that I could make you happy, you really think I was excited to sit next to Gen and not you? I went to all this extra trouble to do something you’d like and that means…” Shawn trailed off.

“That you really like horchata?” I tried.

Shawn rolled his eyes and jokingly pushed water towards me, “You are impossible.”

I looked at Shawn, focusing in on him, “I’m sorry that I didn’t sit next to you.”

“It’s alright,” Shawn whispered. He gave me a small smile, and shrugged lightly.

And it was in this moment, that I decided to take a risk. I’d never know, if I didn’t try, afterall. So I shrugged my coat off, and gently eased my way into the hot tub. Shawn’s eyes widened at my movement, and he swallowed quietly. Coming to stand right in front of him, I froze. Fuck, this was it. This was the moment, right? Like that cinematic dramatic moment.

“Hi,” I spoke into the silence.

…And that’s not how the cinematic moments go, but whatever.

Shawn laughed and wrapped his arm around my waist. He pulled me closer to his body before whispering, “There’s no one like you, Y/N.” He looked at me for just a moment longer before he pulled me in and kissed me gently. And god, what a fucking kiss. I felt the air in my lungs give way, and all I could feel was Shawn. His hard chest against my own, my legs wrapped around his hips, my fingers on his cheeks. It was Shawn overload, but there was absolutely nothing better than that in the entire world.

Fuck the no kissing rule, what the hell was I thinking?

___

Shawn had asked me to come back to his room, but “only to hang out and eat the snacks that he’d gotten for me”.  And yes, that is a quote. So I went, only a little unsure, mostly just because of the weekends reputation. But I told myself that I wouldn’t stay too long. I’d go back to my room with Chris and enjoy the rest of my night in peace.

“Tell me what your favorite show to binge is?” I asked Shawn as I sipped away at a surprisingly good horchata.

“It’s gotta be Brooklyn Nine Nine right now or Gilmore Girls.”

I laughed, “Gilmore Girls, really? Are you more of a Lorelai or a Rory?”

Shawn scoffed as he took reached for the bag of Takis, “Lorelai obviously. Honestly, I’m offended if you would have thought any differently.”

I smiled at him, “Yeah you have the wit of a Lorelai, and you aren’t nearly studious enough to be a Rory.”

Shawn feigned hurt before rolling his eyes. “What about you? Favorite binge show?”

“For me it’s Friends. Which, I know...it’s so basic. I’m not unique enough, but I just really love it. Monica and Chandler are just perfect and Joey is so hilarious. I mean, there’s no episode that I can’t laugh to or have fun with.”

Shawn nodded, smiling intensely at me for a moment. His eyes were soft and everything in me just adored him.

“What?” I finally asked, laughing uncomfortably, “Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Like what?” Shawn asked quietly, biting his lip.

“I dunno,” I shrugged. “Like you can’t look anywhere else, you’re just staring so intensely.”

Shawn smiled, “Where else would I want to look, Y/N?”

I bit my lip, unsure how to answer.

“You know, I really like you, right?” Shawn said softly.

I stared at him, slightly shocked. Had we just finished making out in a hot tub? Sure. But the quiet and intimate tone was just different. It was just me and Shawn, and I’m not sure I’m ready to handle everything that entails.

I choked out a quiet, “I like you too.”

Completely unsure what to say or do, I sat there on the bed, a few feet away from Shawn. Shawn put the Takis down before reaching for the horchata in my hand and placing it on the bedside time. He pushed his legs up against my own before looking down at me with all sincerity in his eyes, “I want this to be real, Y/N. I wanna make us real. I think you and me both know it’s been real for a while, but we’ve been too afraid to say so.”

I leaned my weight against Shawn, forehead coming to his shoulder. “You wanna be my boyfriend, like for real?” I whispered.

Shawn nodded, “I really do.”

“I want that too. God, yeah I really want that, Shawn.”

___

Waking up the next morning felt surreal. Yesterday, I’d been in a fake relationship with Shawn Mendes. But today, today was a whole new world. It was a world full of beauty and excitement. A world where I could kiss Shawn just because I felt like it. It was a world completely free of contracts and rules. A world where I had a boyfriend. A real boyfriend. My first boyfriend. A world where frankly, anything seemed possible.

It was a world that came crashing down the moment I stepped on the bus. People clapping and hollering at me like I’d somehow managed to score something huge. Made a game winning play or something. It made my skin crawl.

I sat down next to Shawn, “You didn’t tell anyone about last night did you?”

“No,” Shawn answered wholeheartedly, “It’s just how people treat couples on the ski trip.” I sighed, hoping that were true. “Hey I’m tired. Can I use you as a pillow?”

Deciding to push it behind me, I obliged, allowing Shawn to rest his head on my shoulder. And within minutes we were both asleep.

We arrived back at the school a few hours later. I shook Shawn awake before hopping off the bus to find Chris before she left. And after saying goodbye to Chris, I headed back to the bus to grab my bag.

“Hey, Y/N,” I heard Gen’s voice from above. “I think it’s so cool that you came on the ski trip.” I stood up, my bag in hand and pasted on the most fake smile. “I hope you had fun.”

“Thanks, Gen.”

“I just think it’s so cool that you’re so understanding about my friendship with Shawn.” Gen’s eyes gleamed like she knew she was going to hit a nerve.

“What?” I asked confused.

“Well, I mean, most girlfriends wouldn’t be cool with their boyfriend staying in another girl’s room, but you are so understanding. That’s just really cool. You must trust Shawn a lot.”

“Yeah...trust.” I responded.

Gen reached towards her hair, “God, my hair just gets so greasy on bus rides.” Gen pulled her hair out of a ponytail to reveal a familiar scrunchie. The scrunchie I had given Shawn at the first party we went to.

“Where’d you get that?” I asked Gen.

“Oh, Shawn gave it to me a while ago,” She smiled. “It’s so cute, don’t you think? I just love the colors.” She pushed the scrunchie onto her wrist before looking up at me again, “Well, it was nice seeing you.”

And then she was gone. And...that was just a lot to process. Shawn, in Gen’s room. On the same night he said he wanted to have a real relationship. Shawn, giving my favorite scrunchie to Gen on the same night I’d told him not to lose it. Shawn, just fucking lying since the genesis of this whole joke of a relationship.

“Hey,” Shawn smiled as he walked up to me.

“Did you go to Gen’s room last night after I left?” I asked, giving no room for other discussion.

Shawn sputtered, “Yes, but I can explain.”

“And did you give her my favorite scrunchie?”

Shawn rubbed his neck uncomfortable, not answering.

“Is this all a joke to you, Shawn? Am I a joke to you?” My voice cracked at the end.

“No, no. God Y/N absolutely not.”

I took a step away from him before saying words that felt like could break my heart, “This is over, every part of this. Whatever this is. It’s done. I’m done.” It wasn’t until then, that I realized Gen was right. Despite everything, despite the relationship being fake, I actually did trust Shawn. I trusted him with secrets, and soft whispers, and memories. I’d trusted him, even knowing he was still wanting Gen, and he’d broken the trust.

“Just let me drive you home, Y/N, and I can explain everything.” Shawn said, anxiety lacing his words. “Please.” He reached for my arm, but I moved back again.

“I’d rather walk home. No I’d rather drive myself home than get in a car with you right now.”

tagged: @peacedolantwins2 @rosecth @justanotherfangurl272 @unhealthyobsessionwithmarvel @honestlygarbage

[yesemcollins]

Just hours after being born, I was lifted to the popcorn ceiling of the hospital by my Uncle Tony with The Lion King's Circle of Life playing in the background. I was born in the Clermont Mercy Hospital on February 11th, 1995. I wasn't told much of the day of my birth, but the story of my father and uncles showing up in the hospital smelling of cheap weed and booze was often told at my birthday parties. My grandmother sat by my mother's side, holding me like treasure. My Aunt Elizabeth could hardly put me down. My uncles looked at me like I was the most beautiful girl in the world. These were the pictures of the day of my birth. Not a single picture of my mother holding, or looking at me with that maternal glow of unconditional love. She wasn't even the one to name me. My Aunt Elizabeth liked the name Naomi Alexandria, so that was what was put on my birth certificate. There was one picture of my father, young and scared holding a tiny bundle. That's how I knew he was there, the only way I would have known he was there.

My father left before I turned one year old. My mom says that he showed up one day with a tattoo on his chest after just turning eighteen. A heart with a ribbon around it, mine and her name written in curly letters. He was supposed to use the money she had given him for diapers, but I guess some part of him thought it would be a grand gesture of his love for us. Mom took his clothes and threw them out the door, she told him to never come back. And I don't think he had ever planned to.

We lived in the Bellavista apartments then, My Abuela, my mother, and My Uncle Mike. My Aunt Elizabeth was living in the dorms and my Uncle Tony had saved up for an apartment of his own for college. It was a small complex with a metal playground spray painted yellow at the entrance. I don't remember the place very well. When I've sat down and recalled my memories of the place, rust colored brick and stale cigarettes are what comes to mind. There are pictures of my first birthday in that small apartment. My aunt dressed up in one of those old Barney costumes, the plum colored dinosaur with a neon green belly. The complex kids were so excited they pushed her right to the ground. It was right after we had cake and icecream, which Aunt Elizabeth deeply regretted when a child projectile vomited right on her as she laid wiggling on the ground.

Soon after my Uncle Mike moved away for college, My Abuela and Mother decided to move to Silverton, a small town closer to the city. My Abuela started working at a local charter school as a spanish teacher and managed to get my mother a job there as well. Since they worked the same hours, I was sent to Happy Hearts daycare. It had a big yellow sign that you could see from the highway with writing in a crayon texture. It was a tall building red building, I remember thinking it looked like a barn on stilts as we climbed the narrow steps to the single white door. It was a crowded daycare that smelled of mildew from the leaky ceiling.

