So his nuts were toast either way.
Concern for his nuts didn’t stop him from checking his phone to see if she’d called him. Disappointment kicked him near, but not quite directly in, his junk when he saw that he’d only missed messages from his dad and brother.
Before, when he hadn’t been deliberately trying to be a jackhole to women, he’d never not known what to do in a dating situation. He’d lived by the guiding principle of doing whatever it took to make his lady happy. And now, when he was trying—and somehow failing—to make a particular lady so unhappy with him that she would dump him, he was bewildered. For a moment, he wondered if this was how most straight men felt most of the time. And it rocked him back on his heels until his beer was empty.
He ambled over to the bar, calculating that he had one more beer’s worth of fake smiles and small talk in him before his façade cracked. He’d put in his order when he got a hard smack to the middle of his back that told him he wasn’t going to get out of this without talking to his boss.
“How’s the story going, kid?”
“Fine.”
“She dump your ass yet?”
The truth was that he didn’t know. Maybe the sex stuff after the Halloween party had just been a kiss-off, but that wouldn’t make a good story. He had to come up with something in the way of a status report. “Nah, but I’m on the right track.”
“You’re too pretty.” The tone of Irv’s words denoted that they were not a compliment. “With the outline you gave me of what you’ve already done, she should be trying to run you down with a car.”
Given his newfound empathy for the masses of idiots who didn’t know how to date, he begged to differ. “Nah. I think that she’s probably just so used to the kind of shit that I’ve been doing that she’s letting it roll right off her.”
His second beer arrived, and he ordered Irv another one. If he was going to listen to his boss tell him how pretty he was, he needed a bit more of a buzz on.
“I think you need to step up your game, kid.”
When he’d first started working at the magazine, he’d thought that Irv calling everyone “kid” had been charming. Tonight, it was grating. And he didn’t want to talk about this article anyway. It was bad enough that he actually had to write it in the first place.
He wanted to shift to the kinds of stories he should be working on. “Listen, I’ve done some more digging on that political story I mentioned. I talked to my dad’s buddy, and he has a guy who’s willing to talk—”
Irv totally just cut him off, which wasn’t new. But the anger brewing in him, the urge to hit something or yell, was brand-new. “I think you need to do some truly heinous shit to make this work—like cheating or asking her if she wants to ‘open up’ the relationship. I hear that’s a thing that all the kids are doing. Maybe you can even tell her that you’ve been married all along. That’ll definitely do the job—”
“You want me to lie to her?”
“Kid, you’ve been lying to her the whole time.”
Wasn’t that the sad truth. Except for the first night they’d met and a handful of text messages, everything about them had been a lie. Other than the sex—he hadn’t been able to keep the truth of how much he wanted her out of that. But sexing her up wasn’t going to prevent her from doing him grievous bodily injury when she found out—or after she read the article.
His mind scrambled for a way to get out of this stupid story. “Can’t I just fill in the rest with generic advice? I really have chemistry with this girl, and I want to see where it goes.”
Irv paused for a moment, and then guffawed. “I pay you to do a fucking job. If you don’t want to do your fucking job, I have thousands of résumés in my e-mail from people who’ll do whatever the fuck they’re told.”
He’d never heard his boss say anything that cold before. Suddenly, he realized why the seemingly avuncular man had been brought in to steer the digital ship. Irv was ruthless; he got people to do what he wanted, but he snuck up on them.
Jack’s only response was a nod.
“Good.” Irv hit him on the back again. This time, Jack listed a bit to the side, as though some of his muscles had been pulled out of his body during their conversation. “We’re actually going to do something with a streaming service, and I need your pretty face on the news.”
Jack struggled to process the pivot to a pivot-to-video this conversation had taken. “I’m up for that?” He had a hard time believing it given that Irv had just threatened to fire him.
“Of course,” Irv said, apparently ready to forget all the shit he’d just said. “Team players get to do real news. On-screen.”
So he had a clear choice to make. He could either tell Hannah the truth, not write the story, and get fired, or he could write the story, which would tear Hannah apart, and get to do real news.
Shit.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Wednesday, 10:17 p.m.
Jack: hey
Hannah: sup?
Jack: what r you doing?
Hannah: about to go to sleep.
Jack: what r you wearing?
Hannah: r u sexting me!?
Jack: trying to
Hannah: I’m about to go to sleep
Jack: send n00ds?
Hannah: are you drunk?
Jack: no
Hannah: if I send you a nude, it will be a nude cat . . .
Jack: I like pussy.
Hannah: I recall
Jack: yeah, you do
Hannah: stop being a jerk. Going to sleep.
Jack: asking for n00ds makes me a jerk?
Hannah: yup
Jack: sleep well
Thursday, 12:45 p.m.
Jack: whatcha doing?
Hannah: working. Aren’t you?
Jack: I’m bored.
Hannah: my grandma used to say that if you’re bored, you’re stupid.
Jack: wow
Jack: you’re a little mean, aren’t you?
Hannah: listen, Jack. Last night you asked me for naked pictures . . .
Hannah: now you’re interrupting me at work
Hannah: what are you trying to do here?
Jack: just trying to talk to you . . .