“Come on, you pathetic baby.” She heaved Spudge up next to her and he collapsed with a delighted doggy groan. With Spudge’s head in her lap, she leaned back against the headboard and opened up BulletChat. Peabody had replied to their earlier conversation about the latest literary fiction critical darling they’d both read. The mental shift—from her loud, sparring family downstairs, back to such an esoteric subject—was jarring.
Usually Jess loved living at home. It was a comfort, having her father and sisters waiting here in this familiar place, ready to wrap her up in their loving care after a terrible day. And knowing there was a vast network of aunts, uncles, and cousins to call on had helped them all hold it together when their mother died and through the years since. Plus, there was Spudge. He wuffed in his sleep, nuzzling further into her lap.
On the other hand, still living at home sometimes made her feel like a fraud. When she was little and imagined being a grown-up with a job at a newspaper, she thought the rest of her life would look different. What did Peabody imagine about her? Did he think she was some sophisticated New York reporter, hanging out with the media elite discussing weighty topics of great journalistic merit? Would he be disappointed to learn the truth, that she was just a bottom-rung staffer at a tiny paper still living in her childhood bedroom?
She looked around her room, trying to see it through outside eyes. The faded old wallpaper, cream with tiny clusters of violets, dated from her grandmother’s time in the house. None of the furniture matched, some left over from her childhood, some passed down through several generations of Romanos. Jess had done her best to dress the place up, banishing the stuffed animals and childhood awards to the basement, and adding some cheap framed posters and a modern Ikea bedspread, but it was still clearly a little girl’s room whose occupant had never left.
PaperGirl: Hey, do you ever feel like everybody else became an adult while you weren’t looking, or is that just me?
Peabody: Every day.
He’d answered right away, so she supposed he wasn’t out having great intellectual conversations in hip watering holes, either.
PaperGirl: I’m so glad it’s not just me.
Peabody: What brought on this bout of existential angst?
PaperGirl: I thought being twenty-three with a full-time reporting job would feel different. Adultier.
Peabody: Adultier is not a word.
PaperGirl: I know that, genius. I do have a journalism degree.
Peabody: I was teasing. Adultier is a great word. Everybody should be using it. I predict Merriam-Webster adds it next year.
PaperGirl: I still live at home. Did I tell you that?
Peabody: No, you didn’t. I do, too.
Jess let out a sigh of relief. See, they really did have so much in common.
PaperGirl: It can be nice sometimes, though, right?
Peabody: What do you mean?
PaperGirl: My family’s always here. No matter what happens out there in the big, bad world, they’re always on my side, you know?
There was a pause before he replied, and for the first time, she wondered what his family was like. Being tied to his family business had reminded her so much of Gemma and the bar, she’d just assumed the sense of suffocation was the same—stealing your breath but replacing it with unconditional love. But maybe he didn’t come home to a team of adoring cheerleaders like her.
PaperGirl: Is your family not like that?
Peabody: Not exactly. I’m loved. I know that. But the forms love takes don’t always make you feel better about yourself.
Wow. That was cryptic. She was still turning his comment over, trying to parse his meaning, when he texted again.
Peabody: Why are you so glum all of a sudden? Did something happen?
PaperGirl: The holidays always make me a little maudlin.
She wouldn’t burden him with the details of her mother’s death, between Thanksgiving and Christmas of the year she turned ten. In her experience, people often got weird when she told them. She’d learned to keep it to herself until she knew someone well.
Peabody: Right. Holidays.
PaperGirl: Thanksgiving is coming up. Are you going away?
Peabody: Away?
PaperGirl: To spend it with family?
Peabody: Oh. No. It’ll just be us, I guess.
Again, when he’d mentioned family, she’d imagined her own, complex and sprawling. Peabody gave the impression that his gathering, such as it was, would be much smaller. And lonelier.