Some days I was taken to a truck rental shop owned by my mother's friends. They had an office that smelled of oil, cigarettes and cat piss. I had a corner where I could sit and color or look at books. When the computer wasn't in use, I would play pinball and randomly click grey squares in minesweeper; not knowing the meaning behind the numbers that appeared. The shop had a number of stray cats that roamed the ground, I would lay out lunch meat for them when I came. Sometimes they'd let me pet them, one even let me sneak it into my backpack and take it home. My mom made me get rid of it as soon as she heard the low mews coming from my bedroom.

Once I was old enough to start kindergarten, my Abuela started taking me to work with her. It was nice having my grandmother as part of the staff in my school. She would check on me between classes and there never was an issue that lasted too long. Bullying was hardly an issue as the girls all were blue pleated skirts with our white polos tucked into the waistline, the boys wearing pants instead. The school was based on diversity, making the world a united place. We learned of all the different cultures and religions, and were taught one of the three offered languages.

My first childhood friends were made at Technical College Peperonity World Academy. Samantha Rupert was the exact opposite of me, which might have been why we got along so well. Her thin blonde hair was cut just above her shoulder with a straight fringe that stopped just above her bright blue eyes. Light freckles dusted her light pink skin which gave her a contradicting girly look. She was wild and rough, she hated to wear dresses and loved to get dirty. She often showed up in torn up jeans and stained shirts. Not because her family was poor, but because her mother got tired of sending her to school in brand new dresses just for them to be torn and covered in paint when she went home.

Joshua Williams was an awkward boy, but his silliness always kept us entertained. His tight curls were shaved down, showing his mahogany skin. When he spoke bubbles would form at the corners of his mouth, giving a gurgling sound. He lived just down the street from me, so we often would go to school together.

Christopher Helton was a bit like the male version of Sam. He was beautiful and carefree. He had a big smile and an infectious laugh. Chris and I were much closer than the others in our group, as we played soccer together as well. Our mother's always joked that we'd get married someday, and I think we had grown up believing it.

By this time my mother had started working as a dispatcher at the local police station. This is where she met John Williamson. He was a tall and long faced man, with clear blue eyes and a head that he refused to acknowledge as balding. His teeth were short from constant grinding. When he smiled they pressed together reaching the length of normal teeth. I have always said I didn't like John, something about him made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. However, My Mother believed it was because I met John the same year I was reintroduced to my Father.

It was a very confusing year for me, when I turned four. After my Mother started dating John, he convinced her to move into an apartment of her own. She agreed that it was time, but didn't want to stray too far from my Abuela. So we moved into an apartment just around the corner, when we walked to visit there was only one house between us. One day when I was skating in my attachable skates on the sidewalk in front of our home, a man and a woman approached me. The man looked familiar, like someone I might have seen in passing. When the man told me he was my dad, I looked to my Abuela to be sure. He then introduced me to his wife, Gretchen. She was a pretty woman, with coal black hair and grey eyes. She had alabaster skin that was smooth with a warm glow. Her smile was kind and her voice was gentle. I liked her from the start, and enjoyed her affectionate words.

That was the start of my dad's visits and my life with John Williamson. My Mother would often leave me with my Abuela to go on dates with John, when they'd return I'd watch them kiss goodbye in his white ford truck. As their dates progressed, she stopped picking me up at night and sometimes would leave me at my Abuela's house for the whole weekend. I was hardly bothered by this fact, I love my abuela. Each morning she'd make me a breakfast of pancakes, eggs and turkey bacon with a crescent roll. My favorite part of our morning was sharing a hot cup of lipton tea with cream and sugar. She always made it taste just right, it took me years to get my tea to taste the way she made it.

But our mornings soon came to an end, when John asked my mother to move with him to another town. John was a handyman, he would buy junk cars and houses to fix them up and make them pretty. Then he'd turn around and sell them for much more than he bought them for. To save money, he lived in the houses he worked on. He had just bought a property on the eastside of Cincinnati, in a really nice town. And just like that, my world changed. I don't have many early memories of my mother. So I can't say if John changed her or if she had always been the way she was towards me. But I know one thing for sure, my Mother and John were a bad mix.

Moving in with John at that first house, my mother had to end her lease at the apartment. We got rid of all our furniture, since he had everything we needed. All we brought with us were our clothes and her car. I switched school and had to say goodbye to my friends. And though my Abuela was just an hour away, saying goodbye to our abundant time together was the hardest.

The first time John kicked us out, it was the middle of the night. They had been screaming at each other all day. Turned out, John was married. John was in the middle of a separation from his wife. What my mother hadn't known was that his wife was 9 months pregnant. I don't remember the exact words exchanged that night, or how the argument even started. What I do remember is being shaken in my bed to wake up, wrapping a blanket around me as I dragged my feet across the floor and my shoes being thrown at me. My mother screamed at John as she snatched random items around the house, and urged me to hurry. We slept in her car that night, after roaming around town. The next morning we returned to the house, they screamed some more and then made up like nothing had happened.

I never thought to question the relationship of my Mother with John. Visiting my father, although much more pleasant, was nearly similar. Every year in the summer, my dad and his wife would take me back to their home in Greensboro, North Carolina and I'd spend half the summer with them. They lived with Sarah's parents, as my dad saved money for them to buy a house. They shared one car but since the family did everything together, it didn't seem to trouble anyone. Sarah's family was very spiritual, they're home smelled of burning essence and they believed in a peaceful way of life. We did pottery, painting, and paper mache. Looking back now, I'd almost call them hippies. But as peaceful as Sarah's family was, her relationship with my dad was not. They too often screamed and fought, at this point I believed it was just what couples did. It had become my new normal. Even still, I looked forward to my time with my Dad and Sarah. They didn't make me clean as much as I did back home. I wasn't expected to be silent and out of sight. I felt like I was a kid, carefree and enjoying the beauty the world had to offer me. But like most good things in my life, it didn't last long.

After multiple moves, and being kicked out so often I had started having a go bag; one summer, my dad never came. When the phone rang, he was never on the other end. When I checked the mail, I was disappointed to see no letter with my name on it. I didn't know what happened at the time, all I knew was that my dad had chosen not to talk to me anymore.

I've been called naive once or twice in my life. Whether that is a positive or negative thing, I'll leave that to you to decide. I like to think that I'm just opJohnistic, I don't like to stay in the darkness for too long. Growing up, I had a fair mix of pleasant and unpleasant memories. For each displeasing memory, I would think of a better one. Like when I had left the dirty dishes in the sink. John came home from work and pulled me out of bed then made me stand outside in the snow. My bare feet felt like they were on fire. I held myself tightly as I stood in my red flannel nightgown, trying to open a window or door to get back in. The phone had rang just before he pulled me back inside and sent me to bed. When I told my mom the next day, she just reminded me to keep up with my chores and it wouldn't happen again. I love the snow though, because snow in Cincinnati is the first sign of the holidays. My family was always close growing up. We met for church every sunday and would have dinner once a week together at Abuela's house. When my Aunt and Uncle's married, they often would have me over or come to my soccer games. When they had children, I saw them slightly less but I was still invited to join them on camping trips or days at the aquarium. Christmas however was my favorite, because we'd all get together and have a big family dinner. The cousins would all play, while the adults laughed and teased each other. We'd go ice skating at Fountain on the Square and see the festival of lights at the zoo. We'd get hot chocolate and pralines before going on a carriage ride through Downtown Cincinnati. Being with my family, was my calm between storms.

Now I hadn't always realized the terrors of the life I lived. Most things just seemed normal, I hadn't really known anything different. And even when things seemed bad, I always found a reason to look past it. Like I said, I've been called naive once or twice in my life. But the year that John moved us to Amelia, I was in for a wake up call.

[goodra-king]

Transcript of Business Lessons Learned on the Baseball Field

Transcript of Business Lessons Learned on the Baseball Field written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

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John Jantsch: This episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast is brought to you by Zephyr CMS. It’s a modern cloud based CMS system that’s licensed only to agencies. You can find them at zephyrcms.com, more about this later in the show.

John Jantsch: Hello and welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing podcast. This is John Jantsch. My guest today is Joel Goldberg. He is a speaker, MC and a television announcer with 25 years or so under his belt, the last 12 with the Kansas City Royals. So we’re going to talk today about lessons learned in sports that translate to business. So Joel, thanks for joining me.

Joel Goldberg: Thanks for having me John.

John Jantsch: I have to tell you, first off, a lot of my listeners know that I’m in Kansas City and that I’m a Kansas City Royals fan that I got a solid single off of Monte at fantasy camp. And every time I see you guys back up there in left field, I let him know it.

Joel Goldberg: Well come by again next year and we’ll really let him know it because the good news is he’s pretty humble. The reality of it is if he threw you a legitimate slider, you wouldn’t have had a chance, I wouldn’t have a chance.

John Jantsch: I think that thing he threw to me might’ve reached 65 miles an hour. I mean, it had some heat behind it.

Joel Goldberg: Yes, some [inaudible 00:01:28]. Isn’t it quite the reminder of how, even when we think we have talent along those lines that we’re not close, never have been?

John Jantsch: Nope. But to your point, he is a fine human being as well.

Joel Goldberg: The best. I’ll tell you, I mean, he’s been my broadcast partner for better part of 10 years and I still haven’t had a bad day with him. And that’s really hard to say. Most people can’t say that about their spouse, their relatives, anybody. But that’s just life. I’ve never had a moment where I’m like, “Oh, well this guy,” and I travel with him and hang out with them and the whole works. I mean, that’s a former three time all star, all time stage leader for the organization and you’d never know it.

John Jantsch: No, that’s absolutely right. It looks like he could still go out there and throw it a little bit too. He keeps himself in great shape, doesn’t he?

Joel Goldberg: Yeah, better than his partner. But it is amazing, when the team struggles and they go through their cycles like everybody else and bullpen struggling, inevitably there will always be someone, fan that walks by and says, “You ready to go?” And he’s 57 years old now and I think that the response usually is, “I’m done.” Every now and then there’s a, “Maybe I can help a little bit.”

John Jantsch: So let’s talk. We’re obviously going to talk about some of the leadership and culture stuff that you’re working on these days. But maybe give people a little bit of insight into, I’m sure a lot of people think, “Oh, baseball announcer. What a glamorous life and glamorous world,” and in many ways it probably is a dream job, but it’s probably a grind at times too. I mean, I know the baseball players talk about the months and months and months of travel and season and you’ve kind of experience that as well, don’t you?

