The Love Experiment

by Paton, Ainslie

  “And?” Madden barked.

  Jack wanted to find a fucking penguin and have a half-naked firefighter stuff it up Madden’s ass. Forcing a neutral expression to stay on his face made his jaw ache, but Derelie took Madden’s belligerence in her stride.

  Last night he’d almost messed up with her and when she finally did show him tears, he felt like his skin had been rubbed away and he was nothing more than raw meat and electrical impulses. Tears in Derelie’s eyes made him feel broken in a way no fight did. He had no idea what he’d do if he ever caused them and it wasn’t like he’d been easy to get along with so far.

  “There’s no and, Phil,” she said. “They’re two great stories on top of the regular features and syndicated news. If the firefighters don’t hit the top viewed stories list, I’ll eat my pencil.”

  Spinoza offered Derelie a high five and Jack unclenched his teeth. Madden was last to laugh. “I’ll sharpen it for you,” he said, but there was no menace in his response, and Derelie wore a nailed-it smile Jack wanted badly to kiss.

  He watched her across the table, laughing with Spin, and wondered how much this secrecy added to the thrill of her. Would he be less inspired to find a way to get her alone if it wasn’t a challenge? That was like asking if he preferred his right eye to his left—it was more shortsighted but he didn’t need it any less. He needed Derelie in a way that knocked his breath out.

  They both dawdled. It’d become a habit, creating a way to be the last two out of the room. It wasn’t smart. Derelie fiddled with her notepad and he scrolled messages absently on his screen, surreptitiously aware of every movement she made, until they had the room to themselves and he could give himself over to her.

  She tapped her pencil on her bottom lip. “Can you get lead poisoning if you eat a pencil?” The question was innocuous enough if overheard; the way she dragged the pencil over her lips not so much. His body read it as pornographic.

  “That depends on whether you’re personally oiling any firefighters.” His gut tightened at the thought of that.

  “I wasn’t planning on it.” She came around the table toward him, trailing a finger along its surface making it too easy to imagine that finger running over his body. “But if you think it would make a better story...”

  He met her at the top of the table. “You’re the story. The front page, the number one read.”

  “Is that yes to getting my hands on firefighter pecs?”

  She was high on her victory with Madden; he was blitzed on the cheeky glint in her eyes. “It’s yes to whatever you want.” Impossible to imagine denying her anything.

  “You say the nicest things.”

  There was no privacy in this room with its glass walls. He dropped the volume on his voice. “I want to kiss you. I want to back you into a wall and get my hands under your skirt.” That was the nicest thing he could think of in the moment.

  “It’s because of the penguins, right?”

  It was because she’d had a win, one of what he trusted would be many; because she was his experiment and the result of them was nothing he’d ever expected. “It’s because you turn me on.”

  She waved a hand and looked at the ceiling tiles, affecting boredom, but rosy-cheeked with mischief. “You told me that at breakfast.”

  “You’re tired of hearing it?”

  That hand in motion flirted with landing on his chest. They were already standing too close for colleagues. He wanted that touch and leaned toward her.

  “Haley, the boss is looking for you.”

  Jack jerked back as if Spinoza’s words were jabs.

  “Huh, what did I interrupt?” Spin came into the room. “You jumped like I goosed you, Haley.”

  “Jack’s giving me tips on how to deal with Phil,” Derelie said, dodging like a pro boxer.

  Spin’s hand clapped across Jack’s shoulder. “Ah, that’s what he’s giving you.”

  Derelie met Spin’s disbelief with an award-winning sigh. “Phil’s intimidating when I’ve only got penguins to throw at him.”

  “You could take his eye out with a well-aimed pencil,” Spin said, slapping down on Jack’s shoulder a second time.

  Shit, he didn’t buy any of this as innocent. “I wasn’t advocating violence,” Jack said. Of all the people to suspect something was going on, he and Derelie had to be flashing like neon for Spin to notice. But he could be trusted not to gossip.