It was on the tip of her tongue to invite him over. Gemma had been planning the menu for weeks. The bar would be closed, so her father and sisters would all be home. A herd of uncles and cousins would plant themselves in the living room with her father to watch football all day. Aunt Cynthia would pop in and lecture Gemma about her gravy until Gemma threw her out of the kitchen. Every other relative in Brooklyn and a handful from Jersey would stop by to exchange family gossip, reminisce about past Thanksgivings and Romanos who were dead, and everybody would have “one more drink before we go.”
She hated the thought of Peabody feeling lonely on the holiday, but inviting him into her inner sanctum felt a little too much, too soon.
PaperGirl: Well, I hope it’s nice.
Peabody: I’m sure it will be. Hey, I meant to ask you, did you know Anna Petersen has a new book out? You said you liked her stuff, right?
PaperGirl: I’m a huge fan. But I didn’t know it was out yet.
Her phone buzzed with an alert.
A photo.
Peabody had just sent her a photo.
Holding her breath, she tapped on the icon to open it.
It wasn’t him. But it was his hand, holding a brand-new hard copy edition of Anna Petersen’s book on Robert Kennedy. Well, it was part of his hand. Just four fingers, curled around the edge of the book in the very corner of the picture. He probably hadn’t even realized she could see them.
But she could. And now she was obsessively cataloguing every tiny detail. Like there was no wedding ring. Like they were obviously not an old man’s hands. That they were long. Beautifully shaped. Short, tidy nails, a couple of tiny freckles on one knuckle. He had very nice fingers. A girl could spend a lot of time fantasizing about fingers like that. And she was pretty sure she was about to.
Taking a deep breath, she tapped out what she hoped was a light-hearted response, nothing to give away how much her heart was racing just because she’d glimpsed his digits.
PaperGirl: I’m so jealous. Guess I’m hitting Amazon tonight.
Peabody: I’d loan it to you, but...
But that would require meeting face-to-face, and neither of them had suggested that yet. She wanted to. More than ever, now that she’d gotten a tantalizing glimpse of those fingers. But maybe it was a little soon.
So, as deftly as she could, she made another joke, putting that discussion off to another day.
PaperGirl: You could just photograph every page for me and text them to me, one by one.
Peabody: Brilliant idea. I’d love to, except it’s 700 pages and I have to work tomorrow.
PaperGirl: Shucks. Amazon, it is, then. I have to work tomorrow, too. I’d better go. I still have some work to do.
Peabody: Me, too. Talk to you tomorrow?
PaperGirl: Of course. I want to hear all about Petersen’s book. You can text me your favorite bits on your lunch break.
Peabody: Will do. Sweet dreams, PaperGirl.
Reluctantly, she closed out of the app, rubbing Spudge’s head. That was...wow. Who knew a glimpse of a couple of fingers could make her so giddy?
But she hadn’t been lying about having work to do. She hadn’t checked the paper’s social media accounts all weekend, which was bad. As crummy as it was getting stuck with such an onerous task, it would be even worse to fail at it.
With
an irritated sigh, she opened up the accounts. Post a headline on Facebook, cross post it on Instagram, onto Twitter...
Oh, no. ClickNews had replied to her snarky tweet from Friday.
@ClickNews @Brooklyn_Daily_Post Yeah, the geriatric crowd loves using twenty words when five will suffice. Explains so much.
Geriatric crowd? Did they mean her? They were calling her old, frumpy, out of touch. Well, the paper. Same difference. Fine, you want to play it like that? It’s on.
@Brooklyn_Daily_Post @ClickNews If you’re implying it’s quality over quantity, first that requires some level of quality.
Was that too mean? She read back over the “geriatric crowd” bit. Nope, not too mean at all. She was scrolling through her timeline when her phone buzzed with a notification. ClickNews had replied to her again. Now? Their social media manager had less of a life than she did.
@ClickNews @Brooklyn_Daily_Post Quality? You’re a paper that covers recycling schedules on the front page.
