Cayden
“Hi, Mr. Ray! I didn’t think you’d be in the office today. We all heard how you saved Sophie Stone’s life in the riots in Washington D.C. That was really brave of you.” The young intern sighed as she fluttered her long eyelashes at him and Cayden barely stopped himself from groaning out loud. He’d hoped to sneak into the paper, talk to Harry, and leave before having to face a round of twenty questions.
“I didn’t really save her life,” Cayden shrugged uncomfortably, mumbling a reply that he hoped would be passable as he tried to hide even further into his leather jacket.
“What are you talking about? Of course, you did. We were all watching in the news room when the protests erupted and Harry told us all about how you charged in after Ms. Stone.” She grinned up at him cat-like as she took a step closer. Too close. “My hero.”
“Uh, right, well. Speaking of Harry, I got to go,” Cayden didn’t even wait to hear what else the girl was going to say before heading quickly in the opposite direction. The whole walk there he sent up a silent prayer that he wouldn’t run into anyone else trying to hero-worship him. Not unless that someone was Sophie herself.
The thought had Cayden gritting his teeth. I don’t care what Sophie thinks of me, Cayden tried to convince himself, we had our fun and now it’s over. Back to real life. Hell, we’re not even friends.
Cayden didn’t stop to wonder why that last admission had his chest tightening painfully but he was rubbing at the spot over his heart unconsciously as he knocked on the door to the World News’ editor in chief.
“Don’t stand out there all day!” Harry’s gruff voice reached him through the thin pane of glass that had his name painted in chipping once gold letters. “Get your ass in here!”
Cayden fought a grin as he opened the door and walked into the office. At least there was one thing that would never change. Harry Brewer would always be a curmudgeon.
“Ray! I didn’t expect you in today. I gave you the rest of the day off.” Harry squinted at him suspiciously from the other side of his massive, messy desk.
“I know, boss, but I wanted to get this to you as soon as I could,” Cayden fought down a wave of guilt as he held out a neat pile of papers. “It’s my article. From the protests in D.C.”
Harry’s wild gray eyebrows rose high on his forehead but he reached out and took the paper from Cayden, giving him another considering look as he quickly skimmed over the draft. Cayden waited impatiently but after a few moments Harry looked up again, a new light shining in his eyes.
“This is good, Cayden. Really good.”
“Thanks, boss.” Cayden was still fighting a wave of guilt but Harry Brewer’s praise made at least part of it seem worth it. He knew that Sophie would be furious with him. She’d told him that Harry had scratched the assignment and with everything that had happened, he knew she didn’t have anything to hand in. And he also knew she’d be furious for lying to her. He’d told her he didn’t have anything to give to Harry about the riots. That guilt settled even deeper inside him, cold and greasy, but he pushed it away as Harry spoke up again.
“Tell me what happened in D.C. It looked pretty rough out there.” Harry nodded for him to start talking.
“It was, especially towards the end. Tensions are high. People do stupid things when they’re put in a situation like that. There was nothing else I could have done–.”
“What are you talking about, Ray? If I understand correctly you may have saved Stone’s life.”
Cayden nearly groaned out loud at Harry’s words. Not him too. The doe-eyed intern was bad enough but now even his boss was looking over at him like a proud mother hen.
“Look, I was just doing my job.”
“It was a hell of a lot more than that and you know it. You two fight like cats and dogs when you’re within twenty feet of each other, but I need you to know that you did me, and the World News, proud.”
Cayden shuffled his feet, uncomfortable with the praise.
“Anything else happen in D.C. that I need to know about?” Harry asked after a moment.
“What?” Cayden’s mind immediately conjured up memories of the nights he and Sophie had spent together but there was no way in hell that was something Harry Brewer needed to know about. “No. No, nothing else.”
“Good.” Harry muttered as he nodded, his attention already focused on the draft of the article Cayden had just handed him. “You’ve got the rest of the day off. Get the hell out of here before I put you back to work.”
“Yes, sir.” Cayden said as he turned on his heel to leave. He was nearly through the doorway when Harry’s voice stopped him.
“And Ray?”
“Yeah, boss?”
“What you did this past weekend? How you handled a chaotic situation and kept your head? Well, let’s just say that’s the kind of behavior we look for in a senior writer here at the World News.”
Cayden stared after him for a long moment, surprised and pleased at Harry’s less than subtle hint about the promotion but as he left his boss’s office that guilt was back. It was just business, damn it. Nothing to feel guilty over. Nothing at all.
Cayden was still trying to convince himself of that as he turned to leave the office. The last thing he wanted was to be stopped by anyone else trying to interrogate him about what happened over the weekend. He made it past the bull pen without running into a single person and was almost free and clear when a familiar face walked out of the printing room.
“Cayden? Hey, man, I thought that was you.” Brad was one of his closest friends and they had worked together at the newspaper for years but Cayden really didn’t relish the thought of rehashing the past weekend. He also knew Brad wouldn’t give him any other option. The man was relentless, especially when it came to gossip. He could sniff out a story from a mile away. It was part of what made him a good reporter.
