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Bran nodded. “That’s Maxwell. Was he shouting?”
Leah’s blue eyes went wide. “Yeah, how’d you—”
“Maxwell always shouts,” both Havana and Bran said at the same time before laughing.
Bran grinned. “One time I heard him yell, “I’m not shouting! I’m saying things loudly!’ in the middle of a meeting. And everyone in the newsroom tried not to laugh.”
“I remember that,” Havana agreed. “Do you remember the time that Chief asked him if he was on drugs and he yelled, ‘You and I both know I don’t make enough money to take drugs!’”
Everyone laughed, and Shayna knew that the stories were good-natured because Maxwell was also one of the reporters that all the younger journalists revered for how long he’d been in the business and how many big stories he’d broken. He held the byline on more than one of the framed stories around the office.
“But, let’s be real,” Havana said with a smirk, “with the amount of coffee and cigarettes most of the reporters have in their system, and news breaking every other minute, it’s a wonder there’s not more screaming, shouting, and general madness.”
“And alcohol, too?” Shayna asked, raising her glass again, and just about needing another.
Hannah clinked with her and nodded. “Absolutely. Drinking, smoking, and digging up dirt on people. That’s pretty much what journalists do.”
Laughing, Shayna nodded. “Well, I don’t smoke, but otherwise I’m right on track,” she said as she waved down the waiter and indicated that she wanted another.
“I’ll have another, too,” Malik said from where he stood right beside her. A good-looking man with warm brown skin and striking hazel eyes, he was a new reporter for the business and financial section who was also said to be scary smart. “Where are you from, Shayna?”
“New York,” she said.
“The city?” he asked, leaning in.
“Upstate. Near Albany.”
He nodded. “Ah, I grew up in the city. Then I worked on Wall Street for a couple years, but I never made it up to Albany,” he said.
“So how did you make the transition from Wall Street to journalism?” she asked, curious since she’d made a similar shift.
Malik’s smile was legitimately beautiful as he nodded and spoke. “The longer I worked in the financial sector, the more clear it became that money was at the heart of nearly every story. Politics. Government. Business. Culture. Hell, even sports. And I just got less interested in growing other people’s bank accounts and more interested in telling stories that can be hard to tell and complicated for a lot of people to understand.”
“It’s not really at the same level, but I left working for a museum where I photographed and digitized the collections because I felt like I wanted to capture history in the making rather than preserve the existing record,” she said, adding a thanks to the waiter as he dropped off their drinks.
Malik raised his beer. “I hear you. To telling all the stories.”
Shayna grinned and toasted. “I’ll drink to that.”
Bran leaned in. “Enjoy the idea of the noble grandeur of the profession while you can because as soon as people see your first byline or photo credit, they’ll be all like, let me show you the incredibly important pothole on my street. It’s an outrage!” They all laughed.
And that was the way the rest of the evening went. Havana and Bran told war stories from around the office, while the rest of them hung on every word and got to know each other over a constant flow of drinks and more than a few fried appetizers.
By the time the party broke
up, it was nearly eleven o’clock and Shayna was buzzing enough to feel warm and fuzzy but not so much that she was couldn’t handle herself.
“You gonna be okay getting home?” Havana asked her when they spilled out onto the sidewalk into the muggy September night.
“Yeah, but I’m not attempting the metro and bus. Uber will provide my chariot,” she said, pulling out her phone and swiping to find the app.
“Where do you live? Maybe we could split one,” Malik said. When they worked it out, they found it made sense.
“There’s one only four minutes away,” she said. “Perfect.” The two of them said good-bye to the others, who left them to wait. “I need to spend some time learning my way around the city so I have my bearings and feel comfortable getting around on the metro.”
“The subway here is pretty easy to figure out. Not as many lines or stops as in New York.” He stepped out into the street. “This is us, I think.”
The minivan matching the info in the app stopped in front of them, and they got in and greeted the driver. They made small talk about their plans for the weekend, and Malik was so easy to talk to that it made the fifteen-minute drive to her house go quickly.