  “Advocating, that’s a big word for a jock like me.”

  That didn’t mean it wouldn’t be painful, and Derelie’s concern about being found out was in her angled brows. He bit off a crack about ten dollar words. He was a bastard for not being able to keep his thoughts off Derelie long enough to keep her safe from rumors.

  “Guess that means Jack’s being hands-on with his advice, Honeywell?”

  She folded her arms. “Hands-on? That’d be a hackneyed word, wouldn’t it, Spin?”

  Spin grinned at her, backing off with both hands up. “It would be a none-of-my-business word.” He left the room laughing, but caught the middle finger Jack gave him before the corridor swallowed him up.

  “Oh no,” she said.

  “That was my fault.” Jack hated this sneaking around, resented the double standard that would brand him a stud and Derelie a career slut. “Spin won’t say anything.”

  “It’s as much my fault. I liked the wall idea.”

  He twitched to touch her face. “I’ll see you at home.”

  He turned to leave, but she stepped into him, pressed her body into his back, a brief blaze of heat rooting him to the spot, the unexpected weight of her hands flattened on his ribs making him groan at the contact and the way it hotwired him.

  “I hate having to be a secret,” she whispered. He tried to turn to take hold of her, but she had better survival instincts. “Later.”

  She walked around him to leave the room first, the cocky swagger in her stride at odds with the sheen in her eyes. It swelled his chest to know she was as affected by him as he was by her. But he had to play this smarter for her sake. Tonight he’d show her what she meant to him. It would be the calm before the drama of the Keepsafe story running.

  He tracked Madden to Roscoe’s office on the executive floor, knocked to interrupt the two of them arguing a point of law. Roscoe looked grateful for the disruption. “Come in, Jack.”

  Roscoe had two drafts of the Keepsafe story in front of him. The one where Bix went to jail for fraud and the one where he presided over gross incompetence.

  “Fucking lawyers,” Madden said, as Jack took the seat beside him.

  “You don’t have it, Jack,” said Roscoe. “There’s not enough here to tie this up as fraud and not simply straight mismanagement. It’ll get us done for libel.”

  “We’ll run with the incompetence leadership mismanagement angle,” said Madden. “It’s enough to get Bix fired.”

  “But not jailed,” said Jack. “And that’s what I want.”

  “Odd fact for your digestion—the Courier isn’t run on what you want, Haley.”

  “You’ve almost got enough, Jack.” Roscoe ignoring Madden gave him hope. But almost wasn’t going to get him page one above the fold and before the scroll.

  Madden stood. “We’re going with the mismanagement story. Runs Friday.”

  “Why are you pushing for Friday?” Jack said, looking at Roscoe for any clues to why Madden had a deadline hard-on over this one. This was the first time Madden had pushed for a specific end date to an investigation. “This is a national story now and we’re the only ones on it.” That was a big win for the Courier, something Madden was normally all over to champion.

  “Had enough of it. Gone on too long.”

  “It’s a great story,” said Roscoe, and Jack could’ve hugged him. If the lawyer thought he could pull this off, Mad
den would back down. They’d been in a similar position a dozen times before. Roscoe was generally the cautious one.

  “The moon landing was a great story. JKF’s assassination was a great story. Watergate, OJ’s trial, that baby down the damn well in Texas, Princess Diana’s funeral, Hurricane Katrina, Obama’s inauguration, Bin Laden’s death, those Chilean miners trapped for months, Edward Snowden, Hillary Clinton, Peggy Whitson’s record number of days in space. There are great stories breaking every day. Great stories about penguins and oily firefighters and celebrities divorcing their fucking underpants. I’ve had enough. You’re done, Jack. I’m calling it.”

  The temptation to stare at Madden with his mouth open was too good to refuse. Roscoe started to say something soothing and Jack jumped in with, “A week. Give me another week.”

  “What difference is a week going to make?”

  “My inside source needs time to find what I need.”