Brad cast a surreptitious look around the otherwise empty hallway before pulling Cayden back into the printing room.
“Dude! What are you doing here? I thought Brewer the hard ass gave you the day off?” Brad had to practically yell to be heard over the sound of the print machines running the next day’s paper but Cayden heard enough to understand his friend’s question.
“He did,” Cayden shouted back, “I just had to hand over my article. You know, about the protests that went down while we were in D.C.”
“Yeah, yeah. Protests. Riots. Violence. I got all that watching the morning news. What I didn’t get was an update on the stone princess.”
“What was that?” Cayden yelled, gesturing to his ear as if he couldn’t hear Brad’s words over the loud sound of the printing press.
Brad rolled his eyes at him, knowing damn well he’d heard every word but repeated his question nonetheless. “You and Sophie Stone. Tell me the truth! What happened in D.C.?”
Cayden shook his head, but he knew that Brad was relentless. He wasn’t about to give up until he got every juicy detail.
“Fine.” Cayden sighed, “We slept together, alright?”
“You finally cracked Sophie Stone!” Brad crowed as he shot Cayden a salacious grin, “I can’t believe you did it. You actually did it.”
Cayden grimaced at Brad’s choice of words but all he could do was shrug. “Listen, with everything that was happening, the protests, the douchebag that attacked her, the hospital, tensions were running high, that’s all. We just needed to relieve a little of the pressure. That’s all it was.”
“Uh huh. Sure. And exactly how many times did you ‘relieve the pressure’?” Brad asked, putting his hands up as he added air quotes, throwing Cayden’s own words back at him.
“Look, I feel bad enough about what happened over the weekend. I don’t need you being an asshole and making me feel even worse.” Cayden groused and Brad’s eyes widened for a second at his uncharacteristic words. Finally, his friend just shrugged.
“Hey, Cayden, Sophie’s an adult more than capable of making her own decisions. You weren’t acting alone, you know? I don’t know what this weird guilt thing is,” Brad paused to wave his hands in the air, gesturing in a circle around Cayden, “but she was right there with you. She consented to whatever it was you did together.”
“I know. I know that.” Cayden knew he sounded like he was trying to convince himself, but even still he couldn’t quite make himself believe his friend’s words. “But she was hurt, and the riots were going on. I wasn’t trying to take advantage of the situation. That’s all I’m trying to say.”
“And all I’m trying to say is that you’re acting like a douchebag and totally unlike yourself. You’re the conqueror of pussy,” Brad stated loudly and Cayden cringed at one of his old college nicknames, “Now you just sound like a pussy.”
“You’re disgusting, you know that?” Cayden said with a long-suffering sigh as he shook his head. Brad just shrugged, grinning proudly.
“I know. It’s one of the things you love about me.”
“It really isn’t.”
“Listen, are you going to give me the details or what?” Brad said, throwing him another sideways look, “How was it? She really was a virgin, wasn’t she? What is she, twenty-eight? Twenty-nine? Was it hot? How are her tits?”
“Disgusting, Brad. Seriously.” Cayden shook his head again. He knew it was useless. His words bounced off his friend unheard. He only had one recourse left. Change the subject before Brad’s question’s sunk any further into the gutter. “I talked to Harry, you know.”
“What did you say?” Brad yelled and Cayden had to raise his voice again as another run of newsprint ran through the machines.
“I said I talked to Harry!”
“You did?”
“Yeah. The man practically handed me the promotion on a silver platter.” Cayden shouted, forcing a grin as he spoke but that damned guilt was still there, eating away at him.
“You deserve it, man.” Brad yelled, nodding his head as if expected no less. And in a way, neither had Cayden. He’d known from the very beginning, before Bert had even retired, that the senior writer position was his. He’d worked his ass off over the last few years. He deserved it.
But he also knew that it would crush Sophie as soon as she discovered that he’d lied to her about having an article about the riots and turning it into Harry behind her back. Cayden had no doubt if she had known, she would be in the office right now despite her still healing head would to turn a draft of her own in. That was just the type of person she was. Driven. Ambitious. Just like him.
And pretty soon she’d find out the truth and he knew there would be hell to pay. But not today. At least he had that.
“So, Sophie,” Brad shouted, trying to pull the conversation back to the previous topic, “Tell me what it was like!”
Cayden held a hand to his ear, pretending again not to be able to hear his friend’s words.
“Sorry, Brad. It’s too loud. Can’t hear. I got to go!” He shouted, pointing towards the door. “See you later!”
Cayden ducked out of the printing room before Brad could come up with any more asinine questions and sighed in relief when he finally made it out of the building without running into anyone else. He didn’t think he could take another round of interrogation. He was already feeling guilty enough. And he knew as soon as Sophie found out, he would feel a hell of a lot worse.