Page 45 of A Ticking Time Boss

I shake my head, smiling. “I know that sounds fanciful. But I grew older, and I learned that stories have power. They can mobilize. They can galvanize, polarize. They can change a person’s life, a person’s business. Some are huge, like the whistleblower stories. Others are smaller. A construction halted because of a petition.”

“Idealistic,” Carter says softly. “And young.”

I smile at him, a bit sheepish. “Yes. There’s more to it, I know. Politics. Advertising. Propaganda. But the best of journalism is about people and change. It’ll always be magic to me.”

“I’m amazed you’re sitting here with me,” he says, “when I’m the one rolling a bowling ball through the newspaper you love.”

I look down at my pizza again. “True, I love it. But it’s struggling. Has been for years, same as all print media. Your changes are hard to swallow sometimes. But I know you’re doing it because you genuinely want to save this paper.”

“I do,” he says levelly. “I have no doubt that you’ll help me do it, too.”

“Right. You said you had some changes planned, right?”

For the rest of the meal we talk about the Globe. Still teasing, because I can’t seem to stop around him, and he makes me laugh more often than I should. But we talk about the future of the newspaper and numbers and a tentative plan to ramp up resources available for the Investigative team.

And the birdwings in my chest beat on.

He insists on paying the bill, and I insist on splitting, until he finally sighs and puts a large hand on mine. He pins my card to the table and extends his own to the machine.

“Next time, then,” I say.

He pretends like he doesn’t hear me.

“Thank you,” Carter says to Fiona when we leave. “Just as good as always.”

Her face shines up in a smile. “Oh, I’m so glad,” she says. “Say hi to your mom for me, will you?”

“Will do.”

We walk in a slow amble toward my apartment. I’m full and warm and happy. I’m nervous, too. Not a lot. Not like a proper date. But it tickles my insides with anticipation.

“You know,” Carter says, voice smooth. “I wish I would have gone to the Reporters’ Ball with you.”

Those little tickles increase. “We ended it together, at least,” I say. “Did you really send your date away?”

“Will you berate me if I say yes?”

I focus on the sidewalk. “I should, perhaps, but… What did you tell her?”

“It was booked weeks in advance,” he says. “I didn’t want to cancel last minute, so we went.”

“Right. That’s nice of you. But what did you tell her, at the ball?”

“She seemed relieved, at any rate. I think she’d expected an event where the median age wasn’t forty-five. Told me thanks.”

We stop outside the stoop to my house. I face him, forced as always to look up and up to meet his eyes. There’s hesitation in them, and something else, a look that sets my stomach ablaze. “What did you tell her?” I ask again.

His mouth quirks into a half-smile. He reaches up and pinches a lock of my hair between his fingers.

I can’t breathe.

“I told her,” he says, “that someone very special had arrived.”

“Oh.”

We’re silent on the sidewalk, staring at one another.

“Thank you for keeping me company tonight,” I murmur. “It was very nice of you to come all the way out here from your dinner.”

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