  Madden slapped his hands over his skull. “You’re out of fucking time.”

  On his feet, Jack lost his head. “Fuck you, Madden. I can bring the fraud story in.”

  “Fuck you twice as hard, Jack—you got two days, or I’m sending the mismanagement angle to print.” Madden looked at Roscoe. “Clear it to run.” He walked out leaving Jack with an uncomfortable feeling that there was some other agenda at play.

  “What was that?”

  Roscoe cracked his knuckles. “I don’t know. More ornery than usual. He’s under a lot of pressure on costs. What was the thing about underpants?”

  “It’s not the same news business it was.”

  “If it bleeds it leads, if it roars it scores, if it snoozes you lose it. That’s still the same.”

  “But now the truth matters less than whether the story is entertaining. Whether the dress is black and blue or white and gold. We’re competing for readers with Pokémon, Netflix binges and Pornhub.”

  “It was white and gold,” said Roscoe. “Nearly got divorced over that. I see your point. We can still make Bob Bix bleed if you bring in the fraud story by Thursday night’s deadline. I love the idea of that crook getting what he deserves. Jack, you gonna let celebrity underpants take your column inches?”

  Henri Costa had gone cold. He wasn’t answering, email, phone or text. Without another source Jack was sunk. Almost all the victims defrauded by Noakes and Whelan had been promised recompense. Someone inside Keepsafe knew the Courier was investigating and was trying to neutralize the story. They’d succeed unless Jack could join the dots. He now knew of fifty other doctors scattered around the country who had higher than average levels of claims denied. But he couldn’t connect them to Bix or each other like he’d been able to do with Noakes and Whelan, to prove a conspiracy.

  He stood to leave. He couldn’t see another way forward with this. “No paper ever got sued for penguin stories.” There was no legal risk in running the mismanagement angle either. Maybe that was Madden’s game. Playing it safe. Making sure costs were contained.

  “No penguin story ever righted a wrong. I can’t believe you’re going to give up on this.”

  “I’m trying to roll with it.” If rolling with it felt like being pummeled by an avalanche, buried with no clear path to the light. It’s what he’d told Derelie she’d have to learn to do. Time to suck it up.

  “I’ll hold off clearing this story Phil wants till the last minute.”

  That would give him hours, not days, but he’d take what he could get.

  “It could be worse, Jack.”

  He stopped in the doorway to look back at Roscoe. “Yeah, we could both be unemployed.”

  He spent the rest of the day with Berkelow trying to track down Henri Costa or someone inside Keepsafe who was close to him, without tipping them off to what Henri had been doing. According to Keepsafe HR, Henri was on a leave of absence. According to the guy who had the internal extension one digit higher than Henri’s and sat in the cubicle next to him, Henri was simply missing.

  “This is bad,” said Berkelow. “Like head in a bag in a Chinatown parking lot bad.”

  She’d said what Jack was worried about, and by the time he’d filed the next day’s story on a grain supply antitrust conspiracy, Derelie had left a string of messages.

  Oiling firefighters is exhausting work. Who knew?

  By oiling firefighters, I totally mean yoga.

  By yoga I mean I sat on the couch with Martha and now my legs are on strike.

  Also we’re out of groceries.

  Bring pizza.

  “You’re smiling.” Berkelow rested her elbows on the partition between their desks. “Is that Henri?” The dark circles under her eyes were a matched set to the ones Jack sported.

  It was the one thing better than hearing from Henri. “No.”

  She sagged. “We’re not going to get the fraud story, are we?”

  He shut his computer down. There was nothing more he could do tonight. He had a date with a deep-dish pizza. “We’re not going to give up till the last minute.”

  “Barbra Shenker called. They got their money from Keepsafe. It’s going to change their lives. She said to thank you.”

  But millions of other victims wouldn’t get the same attention. “Go home, Berkelow.”