Joel Goldberg: I experience every bit of it minus the physical part that they experience. But I’m pretty sure that we experience the same mental grind. I think it’s a grind because there’s just no let up. When I moved to Kansas City in 2008 I’d come from a job where I was a year round salaried employee in television. And now essentially I’m a freelance reporter, TV host, working a full year’s worth of work in six months. On a good month you have three or four days off. But there are stretches, and thankfully for the baseball union, for the players, they can’t play 30 straight days. But I think it’s 20 something they’re allowed. So there’s stretches where you might work 20 straight days, get a day off and then go another 15 in a row.

Joel Goldberg: For me, what I learned, it helps when you’re doing what you love and they’re paying me to talk about baseball and travel on charter flights and all that stuff and nice hotels. But you’ve got to pace yourself because if you don’t, that’s what I learned early, take deep breaths and take time for yourself and then your family when you have that is that you’re going to to get to June and be ready for the season to end. And there’s no break. Outside of a four day All Star break in July, there is no relief in sight.

Joel Goldberg: That’s the grind. But again, I don’t say that, ask them for people to feel sorry for me because I’m living my dream and my passion. I think that one that people would empathize the most with is that it can be very challenging and tough being away from family and kids and missing events and all that type of stuff.

John Jantsch: You spend a lot of time on the road. There have been many people that, I mean obviously the analogies of sports to businesses, they’re so rich. But in a lot of ways sports teams like a little mini business. I mean it’s not even mini. I mean it is a sort of odd shaped business, isn’t it?

Joel Goldberg: 100% and I’ll take it a step further, John. I mean, there’s plenty of business in every sports franchise at every level from the corporate sales and the suites or the tickets to the marketing and on and on. I mean, that in itself is the big business.

Joel Goldberg: But if you just look at a major league baseball club house or any locker room in professional sports, to me it is very much a microcosm of any business because you have different personalities, you have diversity, you have different roles. I mean not every team is going to have 25 superstars. Not every team is going to have everybody being the top salesperson and to make it work and to make it mesh in the amount of leadership and determination and skill and passion and all of it, to me, what I’ve learned in my last three years as a speaker, it’s very similar. It is very similar. It just happens to be in a world where there’s a lot of spotlight on them.

John Jantsch: And I think probably a different element, is a lot of businesses can think in terms of wins and losses, but probably not in the dramatic fashion every day that a sports team might experience. How would you say that that element of managing the wins and losses and the emotional roller coaster, the sort of ultimate, did we make it to the World Series? I mean how does that parallel a traditional business in your opinion?

Joel Goldberg: It’s all process based. On the end you’re going to be measured by your wins and losses, your final sales numbers, your goals. But what does it take to get there and all the things behind the scenes and progress that oftentimes doesn’t show up in the numbers that may show up two years down the road, three years down the road.

Joel Goldberg: I think what I love most about baseball, and I love all the sports, I’ve always been a guy and I covered a lot of other sports over the years, still a little bit of hockey, but it is whatever sport I’m in is my favorite. I just liked them all growing up. So baseball is my favorite because I’ve been nonstop in that for 12 years. But baseball is different than the other sport. And I’m not saying that they work any harder. That’s not it. But when you have a bad day in baseball, you go for four, you strike out four times, you give up three home runs as a pitcher or whatever it might be, you got to come back and do it again tomorrow and the next day and the next day.

Joel Goldberg: In football, for better or worse, you’re going to sit on it for a week. You’re going to work and build up to that. But this whole baseball thing is very much representative to me of the real world because it doesn’t stop. And you have a bad day at the office, a bad day at home, you still have to answer the call the next day. If you’re lucky, you get a weekend off. And so that to me is, if you think about in the course of a baseball season, ultimately you’re measured by did you win the championship or not? Then 29 teams out of 30 in baseball are going to be failures that those odds aren’t very good.

Joel Goldberg: The Kansas City Royals finally won a world championship. Hey, they got more world championships in the Yankees in the last 10 years. That doesn’t mean that they’ve been a better team, but how do you measure success beyond just winning that championship? Are you growing? Are you getting better? I think to me that’s very much like most companies that know that they’re not going to suddenly be what they want tomorrow. It is a very long process.

John Jantsch: There’s a lot of talking I think when the Royals won in 2015. There was a lot of talk about how the culture of the organization maybe carried them to a place where purely the talent couldn’t. But then there’s also a lot of naysayers to that idea. I think the same is true in business. There are a lot of folks that are very bottom line, here are the numbers and there’s a lot of people that know this is a place where people want to work.

John Jantsch: I know you talk about culture a lot and so I guess I could ask this sort of a multi part question. What role do you think culture plays in a sports team? What role did you think it played in the excellence that the Royals were able to achieve in the mid 2000s?

Joel Goldberg: Well, I think in terms of the Royals and certainly smaller market teams, it’s huge, if they want it to be huge. I know that the group here that built this team, they just changed ownership, you know that, but they still have the same general manager in place and there’s an incredible consistency to that of having a general manager that has been here since 2006. That’s pretty hard to do in sports. [crosstalk 00:09:31].

John Jantsch: Well not just one who’s been here a long time. I mean, one who puts vocally puts culture out there ahead of a lot of those.

Joel Goldberg: I’ll give you a few examples, John. The first time I ever met Dave Moore was 2007. I was in visiting. I was working in St. Louis that year and so I was in visiting with the Cardinals, which doesn’t make people happy in Kansas City. A big rivalry there. I walked in, I introduced myself to Dave Moore. I knew he was the new GM and I said, “What are you trying to build here?” And he said, “I’m trying to build a championship culture.” I said, “Well what do you mean by that?” He said, “I’m not talking about the 25 players in the locker room. I’m talking about the ticket takers and the vendors and the scouts and people outside of the building and the fans and not just fans in Kansas City, but the region.”

Joel Goldberg: One of the things I always like to say is that that showed up in the form of a big picture of 800,000 people gathered around for a parade. That was everyone included in that. But to me, what Dave Moore has told me is that that culture is a focus of theirs every single day. How you treat people, how you roll off the red carpet when a new player, even if he’s not a star, comes in. He says to me all the time, “You’re part of the culture. People see your face and hear your voice, and so you’re involved in it too. People are more likely to stop me in the street in Kansas City then the 24th guy on the roster because maybe that guy hasn’t been here very long and I have.” It all feeds together.

Joel Goldberg: If you’re the, I don’t know, if you’re the New York Yankees, the Boston Red Sox, Los Angeles Dodgers, any of those deep pocket, think about in terms of companies, and I don’t know if it’s fair to call the Yankees Amazon, but they can afford to get it wrong at times. I think that in a smaller market it becomes a competitive advantage to be able to focus on people and to be able to focus on culture. That’s what I’ve seen.

Joel Goldberg: It doesn’t mean that just good guys finish last or good guys finish first, in this case. You have to have talent, but if you can’t compete for the top, top, top talent or, and let’s be honest, these owners all have plenty of money. The Royals were just sold for $1 billion. They could go out there and afford any player. The difference from them and the Yankees, like the Yankees just signed Gerrit Cole a $324 million deal, which is insane. If it doesn’t work, they’ve got a higher credit card limit than everyone else. It might cost them some luxury tax dollars, but they’ll go out there and find someone else.

Joel Goldberg: The Royals are [inaudible] make and fill in the blank, the Royals, the Twins, the Brewers, the Cardinals, Pirates, the smaller market teams, if they go out there and attempt to buy a player like that and it doesn’t work, they got nothing left. So they have to be able to win with character developing talent, which is cheaper to do that, and find those competitive advantages.

John Jantsch: Today content is everything. So our websites are really content management systems, but they’ve kind of work like one. Check out Zephyr. It is a modern cloud-based CMS system that’s licensed only to agencies. It’s really easy to use. It’s very fast, won’t mess with your SEO. I mean it really reduces the time and effort to launch your client’s websites, beautiful themes, just really fast, profitable way to go. They include an agency services to really kind of make them your plug and play dev shop. Check out zephyr.com that is Z-E-P-H-Y-Rcms.com.

John Jantsch: What are the elements then when you go out and talk to business leaders as you do today? What are some of the elements then that you emphasize as parts of building a championship culture?

Joel Goldberg: Well, first and foremost, the number one word or topic along with culture that I talk about is building trust and trust really on multiple levels. Building trust within an organization. And again, I mean I got back to talking about diversity. You go into a baseball clubhouse and guarantee that you’ll have American players, guaranteed you’ll have Dominican players, there’s a good chance you’ll have some Venezuelans, maybe some Cubans, Puerto Rican, Mexican, maybe Japanese, Korean. You’ve got to find a way to make that work. To me, when you could build that trust within each other, and that doesn’t start by the way in the major league clubhouse. So the Royals have lost over a hundred games each of the last two years and people say, “Oh they’re back to where they were before.” And my argument is that in terms of wins and losses, yes, but all of these young players that are coming up through their system were able to watch the way when the guys won here, the way things were done. They saw from afar, they saw it in spring training.

Joel Goldberg: I always say that what a team has a culture, you could put their franchise name and the word way after it, the Cardinal way, the Yankee way. There was no Royal’s way when I got here in 2008. There is now a Royal’s way of doing things. The [inaudible] ball players, the fundamentals, they work on the attention to detail and the way they go about that. And that’s all been passed on. So when kids are getting up here and now at 22-25 years old, this is how we do it. And so they still have that culture.

Joel Goldberg: You build that trust within the organization. I’ll give you this example. They just hired a new manager, Mike Matheney. He had spent the last year in the organization working throughout the minor leagues. He’s already built relationships and trust with all of these prospects. When they get here, there will be an understanding.

Joel Goldberg: To take that a step further, I was told that the day that he got hired as the manager, long day, press conference, all the meet and greets and everything, by the time his head had hit the pillow he had reached out by phone and was able to contact by phone 39 of the 40 players on their roster that are on their 40 man, major league accessible roster, and he spent the last, I think, month just traveling around the country connecting with guys over coffee or lunch, so that on day one there already is trust.