She was going to throttle this guy. Girl. PR person. Sure, she started this argument, but didn’t they have bigger things on their plate than to keep taking swipes at her? And besides, the city recycling schedule hadn’t made the front page in months, thank you very much.
@Brooklyn_Daily_Post @ClickNews You noticed? Starbucks just released a new signature Frappuccino, and yet you still found time in your busy schedule to read a newspaper. You get a gold star.
Take that, fancy PR firm.
Chapter Eight
Monday morning, she was still floating along on her Peabody high, which was why she didn’t realize she’d forgotten her travel mug of coffee until she came up out of the subway in Williamsburg. Guess it was Ému Coffee and Tea again.
She was peeling off her gloves just inside the door when she spotted a familiar tangle of rust-brown hair near the end of the line. Damn. Suddenly he was everywhere. In the moment of hesitation as she debated ducking back out, Alex spoke, without ever glancing up from his phone.
“Don’t bother running away. I already saw you come in.”
Sighing, she took her place in line behind him and pulled out her phone, intending to ignore him the way he was ignoring her. Maybe Peabody had texted.
Abruptly, Alex turned to face her, seeming so much closer than she’d thought. “Are you stalking me, Jess? First the coffee shop, then Josh’s party, and now the coffee shop again.”
Did he have to look so good this early in the morning?
“I could say the same thing about you. At least I had a good reason to be at Josh’s. You guys weren’t even friends in college.”
Alex scowled. “Nope. We weren’t. Not like you, anyway. I mean, you guys dated forever, right?”
“Two months. Actually, not even two months. Watch the line.”
“What?”
“The line.” She pointed to the gap in the line that had appeared ahead of him, smugly satisfied to be able to call him out on it this time. “Pay attention, Alex.”
“Right. Was it really just two months?”
“Oh, my God, why are you so obsessed with this?”
Alex jerked back in surprise. “I’m not obsessed.”
“Then drop it.”
“Fine. What should we talk about instead?”
“There’s no law that says we have to talk at all. I’m sure you’d rather not.”
“Come on.” He flashed her that winning smile he had to have been practicing since puberty. “You know how much I love annoying you.”
“Oh, I know. That’s why you’ve always been the one I love to hate. So what’s on the agenda for today in the exciting world of cut-rate internet journalism? A Kardashian scandal? Or maybe a new cat meme went viral this weekend and you can devote an entire news cycle to it.”
His eyes flared with anger. Nothing like hitting him where it hurt.
“Actually, one of our staffers is about to break something big.”
“Like...?”
“You’ll just have to follow ClickNews to catch the latest.”
“It’ll be a cold day in hell.” Which was a lie, because she already followed ClickNews from the Daily Post account.
Alex chuckled—this patronizing little laugh that grated on her nerves—as he stepped up to the counter. “Hope the air isn’t too thin to breathe up there on your mountain of moral superiority.”
A cold gust of air rushed into the coffee shop as the door opened to admit someone new.
“Alex, there you are.”
Jess turned to look, along with everyone else in the coffee shop, because the famous Dan Drake had just walked in.
* * *
Alex Drake had long since given up trying to analyze his complicated relationship with his father. Even the unexpected sound of his voice in the coffee shop set off an avalanche of conflicting responses. That was bound to be the case when your father was also your boss, your best friend, and your cross to bear. Complicated.
Dad was looking in top form this morning, in an impeccably tailored charcoal suit, crisp white custom-made shirt, and a blue silk tie from his favorite maker in London. He broke into a wide, white smile when he spotted Alex, and strode toward him, oblivious to the stares. As the owner of a media empire, he shouldn’t be a household name, or a face people recognized on the street, but Dan didn’t do anything the ordinary way. His private life—and the string of beautiful, sometimes famous, women who passed through it—was discussed in the press as much as his business successes. Alex might have gotten used to it, but he was never fully comfortable with the attention his father drew.
Dan paused beside him, leaning across the counter to address the wide-eyed barista. “Extra-large Red Eye.”
