Page 14 of The Confidant
“I only read her column because she’s my biggest competition.” I wasn’t about to admit that her writing was addicting. “That’s what any good professional does. Research what people are reading so they can serve their audience better.”
“Sure.” He said it like he wasn’t quite buying my excuse. “And are you any closer to figuring out who she is?” He arched a dark eyebrow.
“No.” I sighed and leaned back in my chair. “Probably just some nosy gossip who has a really high opinion of herself to be doling out advice to anyone that asks.”
He laughed.
And since I knew that was mostly just my jealousy overThe Confidant’s success talking, I added, “But I guess she is actually okay at giving advice.”
“Ah, so youarea fan.” He gave me a crooked smile—my favorite smile of his because it showed the dimple in his cheek.
I couldn’t help the blush that forced its way onto my cheeks when I met his gaze. “I’m just saying that even if she is the newspaper’s competition, at least she’s worthy competition.”
“You still thinkThe Confidantis a girl?” He gave me an inquisitive look, cocking his head to the side.
I shrugged. “Pretty sure, at least.”
“Have you ever written to her?” he asked. “For advice, that is.”
“No…” I hurried to say, suddenly feeling caught because I’d actually considered writing her this afternoon. “Have you?”
He got a funny look on his face for a split second before shaking his head and saying, “No. I, uh, I haven’t needed her services quite yet.”
Which made sense, since Hunter already had a pretty good gut-instinct about decisions.
“I figured you wouldn’t,” I said. “But were you listening during journalism today when Casey and Ben suggested we ask her to give us her column?”
“What?” He furrowed his brow. “They think thatThe Confidantwould stop publishing on his or her website and let the Eden Falls Gazette post it instead?”
“I’m pretty sure they just wanted an easy way out of writing their articles,” I said. “But I doubt she’d do it since she actually makes money from her column.”
Probably a lot from the amount of traffic she got to her blog and the high-level ads she had on there.
“But…” I picked up my pen and started drawing dots on the bottom corner of my notebook paper. “I was thinking this afternoon that maybe the school newspaper should come up with its own version ofThe Confidant.”
“Our own version ofThe Confidant?” Hunter frowned, like he was confused. “But don’t you think that would be against some sort of law? It has to be trademarked or something like that.”
“No, of course it wouldn’t be calledThe Confidant.” I laughed. “You’re so literal sometimes. What I mean is, maybe we could have our own version. Like, I don’t know…Dear Eliza.” I pulled the name off the top of my head. Eliza sounded like it could belong to a smart, wise person.
“And who would write it? Ben and Casey?”
“No, of course not them. They can barely write their own articles.” I doodled the nameDear Elizaat the top of my notebook page in cursive lettering. “I was thinking I could do it.”
“You’d have time for something like that?” He looked at me skeptically. “Don’t you already have too much on your plate with basketball, the race for valedictorian, being our house captain, lead editor for the gazette…” He paused and seemed to hesitate before adding, “Not to mention all the things you do for church?”
“I could fit it in somewhere…” I said, not loving that he was doubting me. “Plus, I’ve got some pretty great advice.”
He stared at me as if worried about my time constraints, but I just smiled at him and said, “I don’t want our senior year to be known as the year that the gazette crashed and burned.”
He pressed his lips together. After a long moment, he nodded slowly. “Then I think you’d be great at it.”
“Really? Yay!” I sat up and gave him a quick hug.
“You’re crazy, you know that?” He laughed and leaned into the hug for a second. “Only you would get excited about the prospect of having even more work to do.”
“It’s a Caldwell family trait,” I said, pulling away again so I could open my tablet and go to my AwesomeMail app and see if the usernameDearElizawas still available. “You know my mom never stops working and my dad never stops serving his congregation.”
“Which is why they got divorced, by the way,” Hunter said. “Because they never saw each other.”