  “You know, before I worked with you I thought you were a manipulation. Someone the Courier created because you looked good on a billboard and you’ve got a good voice for broadcast. You made it look easy to get the headlines.”

  “And now?” He wasn’t sure he wanted to know, but a manipulation had gotten him the woman who was marooned on the island of his couch starving for pizza, so he was more open to the discussion than he might’ve been.

  “I want to be you when I grow up, Haley.”

  Berkelow was about the same age he’d been when he started in the newsroom, back when print was indisputably king. “Are you trying to make me feel old?” She laughed, but didn’t issue a correction. “Be careful what you wish for.” He’d never wished ill for Henri Costa, but it was looking increasingly like the man was in trouble.

  By the time he got home, the notion that he’d encouraged Henri to put his livelihood if not his life at risk and Madden’s uncharacteristic lack of support had ground down on him. The pizzeria messed up his order, a road closure with a police blockade meant he had to walk the long way home and he had a shouting match on the phone standing on the street outside his apartment.

  Madden said, “I had a call from Bob Bix’s lawyer today. Told me he’d sue for reputation damage if you didn’t stop sniffing around.”

  “And you told him we don’t take our instruction from third parties.”

  “We’re running the mismanagement angle.”

  “Bix is a shark and you’re going to let him get away with it.”

  “You’re going to let him get away with it, Jack. You’re so sure Bix is crooked, prove it.”

  “I need more time.”

  “It runs Friday.”

  Madden disconnected, leaving Jack to shout obscenities to dead air. By the time he got inside the apartment, the pizza was cold and his temper was boiling. Months of work, endangering Henri, and the best he’d been able to achieve was a story about an internal company screwup that would be buried in the business pages and probably still get them sued for reputational damage.

  “Oh, pizza. What did you get?” Derelie got off the couch and relieved him of the box.

  “Does it matter?” Martha wouldn’t stop circling him, making a racket. “You couldn’t fucking feed her?” He scooped Martha up and carried her into the kitchen. Her bowl was empty. He dropped the cat to the floor, picked up the bowl and dumped a tin of ocean fish fillet into it. Martha sniffed the bowl and then lay down beside it.

  “She’s not hungry.”

  “I can see that.” At least
she’d shut up.

  “That would be because I fed her. What happened?”

  What could he say? Derelie kicked ass today and he’d failed. “It’s all falling apart. Madden just called to say Keepsafe threatened to sue. Bix is going to get away with defrauding millions of policyholders.”

  “Your big story is dead?”

  “That’ll leave plenty of room for your clickbait.”

  Derelie sucked in a breath. He looked at her properly for the first time. She was still wearing her work clothing, but barefoot, her hair coming undone. She’d been slogging long hours under considerable pressure and it showed on her face. He was pissed off with Madden, with Henri, with himself and he’d taken it out on her. Fuck.

  “You need church.”

  He put his hands to the back of his neck, tension stored there making it rigid.

  “Seriously, Jack, call Barney. Do whatever it is you do when you want to burn the world down, but don’t take it out on me.”

  He took a step toward her and stopped. He wasn’t fit to be in the same room with her. “I’ll go.” Barney would set him up. A fistfight was exactly what he needed.

  She moved aside and he went to grab his gym bag. When he came back she was standing uncertainly in the living room, tracking his movements in a way that made him want to claw his eyes out. “You should go home.”

  He got out the door without Martha realizing he was leaving. He got to the bottom of the stairs before he understood he didn’t want to get smacked around and what he did want he’d need a miracle for: more time, a new lead on Keepsafe, Derelie’s forgiveness. There was a lesson he hadn’t learned as a child; he was learning it again as an adult. If you wanted people to stick around you needed to be easy to get along with.

  She was waiting for him when he eased back inside the apartment. Still barefoot, still rumpled from the day, still on edge. She wouldn’t have wanted to run into him on the stairs or waiting for a cab. She was beautiful and clever and generous and he felt the loss of her already in the drag on his spine and the weight of his head.