The Love Experiment (Stubborn Hearts 1)

“Duh.” Eunice grabbed her shoulders. “That was so hot.”

And now her life didn’t need to revolve around a secret, but that privilege had come at Jack’s expense. “I need to go.”

“I need to do the love experiment,” Eunice said, which was so “I’ll have what’s she’s having,” they both laughed.

Derelie looped her purse over her shoulder, picked up the dry cleaning and her gym bag, and made her way back to Jack. He was surrounded again, but only a slice of his attention was on the people around him. He held out a hand and then noted she had no easy way to take it. She was about to give him the gym bag so they each had a spare hand, but he bent and grasped her under her knees and to great shouts of surprise, he lifted her.

She wanted to hide her face in his neck like Debra Winger in her flannel shirt did to Richard Gere in his dress whites, and at the same time she wished she had her cell ready to record this. Mom would never believe it. Bags and baggage in her lap, arms around Jack’s neck, she tuned the stares out as he carried her across the office, accepted his suit coat dumped in her lap by Annie and smiled at Spinoza, who held an elevator for them.

“Way to go,” Spin said, which made her laugh. He’d echoed a line from the movie. “Expecting you at Donovan’s. Kelly has opened a tab in Madden’s name.”

“We’ll be there,” Jack said.

Spin reached inside and pressed the ground floor button and the doors closed.

“You can put me down.” It was peak elevator use time.

“I could.” But Jack made no attempt to do it, and when the doors opened two floors later to admit people he stared them down and they stayed right where they were. The second time it stopped he said, “Next car,” and Derelie was so choked up she had to do a Debra Winger and bury her face in his neck where his tense breathing was more apparent.

At street level, he did put her and her baggage down in a remote corner of the foyer where they could be undisturbed by the stream of people leaving the building. Derelie watched Jack try to keep it together by staying focused. He answered a call and spoke sparingly, another and thanked whoever it was for their concern. To a third he said, “I’m unemployed, like a lot of reporters. I have zero income, rent to make and a cat to feed.” He let the next call go with the words “My father. Proof bad news travels fast. He can wait” and then he turned his ringer off.

“When did you know?” The thought that he’d known and kept this from her was a live fuse of fear sparking through her.

“It doesn’t matter. I’m out.”

She wanted to come at that question again, but now was not the time.

He turned his screen so she could see his social feed. “The official word is my skillset is not aligned with the Courier’s strategy going forward. Fucking corporate speak.”

The next message that followed was Spin’s:

Jackson Haley has been martyred for the crime of journalism.

That got a wry smile out of Jack, and they watched as a dozen more messages like that appeared. Meanwhile, his cell was blowing up, little envelopes and message counts multiplying on his screen: emails, texts, calls.

He closed his eyes, a hand to his forehead. “I have no idea how to respond.”

He refreshed his feed and another series of messages appeared.

Jackson Haley’s firing heralds dying days of serious journalism.

Who defends our city now? RIP Jack Haley’s career.

Courier without Jackson Haley. Courier without truth in reporting.

Please won’t somebody give Jack Haley a new job.

Jack Haley out. Journalisms death knell.

Courier dumps Jackson Haley to become more digitally focused.

Bob Bix would still be ripping off Americans without Jackson Haley. What now?

It was an outpouring of shock, anger and grief. Derelie recognized the social handles of colleagues, who were risking Phil’s wrath by posting about their discontent. Annie tweeted:

Vale investigative reporting. No one did it like Jackson Haley.

Derelie touched Jack’s arm. “Maybe you don’t have to say anything.”