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CHAPTER ONE

Ellie chose to wear a white silk suit because she was absolutely sure she had covered every contingency that would have made that a dangerous idea. The cut and fabric of the crepe de chine was so uncomfortable and distracting, she'd have to practically hold her breath until the suit was safely back in its rightful spot in her closet. But the suit 'did' look amazing on camera. If it were up to her, she'd be wearing her old gym shorts from high school and a T-shirt stolen from her dad's closet, but "comfy" wasn't going to keep the masses tuned in. Her show, Games Over, was the world's first live multimedia show hosted by a woman, broadcasting simultaneously on television, YouTube, Instagram, and as an audio-only version in podcast form. Since it was recorded in a glass-walled studio called the fishbowl inside the lobby of the Magniv Media building in Midtown Manhattan, there was nowhere to hide. If her outfit, hair, and makeup didn't cause convulsions in the accompanying live chat on the Discord or the Reddit threads, she was doing something wrong.

Today's fashion attack was going to come courtesy of a white Zuhair Murad beauty. It was perfectly dry for late June, so there was no risk of water stains. She walked to the studio, effectively avoiding both the Axe-scented film that seemed to cover every New York taxi seat and the oniony grime of a typical subway car. She had eaten breakfast at home because there was no way she was going to put anything in her mouth that could drop, slop, slip, or drip. Ellie even wrapped the handles of her tote in a vintage scarf so that the leather wouldn't muss the shoulder of the jacket as she walked. Caffeine was unfortunately still a necessity, but she made sure that a firm plastic lid was clamped over her iced coffee with sweet cream cold foam. Why did everything with caffeine have to be dark in color, anyway? Was it so much to ask for a clear liquid that could deliver a wake-up call when the fate of a clean outfit hung in the balance? She'd spent a few minutes investigating caffeine pills on Amazon in an attempt to do away with the entire beverage idea altogether, but that seemed unbelievably clinical, even for a person who brushed her teeth with two kinds of toothpaste simultaneously (sensitive, whitening), though she needed neither, to "be on the safe side."

The one variable she didn't imagine being directly connected to the cleanliness of her suit was whether she could remember to always, always, always check the on air sign before opening her mouth and wrecking her career, live, and in front of four million YouTube and six million podcast subscribers. Perhaps then she would have had the good sense not to place her coffee within range of the jerky hand movements that would inevitably crop up when she suddenly realized, with dizzying clarity, the enormity of her mistake. She therefore could not quite believe it when she found herself wearing a coffee-colored, slightly foamy, definitely wet ensemble. Like many of the professional athletes she had as guests on her show, she'd covered all the bases but the correct one.

This was not supposed to happen. She'd just wrapped up a great interview with the starting pitcher of the Mets. Dougie Baylor was yet another athlete who found himself on the guest list of Ellie's show at the urging of his agent, Bud Lewis. He'd become tired of watching people give his client, Dougie "The Magic Man" Baylor, the finger while he drove out of the player's lot postgame. Dougie's pitching performance this season had descended from genius to absolute garbage, and the fans had begun to suspect it had something to do with him being called out in the media as the deadest of all deadbeat dads. Dougie's agent begged to get him on the show now that he reconciled with his kids' mother and was buying them all a house in Clearwater to be together, even during training. As usual, Ellie was not impressed—not by his stats, not by his attempt to appear regretful, not by his custom-made Katzkin leather baby seats for the Range Rover. Just, not.

Usually, Ellie's stoicism was part of the show. The epitome of objectivity, she didn't care to hear too many personal details about a guest before they found themself in the hot seat across the table from her. Her producer, Omar, was the sports-stats yang to her psych-minded yin. He attempted to tutor her on the basics of their performance and records, but none of it ever seemed to garner more than a head nod. Despite being famous for magically turning around poor-performing, rehabbing, or otherwise repentant athletes, the fact remained that she really, truly did not care about sports. Professional sports had turned every sane person she knew into shirking, excuse-generating fools, eager to sacrifice any shred of intelligence to the almighty cult of the athlete ego. No one came on this show looking for a conversational massage from a fan masquerading as talk-show host. They came to get laid out on the rack and Ellie was chief flogger.

"You honestly don't care about his FIPs and DIPS do you?" Omar had asked Ellie ahead of the interview while she scrolled through a psychology journal website.