Joel Goldberg: To me, it all starts with trust with each other and that’s what I do every day, John. I mean, the end result is the interview and the product that we see on TV. I’m spending every day trying to earn these guys’ trust to be able to get a better interview, to be able to get access. So that’s what I’m doing in building these relationships. I mean, I don’t care what business you’re in, sports included, it still comes down to people, every single day. It’s a huge part of the culture.

John Jantsch: Here’s the most important question. Does Gordon come back?

Joel Goldberg: I would be shocked if he didn’t. Alex Gordon really is the franchise player, not in terms of their best player anymore. There are lessons, by the way, with him too, phenomenal leader. He’s oftentimes the most quiet guy in the room. But he’s the only guy here that was here as a player when I got here and he made his debut in 2007. He’s kind of that sage guy in the club house now. He still is a good player. His contract is up. He doesn’t want to go anywhere else. He’s a Midwest guy, grew up three hours, three and a half hours away in Lincoln, Nebraska, raising his kids here. They’re in school now, married, all that beautiful family. It’s one of two choices. He’ll either retire and go coach his kids, he’s made plenty of money, or he’ll come back. I would be stunned if he wasn’t back. I really would.

John Jantsch: I hate to derail our conversation about leadership, but I just can’t help it.

Joel Goldberg: [crosstalk 00:16:49].

John Jantsch: What are the Royals have to do to make him feel like they want him to come back? I mean, I know he and Dayton have a good relationship. I know he wants to keep playing, if he thinks he can play at the level he’s supposed to. Are they obligated in some ways to make a gesture of a certain amount?

Joel Goldberg: Maybe. I mean, I think from a numbers standpoint, it’ll just be one of those things where, I’m guessing here, but it’ll be one of those things where they’re not going to want the most ridiculous discount ever that they disrespect him, and he’s not going to want the most ridiculous amount of money that he disrespects them. They understand that there’s a level of respect that they need to show him, and vice versa.

Joel Goldberg: I think more than anything, first off, I feel like his decision could already be made. And I don’t know that. I mean, I did talk to him recently, intentionally that didn’t come up. He’s not going to tell me. I tried to read the tea leaves. It gives me no equity to try to push on things that I’m not going to get an answer to. So you dig around a little bit and you talk to people that are close and all that.

Joel Goldberg: I think for me, other than the fact that there were so many conversations that I would have with him last year away from the field where he’d talk about, “We need to do this, we need to do that.” And I always thought the we part was interesting, almost, and that might just be semantics. But I just think that they need to show him that they’re on the right path. They’re not going to with a new owner suddenly just flip a switch and say, “We’re going to go buy everything and the heck with the process.” They’re not a cutting corners type of organization. I don’t think that’ll suddenly happen. I just feel like he’s going to need to be taken care of more respectful standpoint. They will. He’s got a phenomenal relationship with the organization and the GM. And then just have a feeling that they’re trying to advance this in the right direction and then once that happens, I think he fully understands his place in helping advance it.

John Jantsch: He almost becomes another coach on the field.

Joel Goldberg: He is. And beyond that too, just real quick, because it is important for culture too, and I speak about this a lot, is that the organization will take his work ethic, what he does in the weight room with his health, the way he’s eating, they won’t tell guys never eat a carb and sugar. Nobody’s going to do that except for Alex Gordon. But they’ll watch the way he goes about batting practice at the plate. But before he goes to the plate, the way he shags fly balls like it’s a live game situation, they’ll take video of that and they will show it to the young guys as young as 16-17 years old in the minor leagues and say, “This is the Royal way. This is the way we do things.” He has a major impact on all that.

John Jantsch: I selfishly hope he comes back so that we get to watch him for another year.

Joel Goldberg: Well, I do too. And my selfishness is more than yours because I feel like I’ve watched him grow up on a personal level. I’ve watched him raise his kids and marry his wife and all that and he’s just, he’s one of my favorite people in the world. And a lot of media stays away from him. They all get along with him. He’s just a little bit more introverted, a little bit more quiet. But when you get to know him, he’s funny, he’s thoughtful, he’s respectful and it’s one of the things that I really enjoy is the relationship that I’ve been able to build with him. I know that once he’s gone I won’t have that in terms of the baseball setting.

John Jantsch: His personality reminds me a lot of Salvie kind of doesn’t it?

Joel Goldberg: No.

John Jantsch: No? I meant that completely facetious.

Joel Goldberg: I know you did. I was with you on that one. But I will tell you this, I mean there is a really short message there. Two guys that can lead and do it with extroverted and a bit of a more of an introverted personality and they’re both really affected the way they do it.

John Jantsch: And I think from a culture standpoint, one of the things that a lot of organizations, you talked about the diversity in baseball. I think a lot of organizations lack that diversity to their detriment. I think that’s another great lesson from kind of the team concept of diversity. I think a lot of, I won’t say it’s forced in baseball, but it happens because of the nature of the game. And I think there’s a great lesson in that for organizations because those two styles of leadership we just talked about, everybody, the whole organization, benefits from the fact that those two styles are there.

Joel Goldberg: They’re more than those two styles too. It just, it’s finding people that have a passion for whether it’s the game or that profession that have a passion for whatever that why is. That’s the one thing that the Royals have done really well in recent years is that they go out there and find people that love to play the game. They’re good people and sometimes it’s easy to just go for the best talent out there and say, “You know what?” You get sucked into that talent and you start to ignore some of those other little things that again, a smaller organization can’t afford to ignore.

John Jantsch: So Joel, I know you have a podcast called Rounding The Bases. You hinted you’re working on a book, which will be a great, I think, for your career in the leadership field. Tell people where they can find out more about you.

Joel Goldberg: So certainly on all the social media spots, I think Twitter, it’s Goldberg KC, and then all the other ones it’s Joel Goldberg KC, some version of that on. I post a lot of content on LinkedIn and Instagram. Twitter is more of a baseball thing for me. Facebook, certainly Facebook business page or whatever they call that nowadays. I’ve got a website, joelgoldbergmedia.com. I’m still learning every day. I’ve been doing this speaking thing for three years. It’s kind of become a a, not just a side hustle but my other main business and getting in front of all types that want to learn about culture through story driven [inaudible] storytelling messages and strategy. I’ve got the bug, I’ve got the entrepreneurial bug. I don’t know what took me so long to get there, but now it’s one of those things I think I told you before that I wake up every day learning something new and it’s awesome. It’s a lot of fun.

John Jantsch: I tell people, being an entrepreneur is the greatest self development program ever created.

Joel Goldberg: Well it is. I never knew that, but it’s made me a better person. It’s made me a better listener. It’s made me more curious. It’s made me understand that I don’t know anything. Everything that I do know, there’s so much more to know. But more than that, it’s made me a better television host and reporter because I go to the stadium now every day more curious about what’s going on. Where’s the leadership looking like, the culture? Why are they doing this? How does this come about? How are these guys meshing? What did you like about him? I totally agree with you on that. I never thought of myself as an entrepreneur before, I guess because I wasn’t. I was a TV guy. And now suddenly there’s something out there. You know what it is? Becoming an entrepreneur to me was taking off blinders and just seeing more of what’s out there, more of what’s in front of you and to the side and it never stops.

John Jantsch: It’s easy to get very much in your lane. Listen Joel, thanks for stopping by the Duct Tape Marketing podcast and hopefully we’ll give you a shout out when I’m out there at the fountains at the K.

Joel Goldberg: No, for sure do that. And I’m going to have you on my podcast soon. You can taunt Jeff Montgomery, but as I told the previous owner, David Glass, who used to blame both of us for all the losses. I said, “He’s a Royals Hall of Famer. Just blame me. Okay, I’ll take it.”

John Jantsch: Awesome. Well, thanks so much, Joel.

Joel Goldberg: All right, thanks John.

from http://bit.ly/2NQ7o0O

[kennethherrerablog]

Time Is Money — We Have 13 Ways to Save Both

“Time is money.”

Benjamin Franklin wrote that in the 1700s, and it’s never been truer than today.

You better believe that time is money. As functioning adults, we’re always weighing the value of time versus money.

For instance, clipping coupons saves you money, but it takes time. A “FastPass” at Walt Disney World costs you extra money, but it saves you time waiting in lines for rides. And of course, there’s the biggest tradeoff of all: We spend so much time — so many of our waking hours — working to earn money.

So today, we’ve got a baker’s dozen of quick, smart tips for saving yourself time and money.

Save Yourself Time and Money

There are only so many hours in the day. Maximize them. You only have so much money. Optimize it.

1. Stop Deleting Your Emails

Whether you shop online or in the store, it’s easy to get all of your receipts dumped into your email. (We suggest maintaining a separate email address that exists just for this purpose.)

It turns out that the receipts in your emails could be a source of cash. But who has time to troll through their inbox looking for receipts? No thanks!

Our secret weapon here is called Paribus — a tool that gets you money back for your online purchases. It's free to sign up, and once you do, it will scan your email for any receipts. If it discovers you’ve purchased something from one of its monitored retailers, it will track the item’s price and help you get a refund when there’s a price drop.

Plus, if your guaranteed shipment shows up late, Paribus will help you get compensated.

2. Have a Bot Negotiate Your Cable Bill

Here’s another time- and money-saver. The price of internet — and cable, if you’re still into that kind of thing — certainly isn’t decreasing. If anything, prices are steadily climbing.

And if you’ve had to chat with a representative from your internet/cable company recently, you know how long you can sit on hold.

That’s why it’s time to call in a robot. The negotiation bot Trim will negotiate your cable or internet bills down for you. It works with Comcast, Time Warner, Charter and other major providers.

You can sign up simply with Facebook or your email address. Then, upload a PDF of your most recent bill, and Trim’s AI-powered system gets to work. If at first it doesn’t succeed, it’ll keep negotiating until it can save you some money.

3. Get Paid Earlier Than Your Co-workers

Want to get a jump on payday? Let Chime be your secret weapon.

