Page 98 of A Ticking Time Boss

Working is good. Working is what I love to do, what I’ve fought to do, and it’s a great way to keep my mind off other things. Like the owner of the very newspaper I work at.

Carter’s words had played over and over in my head the last couple of days. They were impossible to forget, even if I’ve tried to look at the situation objectively from every angle. To separate my own emotions from it.

Yes, he’s a businessman. He didn’t buy the Globe as a philanthropic move. And yes, print media is struggling. But I had so wanted to believe him when he’d explained his vision for revamping the paper.

And maybe that’s what hurts the most. Not the truth itself, but the pain of discovering my own beliefs were always naively impossible.

One after one, the newsroom empties out. A stressed Booker gives me a nod on the way out, telling me she’ll continue working from home after she’s picked up her son. I’m available on email, she tells me before ducking out, walking like a warrior to battle.

An empty newsroom. It happens rarely, and during one of my five-minute breaks, I stretch my legs by walking through the space. It’s not fancy. Just an office and rows and rows of desks. But this is where scandals broke. Where the Globe risked everything for a meeting with a whistleblower during the seventies. Where Isaac Mason exposed corrupt cops in the eighties. History has been made here.

On one of the walls are some of the Globe’s most important front pages framed. The Kennedy assassination, the moon landing, when the Berlin Wall fell. Back then the Globe had foreign correspondents. That was a different era.

“I wondered if I’d find you here,” a voice says.

I take a deep breath before I turn around, but I’m still not prepared for the sight of him. Tall and suited, the thick hair pushed back. He feels like an extension of myself, one I can no longer access. Like the argument has put up a wall between us. The anger is gone, and left is only my own disappointment, irrational as it might be.

“Hey,” I say.

Carter inclines his head. “Hi. Staying late?”

“Two reporters were sick and couldn’t deliver for Friday’s edition. Booker asked me to stay late.”

His voice softens. “And you don’t mind?”

“Not at all.” I fiddle with the sleeve of my shirt, not knowing what to say. It’s not the first time we’ve spoken in the four days since Tristan’s dinner, but the texts had been dry. Let’s talk. Yes, soon. Just a few more days. What are you thinking? I don’t know, really.

Carter taps his hands against the cheap wood laminate of a desk. “Need help?”

There are articles he could proofread. Facts to be checked.

And conversations to be had.

So I nod. “Yeah. It shouldn’t take long if we’re two.”

“Good. Just give me the beats, boss.”

That makes me smile a bit. “If you want me to play Booker, you’ll be disappointed. I’m not even a poor man’s version.”

“Yet,” he says. “But there’s time.”

He pulls out a chair and joins me by my desk. It’s just the two of us, side by side, in a room that’s usually filled with his employees. I try not to let that thought bother me.

“These are the articles?”

“Yes. Booker wants them print-worthy by the morning, ready for her to approve.”

“Right. Walk me through the process.”

I do, and he listens patiently, nodding or asking questions occasionally. When I’m done, he starts fact-checking right away. “I’ll leave the wordsmithing to you,” he says with a crooked smile.

I’ve missed him these past days. Missed his voice, his jokes, his way of turning a sentence on its head. Maybe he feels the same way, because over the next forty-five minutes, his chair gets closer and closer to mine until our thighs touch beneath the table.

“Johnson’s piece is almost done.”

“It is done,” Carter says. “The ending quote you added is killer.”

I dig my teeth into my lower lip. “I don’t know. One of my college professors always told me to be selective when you cede the last word to someone.”

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