There were still half a dozen people behind them, but Dad never let a little thing like waiting his turn hold him up. It was infuriating, but that trait had undeniably worked for him. Dan Drake didn’t wait to be asked. Dan Drake stepped up and made it happen.
The barista eyed him warily, and for just a moment, Alex thought she might tell him he had to wait. Then Dan slid a twenty across the counter toward her. Her eyes flicked down to the cash. Then her hand slipped out and snatched it, and she wordlessly began making his coffee. Another Dan Drake trait; if charm and confidence didn’t work, just buy what you wanted.
Dan winked at the barista. “Thanks, Ava.”
Another trick. Absorb personal details—even just a name on a tag—and use that info to gain trust. The barista fought back a smile, falling prey to his charm seemingly in spite of herself. It never ceased to amaze Alex how well it worked. As always, he was both embarrassed and impressed.
“What are you doing here, Dad?” Although he had a pretty good idea already.
“I decided to sit in on the staff meeting this morning. You don’t mind, do you, son?”
Through a tight smile, Alex replied, “Of course not. It’s your company.”
His father grinned and clapped him on the shoulder. “But I don’t want to step on your toes, do I?”
Alex couldn’t even feel resentful, because that was the truth. Dan wouldn’t do a thing to get in the way of his son’s running of the new company. He would look on proudly, and compliment his business acumen and decision-making, and he’d cheerfully tell everyone not to get too used to Alex’s presence at ClickNews, because his son was destined for bigger and better things.
Jessica was still behind him, no doubt absorbing every second of his exchange with his father. He could feel her presence, could feel her stare, could feel the weight of her judgment. It made his skin prickle all over. From the first day he’d met her, there had never been an instant when he wasn’t aware of those things.
On one hand, he wanted to keep his father as far away from her as possible, for both their sakes. On the other, if he ignored her now that Dad was here, it would just prove her right on so many fronts, and one t
hing he could never abide was Jess being right about him.
Stepping slightly to the side, he nodded his head in her direction, trying to keep it casual. “Dad, you remember Jessica Romano? We were on the college paper together.”
He didn’t miss the flash of surprise in her eyes. She’d fully expected him to ignore her. Good. Nothing better than defying her expectations.
“Sure I do. How are you, Jessica?” His father turned his charming, bright white smile at Jessica and extended his hand. Here it comes—the smile, the deliberate, sustained eye contact, the firm handshake—he made everyone he spoke to feel important. He might not remember Jessica at all, but he’d never show it.
Jess stared down at Dan’s extended hand, caught off guard. Her teeth bit into her bottom lip briefly, her unconscious tell that she was unsure of herself. Alex cleared his throat and looked away.
“Don’t tell me my son’s got you working for ClickNews, too?” Dan said, as Jessica finally shook his hand. “Did we hire the whole college newspaper staff?”
“Oh! No, no. I don’t work for—”
“No! She doesn’t work for us. Dad, Jessica works for the Brooklyn Daily Post. It’s right across the street from our new offices, remember?”
Jess had been abundantly clear that she wouldn’t be caught dead working for ClickNews. And the truth was, for all the grief he gave her, she was right. She was far too talented to be wasted at ClickNews. Smug and infuriating, but undeniably, astoundingly, talented.
Dan still hadn’t released her hand, as he nodded slowly, still smiling. “Right. Cute little old local paper. I remember.”
Alex glanced at their hands and scowled. If his father even thought about flirting with Jess, he might have to physically drag him out of the coffee shop. Jess was off-limits and out of bounds, for a million reasons too complicated for Alex to sort out. Just...no. Forever and always, no.
Before he was forced to come to blows with his own father, Jess disengaged her hand and tilted her chin up in challenge. Oh, he knew that aggressive chin tilt so well. It always preceded a blistering set-down or an impassioned rant. “Well, we don’t intend to stay a little old local paper for long, Mr. Drake. Mariel Kemper’s got big plans.”
The One I Love to Hate Page 7