Unlike most financial institutions, this online bank account doesn’t wait until your pay date to give you access to your money. As soon as it receives notification of the transaction from your employer, it immediately posts those funds to your account.

That means you’ll get your paycheck early — like Samuel Demeny, who switched from Wells Fargo to Chime. He uses direct deposit. His company technically pays everyone on Fridays, but Chime gets him access to that cash two days earlier than his co-workers.

“The fact that I’m paid on Wednesday versus Friday… helps me budget before the weekend even starts,” Demeny told The Penny Hoarder.

Opening an account with Chime is free and only takes about five minutes.

4. Automate Bill Pay

Most bills are paid online now, reports the Credit Union Times. But you can take it a step further. Set it up so you’ll receive and pay all of your bills online through your bank. That simplifies things so you’ll never miss a payment.

Here’s how: Go to your bank’s online bill-pay feature. Enter all the companies that bill you, and the account numbers for each. Arrange to receive e-bills from whichever billers will do that.

You can also have your bank send digital payments to individuals (like a landlord).

Also, see whether your bank offers automatic savings transfers that will move money from your checking account to your savings account each month.

5. Save Money on Every Gallon Pumped — Automatically

If you’re a savvy saver, you probably already use GasBuddy to help you find the cheapest gas station in town. It’s an easy — and free — way to avoid overpaying.

But once you pull up to the pump, here’s something else you can do: Swipe your Pay with GasBuddy card to automatically save 10 cents per gallon on your first purchase (and 5 cents per gallon after that).

The free discount card is tied directly to your checking account. It works at 95% of gas stations throughout the country, so you don’t have to drive around town just to find “your” station. Plus, you don’t have to wait for a rebate — it’s immediate savings.

Simply and securely sign up through GasBuddy. Connect your bank account, enter your address, and GasBuddy will put a card in the mail.

6. Start Saving Without Trying

Saving money is tough. So what if you could do it in a way where you wouldn't even notice?

Digit makes that possible. It helps you save money without spending any time budgeting.

This innovative app automates saving for you. Simply link it to your checking account, and its algorithms will determine small (and safe!) amounts of money to withdraw into a separate, FDIC-insured savings account.

Bonus: Penny Hoarders will get an extra $5 just for signing up! Additionally, savers will receive a 1% bonus every three months.

If you need that money sooner than expected, you’ll always have access to it within one business day.

Digit is free to use for the first 30 days, then it’s $2.99 per month afterward.

7. Invest Your Digital Change (and Get a $5 Bonus)

If you’re like most of us and wish your money would just take care of itself, consider starting an investment account through Acorns.

You can start small and stack up change over time with its “round-up” feature. That means if you spend $10.23 at the grocery store, 77 cents gets dropped into your Acorns account.

Then, the app does the whole investing thing for you. The idea is you won’t miss the digital pocket change, and the automatic savings stack up faster than you’d think.

The app is $1 a month for balances under $1 million, and Penny Hoarders get a $5 bonus when you sign up.

8. Take a Picture of Your Receipt

You can save on groceries without taking the time to clip coupons. We know it sounds strange, but Ibotta will pay you cash for taking pictures of your grocery store receipts.

Here’s how it works:

Before heading to the store, search for items on your shopping list within the Ibotta app. When you get home, snap a photo of your receipt and scan the items’ barcodes. Bam. Cash back.

Ibotta is free to download. Plus, you’ll get a $10 sign-up bonus after uploading your first receipt.

9. Get a Better Savings Account

There’s no law that requires you to bank the old-fashioned way — at a brick-and-mortar bank that requires you to drive across town. It’s time to move your money into the 21st century, and do your banking wherever you are.

An iOS app called Varo Money combines traditional banking tools with modern technology to help its customers become financially healthy.

Here’s the best part: Pair your Bank Account with a Varo Savings Account where you’ll earn 1.75% annual percentage yield. That’s nearly 30 times — repeat, 30 times — the average savings account, based on a 0.06% average reported by CNN Money.

Varo goes easy on the fees, too. As long as you use one of its 55,000 ATMs across the world, you’ll never pay fees.

10. Let Someone Else Watch Your 401(k)

If you’re like most people, you have no idea whether your 401(k) is on pace for your retirement or just sputtering along.

Chances are, your 401(k) could be doing a lot better. Take control with help from Blooom, an SEC-registered investment advisory firm that can optimize and monitor your 401(k) for you and keep it speeding toward retirement.

It just takes a few minutes to get a free 401(k) analysis that will show you whether your investments are allocated properly and whether you’re losing money paying hidden investment fees. It’ll even tell you just how much more money your account could earn by the time you want to retire.

After that, if you sign up, it’s just $10 per month to have Blooom monitor and maximize your 401(k). Bonus: Penny Hoarders get the first month free with the code PNNYHRD!

11. Believe in the Magic of Meal Planning

Meal preparation, or meal prep, is a popular cooking trend that is equal parts health- and money-conscious.

The core idea of meal prep is to plan for a set number of days (typically a week) by buying ingredients, cooking your meals or prepping your ingredients and storing them in your kitchen for easy access. In doing so, you can save time throughout the week, limit yourself to a set amount of food/calories — and save yourself some serious money.

Here’s how to make a money-saving meal plan that you’ll actually stick to.

Along the same lines, here’s The Penny Hoarder’s complete guide to meal planning.

12. Keep It Cookin’ All Day

Are you spending too much at restaurants or on delivery? We get it: You should probably stop dining out so much, but you’re also not in the mood to cook when you get home from work.

Get a slow cooker. They’re so easy to use that owning one will make you more likely to prepare meals at home.

“This fine 3- to 6-quart piece of stoneware revolutionized my meal planning and gave me valuable time back,” Penny Hoarder writer Stephanie Bolling advises in this roundup of cheap and tasty slow cooker recipes. “The high yield, low effort and cost make it a prime household staple for fellow Penny Hoarders.”

You can start the cooking process in the morning, so you won’t be overwhelmed and pressed for time when you come home from work in the evening.  

13. Save on Home Insurance — Super Fast

Shop around for a better deal on home insurance! It’s easier than you think it is, and it’s way quicker, too. It’s easy to get a free quote and see whether you can get a better deal on home insurance, but few of us bother to do so.

We recommend the online insurance company Lemonade, where homeowners insurance starts at $25 a month. Instead of profiting extra when it doesn’t have to pay out claims, the company keeps a set 20% of your premium for itself, and 80% goes into a pool for paying claims and charity.

Lemonade sells homeowners insurance in Arizona, California, Connecticut, the District of Columbia, Georgia, Illinois, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Maryland, Michigan and Pennsylvania.

Another innovator, Hippo, can supply you with a quote in 60 seconds — and a new policy in less than four minutes. By modernizing homeowners insurance, it charges up to 25% less than average industry prices.

Hippo is doing business in Alabama, Arizona, California, Illinois, Indiana, Maryland, Missouri, Mississippi, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, and Wisconsin.

Time, Money and Energy

To accomplish anything in this life, you need time, money and energy. We’ve talked about time and money, but energy is a different subject entirely.

To save energy, we recommend that you lie down on the couch and take a nap.

Mike Brassfield (mike@thepennyhoarder.com) is a senior writer at The Penny Hoarder. He recommends taking a nap.

This was originally published on The Penny Hoarder, which helps millions of readers worldwide earn and save money by sharing unique job opportunities, personal stories, freebies and more. The Inc. 5000 ranked The Penny Hoarder as the fastest-growing private media company in the U.S. in 2017.

The Penny Hoarder Promise: We provide accurate, reliable information. Here’s why you can trust us and how we make money.

Time Is Money — We Have 13 Ways to Save Both published first on https://justinbetreviews.tumblr.com/

[readingontheedge]

BOOK INFORMATION:

OUTRAGEOUS, the next Quantum series novel Marie Force is now live!

Read OUTRAGEOUS now!

Kindle US: http://geni.us/q7amz iBooks: http://geni.us/q7ibooks Nook: http://geni.us/q7bandn Kobo: http://geni.us/q7kobo Google: http://geni.us/q7google Kindle CA: http://geni.us/q7amzca Kindle UK: http://geni.us/q7amzuk Kindle AU: http://geni.us/q7amzau

Print Signed copy from Marie’s Store: http://geni.us/q7mfstore Amazon US: http://geni.us/q7amzprt

Amazon UK: http://geni.us/q7amzprtuk 

BLURB:

She drives him crazy… In more ways than one.

Every time Leah Holt encounters Quantum Production’s chief counsel, Emmett Burke, the only thing she can think of is how much she wants to lick him. Everywhere. She’s never had that kind of reaction to a man, and the fact that he’s a much-older colleague makes her out-of-control attraction to him far more complicated than it should be. Every day, she brings a new legal question to Emmett, hoping to catch his attention and make him see her as a grown woman who wants him desperately. She walks a fine line in trying to remain professional as the assistant to superstar Marlowe Sloane while lusting after Marlowe’s sexy attorney.

To Emmett, Leah is a fly buzzing around his head who can’t be swatted away. She’s always there, looking at him, asking him legal questions that have nothing to do with his specialty in entertainment law and generally driving him mad with her overt sexiness and sassy mouth. He wants to toss her over his desk and run the sass right out of her, which is hardly the way a professional who loves his job should behave in the office—especially with a young, fresh, sexy colleague. As the author of the company’s policy on inter-office dating, he’s painfully aware of all the reasons he should stay far, far away from her and the tantalizing temptation she represents.

Then Leah gets her chance to step up for Emmett, to help him through an unfortunate “accident” and to show him she’s much more than just a smart mouth and a sexy body. When she realizes she has genuine feelings for him—and that those feelings are returned—she wonders if he will take a chance on her or continue to hold her at arm’s length. Slowly but surely, she chips away at his resistance, and he begins to crave more of her. But Emmett knows if he’s going to let her in, he has to let her all the way in. What will she think when he introduces her to his BDSM lifestyle? Will she still want him the way she does now or will she run away in horror? And what will he do if she runs away?

When Leah confronts a dangerous threat from her past, Emmett is forced to acknowledge that his “annoying little fly” has worked her way firmly into his heart—and his bed.

