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“Where will you go if…”if they shut down the magazine.I couldn’t say it.
Her laugh startled me; deep and booming. “You’re worried aboutme?” She asked, and I understood: Iwasgetting fired. My fears were coming true. I was surprisingly numb, but for a slight tingling sensation in my fingertips. Shock, maybe. “Me?” she continued, “I’m done. I’ve been doing this for a long time now, and I’m done. I have a family, you know,” she raised her bushy eyebrows. “I’m going to spend some time with them before I kick the bucket. I should have a few good decades in my yet, and I have a pension from the old days at the Clarion. It’s shit, but I’m cheap.” She leaned forward on the desk. “No, it’syouI’m worried about.”
Feeling sizzled back into my body. My heart thumped loudly against my ribs, and my eyes suddenly brimmed with tears.
“No, no, Booker, none of that,” she said, gruffly. “I just mean that–” she waited as I blinked, trying to collect myself. “I just meant that this article of yours needs to be the best possible article you can write, because you’ll want it for your portfolio. That’s why I’m telling you now, before this is general knowledge: I know this story is a big deal for you, so you better make it good, because I can’t promise you a future at CityStyle.” She grinned. “Not like you want to stayhereforever, right?”
But–Idid. Ihad. Tears brimmed again, and I could feel them sliding uncontrollably down, even as I sniffled. CityStyle wasn’t a good magazine, or even a good place to work, but it was the last thing here for me, here in the city I had shared with my dad… “This is all I have,” I said. My voice came out as a squeak.
She raised her eyebrows. “Then that better be a hell of a front page story, Booker, because after Noughton gets his slimy, greedy little hands on this place, all I can do for you is give you a good recommendation and get you the hell out.”
Wait.The tingling in my fingertips had returned.
“Noughton,” I said, forcing the words out. “Michael Noughton?”
* * *
He had known; he must have known.They had all known.
I sat in front of my computer screen, my full inbox looking back at me as I looked at it with unseeing eyes. Charlie’s brothers had known, they knew that Michael Noughton was in town, and they knew he was planning on buying the magazine. “I forgot,” Philip had said, then scurried into the kitchen after Charlie for dessert. I had eaten the cake he’d set in front of me not realizing it may as well have been poisoned.Forgot, my ass.They knew. And worse: Charlieknewwhat Noughton was capable of, he was friends with Natalie, the woman Noughton had practically driven out of business.“I’ll buy her along with the company.”Better, as Editor Stevens had said, to get out, and soon: who knows how long it would be before he fired all the reporters for “cost-saving measures.” I would write my article, make it the best damn article this hellhole gossip rag had ever seen, and leverage it to find myself a job somewhere else.
Somewhere without any history. Somewhere–somewhere new. The thought made a weight settle in my stomach and bile rise in my throat.
The worst part, though, was the hollow, empty feeling in my chest when I thought of what had happened next: I had let Charlie take me to his room after, hadaskedhim to, hadbeggedfor him to touch me. After he had lied to me. Him, and his brothers, and theirmates.I had shivered, and moaned under him, had bared my neck to his teeth and barely been able to tear myself away, even after I knew what could happen.
Whathadto happen, if I were to be with him.
Coffee. I stood abruptly, nearly forgetting my bag in my haste toget out.I couldn’t get out of my skin, which seemed to have shrunk around me, but I could get out of my chair, out of the office, and down the street to the coffee shop. I ordered myself a plain black coffee, large, and stood outside in the cold, gray morning for a moment to clear my head. My hands, tight on the paper band around the cup, were the only part of my body not shaking.
By the time I was back to my office, my cup was empty, and my brain was buzzing–with caffeine, but also a plan.
Charlie
Eatinga desk lunch with Natalie in her office–a small but airy corner of a high-rise downtown–was not how I had intended to have our first time together since the launch, but it wasn’t surprising. She was the president of a brand-new non-profit, after all, and although she had attempted to reserve me an hour for a lunch of the not-at-your-desk variety, well, things came up.
I, on the other hand, was notably not busy. Ella hadn’t called, hadn’t texted, since her…abruptdeparture last night. I wasn’t worried, not yet. I hadn’t heard from her for days after our first date.
That was different,my brain whispered.This time, she’s gone.
The suite of offices housing Omegas in Tech were not far from Natalie’s old headquarters, not far from where Margaret worked, not far from whereIhad worked, and so we ended up getting the same delivery sandwiches I always got, crouching over the paper wrappers on either side of Natalie’s desk, talking over the first few weeks of OIT’s life. I had read all the business plans before investing, of course, but it was nice to see Natalie.
“Feel good to be back in an office, Charlie?” she asked between sips of iced tea.
“Fuck no,” I said, and she laughed.
“Here I was thinking you’d be bored out of your skull and asking me for a job today.”
“No,” I repeated. “I’m certainly going stir-crazy, you have that much right. I need to find something to do, but every time I imagine myself going back into an office every day… It seems like such a waste of time.”
“Unlike, what, playing video games in your underwear?” She raised her eyebrows. “What level are you, hmm? Or did you run out already?”
“Fuck off, Natalie,” I said, and she grinned. I was lucky she shared this side of herself with me. I had seen her in three-hour meetings where she never cracked a single smile.
“Or,” she said, tilting her head to one side, her grin still on her lips, “have you been busy entertaining Miss Booker?” I watched the grin slide from her face as she saw my own expression. “Or… not?”
“Currently,not.I… may have exposed her to the family a bit early.”
“Ah. Well…” she said. “If she doesn’t like your family, then how much future can you have with her?” she shrugged, nonchalant. “I liked her, but, you know, there are always more wolves in the forest.”
