The Love Experiment (Stubborn Hearts 1)

Jack would have laughed, but Roscoe wouldn’t look at him and Madden’s eye contact was bouncing around. “Any longer?”

“You no longer have a job here, Jack.”

He let those words hit his chest, glance off. They didn’t make sense.

“We’ll do straight business news, companies reporting, but we don’t have the resources for the big investigative stories anymore.”

“Resources?” Why did he feel flatfooted, out of breath?

“It’s not just your salary, it’s the other expenses you need to do what you do. It’s not the direction the owner wants the paper to take.”

He was standing, body realizing the blow before his brain caught up with the impact. “You’re firing me.”

“Laying you off.”

“You’re doing this now, on top of Keepsafe?” On the back of his words and face and voice being everywhere for the Courier this week. After months of work to bring the paper a leading story he knew earned more from newsstands and sent webstats up, made money for the paper, built its credibility.

“I’m sorry, Jack. It wasn’t an easy decision. I knew you’d start up on something else and we won’t have the space for it.” He had two new story leads in his messages, two potential Keepsafe stories in the making.

“This is about real estate.”

“It’s about the high cost of investigative reporting.”

The legal costs. If he wasn’t employed by the paper, there was a chance he could be held personally liable. This would ruin him professionally, not to mention financially.

“You knew you were going to do this.” It explained why Madden pushed the deadline so hard. He looked at Roscoe. “I need my own lawyer.”

Roscoe motioned him to sit and it felt like defeat when he did. “It’s a layoff, Jack, it’s happening across the whole industry. You don’t have an unfair dismissal case against the Courier.”

“But Keepsafe can come after me personally.”

Roscoe looked at Madden. “I’m talking to the owner about that.”

“Which means what?”

“I don’t know. I’m trying to convince them it’s in their interest not to fuck you around.”

He heard what Roscoe didn’t say—if you fight this dismissal, you’re on your own with any suits. Jesus Christ. “When?”

“Today,” said Madden. “You get the usual severance and entitlements owing.”

He earned enough to afford to rent his apartment, to live in the city, to have some savings, but that would mean nothing if he needed to fight Keepsafe, if he couldn’t get another job. The last time another news organization had tried to poach him was years ago. No one was employing, the whole industry was in contraction. He was fucked and he hadn’t seen it coming.

“I’m sorry, Jack. If I thought you’d want to stay on and write straight business news, I’d have offered it.”

“But you can get a cadet do that, use more wire service syndicated news.” Fill the Courier with infotainment, which was cheap to produce. His reporting career might be over; he could be washed up before he even hit middle age.

“It is what it is. I can’t change what’s happening to the industry.”

Jack took his tobacco pack out of his suit pocket and rolled a smoke, and no one stopped him. “You’re going to announce this with the other changes.”

“Yes. I have a favor to ask of you.”

After the insult, after the humiliation in a week that was built for triumph, Madden was going to ask him to front the staff meeting, to show he was taking his exit gracefully. He didn’t need to be an investigative reporter—ex-investigative reporter—to know that. It was going to give him an ulcer.

He blew a stream of smoke over Madden’s head. “You want me to be at the meeting.”

“I want to give you a decent send-off.”