31. Marley

31

MARLEY

I pull at my lip the next morning at the office. I’m there early. Very early. Mostly because I need time alone to process the fact that Liam hopped out of bed, went for a run, and came back covered in dirt at three o’clock in the morning as if he had to conquer a dragon.

He came back. As he promised. He even showered and snuggled back into bed with me as if everything was okay. But it wasn’t.

I don’t know how to explain it other than to say the vibe was off.

Things were even fine this morning. He went off for his daily run like a true maniac and I kissed him on the way out, telling him I was heading to the office early to get work done.

Only I haven’t. Not a single thing. I haven’t even bothered to open my laptop. I just keep turning the details over in my mind, looking for an answer\. Because he didn’t explain anything, he just said he was sorry.

The buzz of my phone against my desk startles me into the present and I groan slightly when I see Mr. Schuster’s name. Pasting on a smile and preparing for my best chipper voice, I answer it.

“Good morning Mr. Schuster. How are you today?”

“Marley Green, just the person I was looking for.”

I don’t bother to point out that I am the only one that answers my cell phone. “Well, you’re in luck,” I tell him, hating the saccharine sound of my voice. “Here I am.”

He lets out a hearty chuckle. “Good, Good. I was just speaking with the printing equipment supplier. Turns out they are about two months behind on the original delivery date.”

“Oh.” I’m not sure how to respond. On the one hand, I’m thrilled that the pressure to put out a printed paper is delayed for a bit, but I know how excited he was, so I try to sound neutral. “New plan, then?”

“Yes ma’am,” he answers, not sounding the least bit put out. “So, what I think this means is that we should get the electronic version of the paper started and it will be simple to roll it into print by the time we’re all set up. How’s that sound?”

“Good,” I say brightly, feeling like a significant weight has just been lifted off my shoulders, albeit temporarily. “When were you thinking the first issue should go out?”

“Well, the first, obviously. It makes the most sense.”

I nearly drop the phone as my eyes dart to the small desktop calendar. “Of October? As, as in two days from now?”

“I don’t see why not,” he says jovially, “I’ve seen your mock-ups; they’re brilliant. Obviously, we’ll be tweaking as we go, but I really can’t see any reason to wait.”

“But,” my throat closes off. “We haven’t made all the final decisions on the front-page stories. We haven’t even decided what the interest pieces will be.”

“Marley Green, I have all the confidence that you can pull this off. I don’t expect everything to be ready to go. Pick the sections you are most passionate about, finish those and we’ll announce which will be coming soon, you know, create a buzz.”

The only buzz I hear is my brain after it short-circuits. I’m not even sure I answered his farewell appropriately and before I know it, I’m just sitting there with my phone in my hand, mouth open, mind completely blank.

“Oh my God,” Fin says a few minutes later, swishing into the office in a chic pair of corduroy slacks and a chenille sweater that match perfectly with her, well everything. She looks like a fucking Vogue ad. “Are you okay?”

I force my face into the closest thing to a smile I can manage. “Oh, I’m fine, I just got off the phone with your grandfather.”

She laughs, “Well, that explains the blank stare. What kind of shenanigans is he up to now?”

Grateful to talk about anything other than Liam, I turn every switch and nob inside myself to survival mode. “The printing equipment is delayed, so he wants to go with our original idea and put the online version out first.”

“Oh, good. I think that makes more sense anyway. Then we can see if people are even interested in a paper in this day and age. When are we launching?”

“Monday.”

Her face falls. “Monday as in this Monday, as in the first?”

“Yup.”

She folds slowly into a chair across from my desk. “Well, I guess that explains your expression. How are we going to pull it off?”

“I asked the same thing, and he told me that we should focus on the front-page stories and choose just a few of the sections to get up and running. Leave everything else as a tempting ‘coming soon.’”

“Well, that’s at least something.” Fin shrugs off her velvet tote bag and pulls her laptop from it. It’s covered in pink sparkles and somehow it makes me love her even more. “Tell me what we need to do boss.”

I push up the sleeves of my flannel and dive fully into manager mode. “We need to nail down what our top story is going to be, and I think if we pick two special interest sections, that will be a good start. We’ll also add sports box scores and weather—those are easy, and we can expand with stories later.”

Fin starts typing notes, and I stand from my chair, talking through ideas, hands flying around, electrified by the problem.

There’s an alarm at the back of my brain that reminds me I’m going to have to deal with the Liam question later, but right now, I’m grateful to have a lifeline. “You’ve been working on old Paintbrush stories, right?”

“Yes,” she answers, her blue eyes searching mine. “I thought a story about how the post got started and how it was part of the town for so long might make an interesting first dive.”

“Perfect,” I shout, making her jump just a little. “Write it. It will be our headline story. The Return of Paintbrush Post.”

Fin frowns. “But Marley, I’m not a writer. I thought I would gather everything together and someone else… you …would write it.”

I wave my hand through the air. “We don’t have time for that. I’ve got to finish up all the other stories I have going, pull the advertisements together, and format everything. You can do it.”

She presses her perfectly painted lips together. “I wouldn’t even know how…”

“Tell the story through the eyes of when you visited as a young girl and people will eat it up. And Fin,” I stop my manic pacing and meet her eyes so she knows I’m serious. “You can do this. I have no doubt. And I’ll edit it. I won’t let you make a fool out of yourself, okay? You can trust me.”

I see the tightness in her jaw release and her shoulders straighten. Eventually she even nods. “Okay, okay…I can do this.” She stands up from her chair and squeezes the ever-loving shit out of me. “Thank you for trusting me. You are amazing.”

With that, she grabs her laptop and flounces to her desk with her head a little higher than usual and I feel satisfied for a moment that I made her feel that way.

Until I remember the pit in my stomach that is roughly the size and shape of Liam.

Fuck.