Also, join the entire Quantum team at the company’s vineyard in Napa for Hayden and Addie’s wedding!

Contains the full TAME edition in the back for those who want all the romance with a less scorching heat level!

AUTHOR BIO:

Marie Force is the New York Times bestselling author of contemporary romance, including the indie-published Gansett Island Series and the Fatal Series from Harlequin Books. In addition, she is the author of the Butler, Vermont Series, the Green Mountain Series and the erotic romance Quantum Series. In 2019, her new historical Gilded series from Kensington Books will debut with Duchess By Deception.

All together, her books have sold 6.5 million copies worldwide, have been translated into more than a dozen languages and have appeared on the New York Times bestseller list many times. She is also a USA Today and Wall Street Journal bestseller, a Speigel bestseller in Germany, a frequent speaker and publishing workshop presenter as well as a publisher through her Jack’s House Publishing romance imprint. She is a two-time nominee for the Romance Writers of America’s RITA® award for romance fiction.

Her goals in life are simple—to finish raising two happy, healthy, productive young adults, to keep writing books for as long as she possibly can and to never be on a flight that makes the news.

Join Marie's mailing list for news about new books and upcoming appearances in your area. Follow her on Facebook, Twitter @marieforce and on Instagram. Join one of Marie's many reader groups. Contact Marie at marie@marieforce.com.

AUTHOR LINKS:

Website:  http://marieforce.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarieForceAuthor

Twitter: https://twitter.com/MarieForce

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marieforceauthor/

Newsletter: http://marieforce.com/subscribe/

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/1508588.Marie_Force

Reader Groups: https://marieforce.com/contact/ 

Leah

 I want to lick him. I want to strip him naked and lick every hill and valley of his muscular body. I want to know if all his muscles are as big as the ones on his arms. I want to ride him like a cowgirl. And then I want to ride him like a reverse cowgirl.

 My obsession with Emmett Burke began on my first day at Quantum Productions, where I work as assistant to megastar Marlowe Sloane, a Quantum partner and overall amazing, badass woman. On day one, Emmett was charged with reviewing the company’s nondisclosure agreement with me. Even with Flynn Godfrey’s assistant, Addie, sitting with us, I didn’t hear a word Emmett said about the NDA because I was so fixated on his obscenely sexy mouth. Right there in the Quantum office, I had visions of all the places I’d like to feel that mouth.

 Then he mentioned how I could be sued for discussing Quantum business or the partners outside of work, and that got my attention off his mouth, for a second or two, long enough to sign the NDA. I would never blow the amazing opportunity my friend Natalie secured for me after she fell in love with Flynn the superstar and ran away to Hollywood to marry him. But I sure would love the opportunity to blow Flynn’s attorney.

 At her wedding, Natalie hooked me up with Marlowe, who hired me on the spot and bought out my contract with the charter school I’d worked for in New York—unhappily, I might add. Teaching wasn’t for me. Being the assistant to one of the top movie stars in the world? Hell to the yes, that’s for me. Marlowe paid for my move to LA, and now that I’m here, doing a job I truly love, I’m the envy of everyone I know.

 Telling tales out of school—no pun intended—is not going to happen. I’d never do anything to screw up this sweet deal and the amazing opportunity I’ve been given to have a career I couldn’t have dreamed up for myself.

 But me and Emmett Burke? That is so going to happen. If I can just figure out a way to break through his uptight, always-professional demeanor to find the hot-blooded man under the three-thousand-dollar suits that have to be handmade for him because no off-the-rack suit would fit those biceps.

 In the meantime, I spend an inordinate amount of time thinking about licking him and trying to come up with reasons to talk to him. I wish I had the balls to come right out and tell him I want to suck his dick until he explodes down my throat, but something tells me that wouldn’t be the best career move I could make.

 While Emmett isn’t one of the Quantum principals—and let me tell you, the word principal in this business is a whole lot different than it was in the school business—he is best friends and chief legal counsel to Flynn, Hayden, Marlowe, Jasper and Kristian, otherwise known as the bosses. That means I need to tread lightly and keep my drooling and licking to a minimum.

 But God help that man if I ever get him alone in a bedroom—or any room that isn’t an office in the building where we both work. I have to laugh at how ridiculous this obsession has become, because it’s truly out of character for me. Before now, before Emmett, my interest in men has been more along the lines of wham-bam-thank-you-sir. I’ve never actually given a shit about any of them. But this one… This one is different, and I knew it right away. Every time I’ve been with him since that first day, and I’m “with him” just about every day, between work and play—these people love to party—I only want him more than I did the day before. It’s insanity. I willingly admit that, but I have no desire to make it stop. No, my desire is entirely focused on making it start.

 Sometimes, when I’m home alone at night with my trusty rabbit, I allow my wildest fantasies to take flight. I picture myself with Emmett in every conceivable position, as well as a few that haven’t been invented yet. I’ve begun to anticipate rabbit time a little too eagerly, which is worrisome. I’ve never been the kind of girl to run from a challenge, but I suspect Emmett thinks I’m too young and immature for him.

 There’s really no one I can talk to about my “dilemma,” since my closest friends here also work for Quantum or are married or engaged to the partners. Of course, they’re the ones whose opinions I most want because they know him better than I ever will at this frustrating rate.

 I’m going to have three whole days with him when we head up to Napa at the end of this coming week for Hayden and Addie’s wedding. I’ve been counting the days with plans to implement Operation Nail Emmett Burke while we’re there. I figure I only need to get Marlowe and Sebastian out of the way, because other than Emmett and me, they’re the only ones who aren’t in relationships. With lovebirds circling all around us, I expect the four of us to end up on our own quite a bit and will fully exploit any opportunities that present themselves without humiliating myself in front of Marlowe.

 Fine line that’ll be…

 I’ve made up my mind that the weekend in Napa is go time. Enough fantasizing about what I’d do if I had a night with him. It’s time to make those fantasies a reality.

[3one3]

The Sequel - 840

Privacy Policy

André Schürrle, Juan Mata, other Chelsea/BVB players, and random awesome OC’s (okay they’re less random now but they’re still pretty awesome)

original epic tale

all chapters of The Sequel

I miss boyfriend. I miss how he pats my butt all the time, and drags me into spontaneous aggressive hugs, and likes to be spontaneously hugged back. I miss that he’s so much bigger than me. He’s such a good chair. I miss how dumb he is, and how smart he is. I miss how he always smells like laundry. I wish he were here. One and a half more days.

Christina and her Quixtep were untouchable when they were both “on”, and they were “on” in Cannes for the premier spectacle of the weekend. Their first round looked like a warm up, and their jump-off was blistering. The crowd enjoyed it, the horse reveled in their atmosphere, and the rider admired his ability to perform and his ability to soak up adoration. He got a lot of more personal love after the prize-giving, plus apples. Christina was still with him when the hangover from the emotional high began. It was coming sooner all the time. The highs didn’t last as long as they used to. It was normal when the adrenalin and endorphins receded to feel a sort of low set in. It always happened. It was just worse that night, for some reason. So Dirk got a lot of clingy hugs when he finally got to return to his stall and get started on a big pile of hay. His person wanted to keep petting him, and running her fingers through his mane and forelock, and giving him nose kisses. Anyone who provided a major high for her got that love. It had been mostly Juan for days. He was the one she couldn’t leave, or stop touching and kissing.

It was a little depressing for the rider that when the low set in after the high, the person she wanted to pet and kiss was André. It seemed like all of her low moments were bound together almost singularly by her desire to find comfort in her husband, even when he seemed capable only of providing the opposite. Her Spanish friend took a stroll down the walkway toward the end of their row of boat slips to speak on the phone with Taylor, who was having some kind of personal issue and wanted her ex to help her feel better. Christina didn’t mind that at all. In fact, she needed a few minutes away from him. He really upset her with that kiss at the table before the Grand Prix. If he wanted to use the sketchy photo as an excuse to stop hiding their relationship, then she needed to have a conversation about it first, and it needed to involve the third member of their situation. She knew it wasn’t the most egregious betrayal. It wasn’t like he stuck his tongue down her throat and then stood on a chair and told everyone in the riders’ tent that they were sleeping together, so she couldn’t be too outraged. Her plan for him was just a level conversation in which she would let him know what he did wasn’t okay. He was always on her case about just communicating her feelings anyway. But in the meantime, while he was out of her immediate vicinity, she let a bucket of ice soothe the pain in her right ankle and let thoughts about her husband soothe the mega-high hangover. Lucky was helping too. He sat in her lap and closed and opened his eyes slowly and repeatedly for her in that cute and sleepy way only a tiny dog can do. Spencer was down at the end of the sofa by her left foot.

“I miss you. Don’t be late on Monday,” Christina wrote to her boy in Miami. They’d already talked since her win. His congratulations were offered, and he said he hoped she could do the same again in Monaco when he’d be there to celebrate with her. Dirk wouldn’t be there though, so it wouldn’t be the same. That bummed her out just a bit.

“I’ll be with you by lunch, unless there’s a runway traffic jam at the private terminal in Nice, which is entirely possible,” the BVB man reminded her. He was flying commercial from Miami to Milan overnight, and then using their regular charter from there. The private jet would drop him and Lukas in Nice and then deliver his parents home to Germany.

“If you can’t land on time you have to parachute down with Lukas.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Someone sent me a picture of me and Juan kissing the other night. I don’t know who. There was no message. And he says to ignore it. So I’m worried, and I miss you, and I have that sad thing that happens after the champagne :(((“ his wife wrote back. Juan wasn’t the only one always beseeching her to speak her mind and communicate better. He wanted open communication too. She had to tell him about the picture, not wait to do it in person because she didn’t want to ruin his night, or because she didn’t feel like dealing with it when she was already kind of upset.

“Kissing where? You have to be more careful than that,” he told her, his text conveying in its lack of excessive punctuation or emojis that he wasn’t that angry. Christina half expected the phone to ring, not buzz once for a text, so that flatness surprised her. I know it’s just a few words, but it sounds like he’s annoyed at my careless but not pissed off. Is that possible, she wondered.

