The Love Experiment (Stubborn Hearts 1)

“At least we agree on that.”

“We’re done here then. See you ‘round, Honeywell.”

“We’re not done, Jack.” Shona expected her to get this story done. She’d get it done.

His cell rang and he answered it. He might look like a gentleman, turn heads when he passed, but he had the same manners as the drug dealer who had a corner outside her shoebox. “Haley. Yeah. No. Can you substantiate that? Okay. Two hours.” He disconnected. “You’re still here.”

“I work here, remember. I want to keep working here.”

“So you can write about how teal is the new black.”

Bastard. “No.” Maybe. That story got a lot of clicks. Not her fault teal was the color of the season and people were interested in that. And she didn’t get to choose her stories; they were assigned to her, like this one.

“Your last piece was on sexting horror stories.” He shivered in mock horror and she flinched, which made what came out of her mouth embarrassing.

“You read my pieces?”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Clickbait.” He held up his phone. He’d just searched her. “That’s not serious journalism, and while I get it has a place in the infotainment age, it’s not my thing.”

“Asshole.” He let loose a deep chuckle, and for some reason that sound, rather than what she’d just unthinkingly said, made her face get hot. He might be an asshole, but he wasn’t pretending to be anything else. “I can’t go to Shona and tell her I couldn’t get you to play ball.”

“Why not? It’ll be entirely accurate. That’s a positive trait in serious reporting, Honeywell.”

“Derelie, my name is Derelie.” And did he call me Clickbait?

“Rhymes with merrily. What kind of a name is that anyway?”

“The one my mother gave me. It does the job of, you know, identifying me.”

“From all the other Derelies.”

She sighed. “Yes, Jack, from all the other Derelies. I can’t go to Shona and admit failure.”

“You can—no one is expecting me to cooperate.”

“Surprise them.”

He muttered the word, “Rookie,” to his cell screen.

“I’m not a rookie. I’m not a cadet. I banked four years of reporting experience before I got this job.”

“In your hometown farm news sheet.”

How did he know that? Fricking Google. She’d written a lot of stories about livestock, and bake sales. She’d had the Little League coach on speed dial. “That’s not the point. You think I’m frivolous. It’s not like reporting jobs are fresh for the picking. I took what I could get.”

“I thought you were too young to be paid to work here, Honeywell. And other than that first impression, I haven’t spared two brain cells on you.”

He was unreal. “I bet your dinkus brings all the girls to the yard.”

Up went his brows till they rode above the frame of his glasses. “Now now, you don’t want to stoop to my gutter low standards. But interesting to note you’ve moved on from gay.”

No self-respecting gay man would wear neck-to-knee, lead-lined burlap. And yes, she did want to roll in the gutter with him, if that was the only way to get him to take her seriously. “Spin is right, you’re scared of a little questionnaire and some eye contact.”

He hit her with a blue blaze of hot as hell eye contact that turned the ligaments in her legs to mush. Oh shit. He was a big city reporting god with his own dinkus and she was a small-town mouse clickbait rookie. But that was okay, she didn’t need her legs to go anywhere at this precise moment, she just needed not to not fa

ll over and not fail on what would be her first web-print crossover lead story.

“I want to keep my job.”