32. Patrick

"Well done, Patrick," Demmit said, clapping his weathered hand on my shoulder. "I owe you a dinner at any restaurant in the city for popping your cherry. Felt good, didn't it?"

For the briefest moment, the mental image of my balding, overweight, perpetually grumpy editor popping anything of mine nearly had my stomach curdling. Then I realized he meant my page-one cherry, and the analogy tasted much sweeter—and less hairy.

Emily sat on the other end of the couch in his office, beaming like a proud mother as her son received praise from a normally stoic father.

I couldn't decide how to feel. On the one hand, my presence in my editor's office following a page-one run was surreal. My whole body was numb and tingling, which was pretty hard for one body to do at once. It felt almost like I was standing outside my body and watching someone else experience the moment. My brain struggled to process that it really was me sitting in the center of the storm.

On the other hand, I was giddy. This was really happening. I'd made it to page one—and not just an article on the front page, my piece had captured top left, the primest of prime real estate in any paper. Hundreds of other reporters would've killed for that spot. Well, maybe not killed, but they would've bitch-slapped me out of their way to win top left. Newsies were very much a bitch-slapping bunch.

I'd spent so many years—okay, three years—staring up at those who covered real news, news that mattered, news that impacted people's lives, that I'd begun to wonder if I would ever glimpse the Metro Section, much less the cherished spot beneath the masthead.

And Em's face was priceless. I'd never seen her smile so much—except when she laughed at some joke I was likely the butt of, but that was more of a leer than a smile. It might've been all in jest, but it wasn't the same. Now, my vaunted mentor practically glowed with pride. That sight alone might've been worth all the ink in the AJC's barrels.

My cheeks colored under the warmth of her gaze.

"I want you to follow this up quickly," Demmit continued, shuffling his rotund stomach around his round-cornered desk. "We need to put the meat on the bones. This morning's story captured the thirty-thousand-foot view, but we didn't get into the why."

"The why, sir?" I asked, knowing full well what he meant but wanting to force him to instruct me. I was a worshipper at the foot of an ancient oracle, thirsting for drops of wisdom like they were life-giving waters.

God, was I really fan-girling over a guy who corrected grammar for a living? I needed serious help. I made a mental note to check into the paper's employee assistance program's therapeutic benefits.

"Yes, the why. Why did this firefighter decide to steal drugs? What was his motivation? Obviously he was doing it for the money, but why? Was his family hard-up? Did he have a gambling problem? Was there a girl on the side, maybe a child with another mother? There's something here, I can smell it. Can't you just taste the juice dripping off this story, Patrick? Isn't it exciting? This is what news should feel like."

All I could taste was the lingering whiff of bad aftershave from where he'd leaned too close. I could, however, feel the vibrations in the air as he spoke. It was impossible to work in the business and not be moved by his passion for unearthing hidden treasures. His eyes brimmed with something bordering on lust as he described the possible motives that could comprise a page-one encore.

"There's no rest, not in this business. You get me another five hundred words with all the backstory. If it's really good, I'll give you more space. It'll spill onto page two."

Pages one and two? A spillover? Me?

I blinked a few times, then reached across and pinched my arm. Yep, I was alive and awake.This really was happening.

I glanced at Emily. She nodded earnestly, her expression reminding me of a suspicious rottweiler. I wasn't sure if that shift was born of caution, that I might not be up to a streak of two front-run articles; or was she simply focused, thinking about next steps and approaches, walking through timelines and players and sources in her mind? She usually chewed her glasses and stared over my shoulder when she thought. This was more of a glare into the depths of my soul.

Could she have been jealous?

That was ridiculous. She was the mentor and I was her protégé. Hell, I was like her son in many ways. She hugged me, smushing my face against her boobs, knowing it wouldn't make anything down south tingle. If that wasn't mother–son affection, I didn't know what was.

Surely she wasn't jealous. I examined her face, stared into her eyes. No, this was more primal. Her news brain was in overdrive. She was probably thinking about my story and all the angles I could attack, while dissecting six other articles she was working on—all at the same time. She was the woman who could play three-dimensional chess with a blindfold while reciting War and Peace in its original Russian … backward.

Reluctantly, I gave her a quick nod and turned back to the boss. "I'm on it. When do you need it?"

He tapped his pen against his chin. "How long will our boy be in the hospital?"

"Probably another week or so. He's out of danger, but he was in bad shape when he arrived. Docs gave him a thirty percent chance of pulling through when they first examined him."

"Shit," Demmit said. "Alright, three days."

Three days? Fuck me running. My mouth fell open. It was almost noon. That meant today was only half a day. The article would be due the evening before the third day, which meant I really only had one and a half days. How was I supposed to dig into Alex's motive while he lay abed with two cops outside his door then write a page-one-worthy article in such a short time? It had taken me a couple of weeks to wheedle my way into the fire station and get the first scoop.

Emily's hand patted my knee as she read my thoughts. A sly grin parted her lips. "Welcome to the big leagues, little one."

On the way back to my desk, I passed two sports reporters and Rob. Each hopped up and gave me a high-five, shouting some variation of "Big Time" or "Way to go, Full Frontal." I might've blushed more than I laughed, but it felt great. I'd never been recognized by my peers. Well, that's not entirely true. We had an office party once, and I objected to the ridiculously cheap wine they served. When the boss pulled out his AmEx Black and the good stuff rolled in, everyone in the newsroom sang my praises.

Still, they'd never applauded my stories. That was new.

Damn, I'd worked hard for this. I'd covered every dog park and street festival Atlanta had to offer. I'd interviewed prominent new moms holding less prominent new babies. I'd even come close to flirting with the city's version of Dear Abby just to write something remotely interesting. All that had accomplished was an obsession by a fifty-something woman who now needed a restraining order from HR to stay on her side of the office.

Now, my work was featured in the paper's top spot. I was a star.

Was this how it felt to be Taylor Swift?

I chuckled at my own silliness as my butt hit the not-so-cushioned wireframe of my chair. I really needed a new chair.

Em had long ago taught me never to carry my cell phone into the boss's office. Most of the time, she snatched it out of my hand when I wheeled up to her desk. In both cases, the lack of connectivity had me jonesing like a crack whore on Peachtree. I slid open my metal drawer and flicked the screen to life.

More than a dozen messages from Dane. Holy cow. My heart did a happy dance then a somersault.

An almost painful smile split my face, and heat flooded the back of my neck. I hopped out of my seat and paced around it, trying to guess what he had to say that involved so many back-to-back texts.

Was he asking me out again? Did he want to do a little fire station hokey-pokey? Was that even a thing? Like the Mile High Club except for firefighters and Dalmatians?

He must really miss me,I thought, then my stomach joined my heart and flipped. Or something's wrong.

I was in the best mood ever, so I opted to believe it was the former, ignoring the nagging part of my mind that usually heralded a natural disaster or a lying source.

Dane was pining for his Patrick. That had to be it.

HisPatrick. I let those words roll around on my tongue, savored them, drank them in. Those might be the most beautiful two words in the English language.

I giggled. Right there in the newsroom, I giggled. A few nosey reporters, which was a redundant phrase, smiled at my giddiness, though they couldn't possibly understand the source of it.

Then I flicked the screen to life.

My face fell a second before my body slammed back into my chair.