“On the boat. It was late and there was no one around and it was like 2 seconds. Do you want me to send it to you? I think it was taken from another boat.”

“No.”

“Should I ask Tim to try to do something about it?”

“I don’t know. I think it looks worse if we try to stop it. It makes me look like an idiot. Were you wearing clothes at least?”

“Of course. It wasn’t like some passionate thing, babe. And I’m sorry. I HAVE been careful.” It’s just Juanin who wants to be all careless now.

“If you ignore it then maybe whoever took it won’t think it’s worth selling. It could have been anyone, not necessarily a pro.”

“That’s what Juan said.”

“Great”

“I really am sorry.”

“I know. It’s ok.”

Both Toy Fox Terriers’ heads lifted together at the sound of someone crossing the gangway. They were down on the floor and waiting at the baby gate blocking the couple of stairs on the left side by the time Juan stepped over it, and they followed him back into the covered sitting area. He managed to sit before they could hop onto the couch and take up the last bit of space at their human’s feet.

“Feel better?” the Spaniard asked, presumably about her ankle and not her emotional state. He rubbed her other leg with his whole palm.

“Did you have to give me that very boyfriend-girlfriend kiss in front of everyone when I dropped your shrimp?”

“Have you been saving that up all these hours?” he laughed. Christina just nodded, her face blank. “You looked so upset. I haven’t seen you that way in a long time. You’ve been nothing but happy since we got here. I didn’t want to see again,” Juan shrugged.

“Come on. We were literally just talking about that picture, and about people finding out. You’re trying to tell me you forgot the rules a minute later?”

“Friends kiss each other on the cheek, Chris. Don’t be silly. Why are you making a big deal?”

“Because it was clearly more than that,” the rider argued, frustrated. “And you called me “angel”. You don’t call me that in front of other people.”

“So what! Those are people you spend half your life with. You’re this worried about them hearing the name “angel”? Why do you care so much?” Juan argued back, evidently growing rather angry. Seeing him truly upset was always rare for her. It was kind of alarming, and made her feel funny, like when her dad yelled at her. She also felt like he was trying to impose a double standard.

“You care what everybody thinks too! You have a wonderful reputation in a world of idiots and bad guys because you’re careful and smart. You wouldn’t even let me kiss you hidden behind a car door in a dark corner of a parking garage. You don’t hug or kiss or touch your girlfriends in public, like, ever. You don’t even hold hands. Can you please not try to lecture me on caring too much about what other people think? You don’t have the good reputation you do because you’re simply the most upstanding and infallible guy there ever was. You’re just too smart and vigilant to get caught being anything less than that.”

“What is your point? What are you trying to get me to say?” The Chelsea man sat back against the arm cushion of the blue and white striped sofa and looked thoroughly over the discussion. His patience was historically short whenever she managed to get him on the defensive and he couldn’t pivot back to the front foot. He differed from André in that. If he couldn’t turn the tables, he refused to continue engaging. It infuriated the debate champ in Christina.

“The truth about why you did it,” she shot back defiantly. “Do you not want to keep us quiet anymore? Are you okay with people knowing, or having bits and pieces to put together? I’m not trying to make an issue. I just want the truth. You’ve tried two different answers already and neither sounds that genuine. And if you do want to let people figure it out, why? Do you think it’ll make it harder to maintain and then I’ll leave Schü? Or you get to feel like I’m more yours if everybody knows? Just help me understand your thinking. That’s all I want.” Infuriated or not, the night’s big winner had matured over her year of marital discontent. Her thirst for wins in arguments shrunk. The thirst for understanding stood out more. Getting answers was more important than getting vindication and feeling right. She’d learned that being right didn’t always mean her circumstances changed for the better.

“I don’t know,” Juan said, lips pursed and hands up and out at his sides. One of the dogs thought he was offering him a treat, and licked at his empty fingers. “I didn’t make a comprehensive strategy in the half-second between when you looked devastated about everyone laughing at you for spilling my dinner on the floor and when I opened my mouth to try to make you feel better. I just did it. Maybe it happened because we’ve been together almost constantly for four days and it’s easy to be comfortable.” His attitude was very “what do you want me to do about it” and “it just happened”.

“Okay.” He’s not lying, Christina concluded. I know when he lies to me, or tactically avoids telling the whole truth. I can believe he just slipped. It’s just...odd timing, she sighed inside, watching his blues in the bright light from the bulbs in the ceiling, or the floor of the fly bridge as it were. Being outside on the boat at night was the rider’s favorite part of having Lilly XO. It reminded her of one of those inside/outside rooms in a Spanish or Italian villa that she’d always wanted and had security questions about. There was something relaxing about it, and vacation-like. It was hard to imagine how the crew onboard saw the boat as their workplace, and their temporary home, rather than their holiday venue. It just didn’t seem possible to stand there and not feel the same. And she wanted to get back to full holiday mode- full calm- and away from the newfound tension with her best friend.

“I’m sorry if I upset you,” that friend conceded.

“I’m not upset. I was just...I didn’t want you to have made a unilateral decision to change our...privacy policy.”

“I wouldn’t do that.”

“Okay. Can you hand me the towel?” She opened and closed her hand in the general direction of the fluffy white towel waiting for her on the coffee table, which was actually twice as far from Juan as from her. He got it for her anyway, and held it open to “catch” her frozen foot when she withdrew it from the mop bucket full of ice. It was late, but with nothing on her agenda on Sunday and a lingering buzz- not necessarily a good one- from the big class of the night, she wasn’t anxious to get into bed.  Georgina’s number-two responded to the intercom call for snacks. The other English girl supplied pretzels and Coke with lemon. Christina found an old Billy Wilder comedy film about a May-December romance between Audrey Hepburn and Gary Cooper on the classic movie channel. Juan found a comfortable way to use her thigh as a pillow and took up 90% of the couch opposite the TV for himself, leaving just enough room for her to sit with her feet on the leather top of the coffee table and her pretzels on the flat arm beside her. That arrangement was okay with her because she didn’t necessarily feel like snuggling. She missed André. He was who she wanted to snuggle with during the funny movie, even though the German wouldn’t have appreciated the humor as much as his old teammate did, and even though she had every intention of sleeping in the arms of that teammate. A small measure of distance was required. They really had been together almost nonstop for days, and that wasn’t the same as being together all the time right before Christina moved to Germany. They at least separated to go to work and do their training then. And she was still feeling just off enough about the kiss and the ensuring difficult conversation that she wasn’t keen to get cuddly right away. He gave her until bedtime to decompress without a lot of talking.

“Are you going to be upset with me all day tomorrow too?” he asked her after she spent an inordinate amount of time in her bathroom and then walked back and forth around the bed to the “his” bathroom three times instead of just getting into bed next to him.

“I’m not upset with you now. I was brushing my teeth and washing my face and moisturizing and clipping my finger nails and-“

“Okay.”

“I’ll be done in a second. I just need my lip balm.” The rider pointed in the direction of her vanity, and her expression was innocent enough to sell her words. They were pretty honest. She wasn’t upset with him. She just had lingering upset about the situation. A minute later, after liberally coating her lips in vanilla and lemon Lush balm and switching off the overhead lights, she crawled across half the bed in a wife beater and lacy panties to give Juan a pleasant smooch on the cheek, as a show of good faith. “Just us tomorrow. And those guys.” Christina nodded at the dogs whose matching round shapes were identifiable under the comforter alongside Juan’s legs.

“I’m looking forward to actually sailing on the sailboat!”

“It’s kind of amazing,” she smiled as she folded her legs up under her. “And we finally get to get in the water. It’ll be like being on a boat instead of a floating hotel room. And I can sunbathe naked.” Her eyebrows blinked comically at the sleepy player and he leaned over for a smooch of his own, on her shiny, sticky lips.

“You taste like dessert.”

“Want seconds?”

He nodded and they moved together equally for a third, longer kiss. They exchanged angles halfway, switching the tilt of their heads, and making it a true co-effort. Christina felt a delicate hand wrap around her left bicep at the same time she pushed hers flat against the Spanish star’s chest. There was no need for a mental break from one another any longer. The two-hour movie-watching window was enough. Disagreements or tensions between them always seemed to go that way. They didn’t last. Only major mistakes made a serious impact. There was some kind of relief inherent for Christina in knowing that she wouldn’t be put off long. It made it easy not to stew over whatever put her off in the first place, and to actually use the quiet between them to relax and forget. That never happened with André. The Schürrles always worked out their problems too, and she knew that as well, but she was also aware that the process could be ugly and drawn out, and consuming.

“Come to the beach house after Monaco,” Juan willed her after he licked the transferred Lush product off his lips and while she unfolded herself and started tucking herself in.

“That’s the only week I get to go home,” she pointed out with an almost-laugh meant to hide her very real anxiety about when she would get to be alone with him again, her denial of which was also very real. There were 9 days between the end of the Tour event in Monaco and the horse inspection in Cascais. The entire Schürrle and Coletti clans would be there for that. The following week was a Nations Cup in Sweden, and then Christina needed to be in Aachen for 7 days. The jumping team for the Olympics would be named on the first day, and the horses nominated would depart for Tokyo a few days after the event concluded.

“Do half with me and half at home.”

“I don’t know, babe. Ask me again in next week. I have a hard enough time planning my next day and you’re asking about two weeks from now.”

“Your next day is going to be a nice morning sleeping in, some breakfast, sailing, swimming, jet skiing, tanning, more eating, book reading, probably napping, more swimming, laziness on the sofa, a shower, a nice dinner, relaxing under the stars, and then love with me back here in the bed.” The Spaniard waited for her to get settled on her side and then felt around under the satin comforter to find her hand, just to play with it. “That’s what it says in your diary. I read it.”

“Ohhh, I see,” she nodded, opening up her fingers for his. “What does it say in there for the rest of tonight?”

“Anal sex with Juanin.”

“I’m pretty sure it doesn’t say that.”

“Just “pretty” sure? So you’re saying there’s a chance?” The more arched of his two brows lifted with hope and feigned anticipation.

“There is more of a chance that I’ll spontaneously turn into a dolphin,” Christina assured. It felt good to her to be able to completely move past what happened earlier. It was so easy. It was so different. I don’t know if I want to sleep now or make him talk more, she realized while she watched his slightly sun-reddened face on the other extra-large gray pillow. The lamps on this boat make for some very flattering lighting. His freckles look so cute. He looks like one of those preppy guys I grew up with after they spent a week at Martha’s Vineyard, on Daddy’s boat, but without the douchey smirk.

“How drunk do I have to get you to convince you?”

“I would literally have to be unconscious.”

“How much wine is there on the boat?”

“Juanin!”

“Can we go to sleep now?”

“Yeah but you need to kill the lamps. I’m not moving.”

The player switched off the small glass art deco lamp under the large boxy shade on his right first, and then leaned obnoxiously over his sort-of-girlfriend’s head to turn off the matching one on her side. She attempted to deliberately get herself stuck under his t-shirt so that she could blow on his stomach or otherwise be annoying, but she wasn’t that fast. The best she could do was close her arms around his waist like a vice and refuse to let go. All it took for Juan to get free was a reminder that he recently had surgery in the general area she was clinging onto. It got her to let go immediately and then apologize profusely for not using her head. He laughed and teased her for falling for it. He also accused her of making up excuses to keep him awake longer. Christina denied the allegation of course but she wasn’t entirely sure she wasn’t in fact doing that. She enjoyed his near undivided attention for days, and then she didn’t want it for a little while because of what he did at the table in the riders’ tent, and then she was right back to not wanting to give it up. Even when beyond tired, his company was just good. She could have done with a little more pointless pillow conversation.

“Sweet dreams,” she said when she nevertheless conceded to bedtime and got her goodnight kiss.

[bestnewsmag-blog]

New Post has been published on Bestnewsmag

New Post has been published on https://bestnewsmag.com/trump-100-days-that-shook-the-world-and-the-activists-fighting-back/

Trump: 100 days that shook the world – and the activists fighting back

Naomi Wolf, creator, political journalist and co-founder of DailyClout: ‘Trump didn’t try this. You did this. Your own state of being inactive brought us exactly right here’ The first 100 days of President Donald Trump: how have my lifestyles changed? First of all, there was the mourning length. Now not for me, but for my fellow citizens. I used to be just mad. And that I wasn’t even maddest at the Trump voters. I understood that the critical warfare lines now aren’t left versus proper, but the 1% neoliberal globalizers making off with all of the loot and disemboweling the middle elegance. So when I noticed the campaign, I knew that in the US, simply as within the Uk, a candidate who stated anything at all about humans forgotten in the neoliberal race might have a solid threat. Donald Trump’s first 100 days as president – day by day updates

Study greater No – I was mad at my personal leftwing tribe. All of January, people on the left would confront me with dazed, grief-stricken expressions, as though they’d simply emerged from a multi-vehicle pileup on a foggy highway. “How should this have occurred? What will we do?” I couldn’t even bear to take part in the one’s conversations. Eventually, I began explaining my rage to my closest buddies.

I was screaming approximately the opportunity of this very moment for eight years, on account that I published a chunk in the Father or mother titled “Fascist America in 10 Smooth Steps” and wrote an e-book based totally on it, called The End of us (2007). Underneath George Bush Jr, the left has been very receptive to the e-book’s message approximately how democracies are undermined via the conventional methods of might be authoritarians.

however, as soon as Obama turned into elected – “one of ours” – I had to spend the next eight years yelling like a haunted Cassandra, to a room the left had abandoned. I had yelled myself hoarse for eight years Underneath Obama about what it might imply for us to take a seat still whilst Obama dispatched drones in to take out US residents in extrajudicial killings; what it’d imply for us to sit nevertheless at the same time as he exceeded the 2012 Countrywide Defence Authorisation Act that permits any president to keep citizens forever without charge or trial; what it’d imply for us to sit down still even as he allowed NSA surveillance, allowed Guantánamo to live open and allowed hyped terrorism tales to hijack the charter and turn the USA into what Finally even Robert F Kennedy Jr become calling a National safety surveillance kingdom.

For eight years, Beneath Obama, my audiences were libertarian cowboys and crimson-kingdom truckers; contributors of the military and police forces, who were appalled by what they had been witnessing; and even conservatives, involved about our legacy of freedom. My usual audience, the buyers at Whole Foods and drivers of hybrid cars, the educated left, my people, sat smugly at home even as the very pillars of American democracy had been being systematically chipped away. They had been watching Downton Abbey and tending their heirloom tomato patches on weekends within the Hudson Valley, because everything changed into Adequate; yeah, he can also Ok drone moves, but they couldn’t be that terrible, on account that he become certainly one of “ours” – a handsome, eloquent African-American, a former network organiser – within the Oval Office. Seduced by way of the picture of a fascinating black man on Air Pressure One who talked about “alternate” – a white female in a pantsuit (although enormously paid by way of Goldman Sachs) talking about “that highest, toughest glass ceiling” – the left slumbered whilst US democracy changed into undone brick by means of brick through brick.

  Donald Trump’s world  Muslim Ban Is Each Irrational and Unsuitable fighting 

  Donald Trump did the unthinkable as he sat in the president’s chair. What became the concept of as mere rhetoric for the election has grown to become out to be a truth? Something that can’t be pushed aside. In one of his first acts, the president signed an executive order barring Muslims from 7 countries from journeying to the united states. It is a bewildering order and seems like an try and please his constituency. One is at a loss to recognize the purpose at the back of it. I have supported Trump all alongside however this government order defies sanity.

Many Individuals are glad as they’re not conscious that this ban in actual terms is incomprehensible. There is a lot of competition as properly. Donald says the ban on tour and access to the use is to store the yank people from the ravages of radical Islamists. Alas, analyzing between the strains shows this order is just a sop to his electorate. Not one of the 7 countries named has had any connection with any terror activity within the United states of America. That is the harsh fact. Any other factor to mull over is that the nationals of nations that had been involved in terror hobby against America like Saudi Arabia and Egypt do not discern inside the ban.

The Ban

There’s global outrage at the tour ban. Russia and China are the only 2 international locations who’ve no longer commented on it. The Muslim allies of us preventing shoulder to shoulder against the ISIS like in Iraq must be thinking how they may be singled out. Lots of Iraqi soldiers are preventing the ISIS and including them and leaving out international locations which have a hyperlink to nationals who dedicated terror acts towards the united states need to be bewildering to them. Why did Donald for all the macho photograph he wants to task not include those countries?

Business hobbies

The sad component is that Donald has a large Enterprise hobby in these international locations like Saudi Arabia and UAE and as he has Enterprise interests he has disregarded these nations. Saudi Arabia is an enigma as it’s far and best friend of America and perhaps Donald did no longer want to touch it as it would have ruffled the feathers and with all of the oil coming in from there he idea it higher to leave out the foremost sponsor of Islamic fundamentalism. How may want to Donald have omitted it? Are Enterprise pursuits extra essential than justice and fair play. I study unfortunately that an Iraq veteran who misplaced Both legs fighting with America army towards the ISIS turned into now not allowed inside the America for rehabilitation and restoration. What can be sadder than this?

Ultimate phrase

Donald’s govt order is simply a strive to show his supporters that he method Enterprise. He has forgotten There may be palpable anger in opposition to America in the Muslim international and only for this motives has made it risky for Individuals to travel to many elements of the globe. Donald must keep in mind that men who ride the tiger have the threat of being eaten by the beast. Who knows Donald may be gobbled by means of his very own movements. Loads will depend on the resilience of the American state.

  The arena’s Most Lovely Bridges

They’ll be small or They will be large, They’ll be timber or concrete- but bridges are something that can be located nearly everywhere in the global. However, this text specializes in the bridges that make our heads flip round. These bridges are architectural miracles that in reality have the potential to take our breaths away. So without similar ado, we bring to you a listing of bridges around The world that are simply the aspect you need to go to. (Also, here is a pro tour tip for you – make certain you look at British Airlines while you e-book your flights)

1. Brooklyn Bridge, Big apple: Featured heavily in many films inclusive of the famed Batman Trilogy, this bridge is a cable suspended bridge that paves the manner out of new York. It’s far thus far, one of the oldest and Maximum complex bridges of recent York. The towers giving stability to this bridge are in reality fabricated from granite, limestone, and cement. The Maximum outstanding thing is this bridge turned into constructed in 1833 and is still surviving until today.

2. Golden Gate Bridge: This Bridge, Also placed in United states of America of The united states, links the metropolis of San Francisco with Marin County and is a well-diagnosed symbol of California and even the complete of The USA. This bridge is also included inside the current day wonders of The world. Earlier than the bridge become built, the simplest manner to travel among the two edges became using a ship. This bridge became built in a time span of four years. This bridge has Additionally been featured in many films around the world.

3. Tower Bridge, London: This Bridge is likewise an icon and global consultant of the region in which it changed into made – London. This bridge took 8 years to construct and became constructed between 1886 and 1894. This bridge has two towers which were linked by way of two walkways and consist of sections which can be suspended on both sides of the tower. These sections than in turn stretch in the direction of the banks of the Thames. On the time of its construction, this bridge becomes the largest and Most sophisticated bridge in the world.

four. Sydney Harbor Bridge: This Bridge turned into opened for public use in 1932. This mixed with the Opera homes of Sydney are a first-rate cultural symbol for Australia throughout The world. This bridge is known to host the fine New Year Celebrations in Australia. This bridge holds the report for The sector’s largest metallic bridge. However, it isn’t considered to be the longest. It took 8 years to build this bridge with exertions of 1400 men.

Now which you recognize the satisfactory bridges that you have to visit, it’s time to % your baggage and takes a ride to these exquisite places. Additionally, ensure that on every occasion you are buying tickets, you inspect British Airlines to get the best in terms of tour and airfare.

Small and large bridges exist around The arena. We bring to you a list of the first-class which you should clearly visit. Take hold of a price ticket from British Airways and fly to peer These extraordinary bridges nowadays!!