“Poutine.”

I roll onto my side to face a shirtless Matt Pearson as he comes striding out of the bathroom in my creaky studio apartment. I wait for him to elaborate.

“We need to get poutine.”

“We need to?” I repeat.

He grins. “Come on. Don’t tell me you’ve never hit up La Banquise at four in the morning after a drunken hookup. Post-sex poutine is like a Montreal ritual.”

He’s not wrong. I’ve ended more than one night on the town at the famous twenty-four hour poutine joint.

“True,” I agree, “but neither of us is drunk and La Banquise is halfway across the city. Also, it’s eleven at night. Where are we going to find poutine in Verdun at eleven?”

Verdun is one of the city’s boroughs, and so far away from downtown it’s not even on the actual island of Montreal. This apartment was the best deal I could find on rent, though. I didn’t want roommates, and every other studio in this price range was sketchy enough I felt like I’d be signing my life away along with the lease.

“I’ll Google it.”

Matt grabs his phone and takes a seat on the edge of the bed. I hug the blankets to my naked chest and inchworm my way over to get a look at the screen.

“There!” he says, pulling up the details for a place just a few blocks away. “Open until 1AM.”

“That does not look like a great place to eat,” I tell him, but I start pulling my clothes on anyway.

We head off down the sidewalk, dodging the spray of water that threatens to douse us every time a car passes by. Spring is finally here to stay, and everything is melting, pooling in the dark roads and making the asphalt glimmer under the streetlamps. I take a deep breath in, and somehow even the congested city air smells fresh.

Matt’s heavy footsteps fall beside mine. This is the second time I’ve seen him this week. At first I was paranoid about someone finding out, but his assurance that PR teams and tabloid crews don’t care what he gets up to if it doesn’t involve Ace turned out to be correct.

We met for coffee the first time and were heading to my place less than an hour later. His was much closer, but I felt way too weird getting it on knowing JP might be at home.

I made it clear a sleepover wasn’t in the cards, but we still had much more time than at the hotel, and he certainly knew how to fill it. I don’t think my body has ever ached for someone the way it does for him. He teases me so well I almost lose my mind, writhing and begging for more underneath him at just the hint of his fingers on my skin.

Maybe I have lost my mind already. Maybe I never had it to begin with. Either way, I couldn’t even wait forty-eight hours before texting him to come over and greeting him naked at the door. That led to making creative use of nearly every surface in my apartment and culminated on our current impromptu poutine trip.

“I hope we don’t get food poisoning,” I tell him, as we step under the neon sign of a greasy looking casse-croûte.

“Where is your sense of adventure, Kay?” he asks as he opens the door for me. “You’re a journalist.”

“I write the arts section.”

“Making the perfect poutine is an art.”

The basket of gravy and cheese covered fries they set down in front of us fifteen minutes later is far from perfect. I spear a potato with my fork and bring it closer for inspection.

“I’m pretty sure this gravy is at least seventy percent water.”

Matt shrugs. “Looks fine to me.”

He picks up his own fork and starts to shovel fries into his mouth five at a time, only pausing for half a second between mouthfuls.

“Oh. My god.”

He swallows with an audible gulp and looks at me innocently. “What?”

“You! You’re an animal. You just ate half the basket in like two seconds.”

He waves his fork at me and speaks in a condescending tone. “You like sugary coffee drinks. I like fries. We all have our vices, Kay.”

I just sit and stare as he polishes off another quarter of the meal.

“Dig in,” he prompts. “You can have the rest if you want.”

I shake my head, taking a sip of the iced tea I ordered. “You seem like you’ll appreciate it more than I will.”

He doesn’t waste any time finishing last few bites.

“You gonna lick the paper too?”

“I was trying to be polite, but since you mentioned it...”

He dips his pinkie into the basket and coats it in gravy before bringing it up to his mouth.

“Wow. So sexy.”

He winks. “You love it.”

We don’t stick around for much longer after that. Matt offers to walk me back home on his way to the metro station. Outside, he shoves his hands into his pockets and looks up at the overcast sky.

“I’m glad you invited me over tonight.”

I glance up at the clouds as well. All the light pollution gives the sky a dusky orange glow, but the moon still shines bright and pure behind a layer of clouds.

“Yeah,” I admit, “me too.”

We don’t kiss at the door to my building. Instead, we just stand and stare at each other for a moment, searching for something we couldn’t find in the sky. Matt nods a goodnight and turns to leave.

Back in my room, I fight the urge to calculate how many hours there are before I need to get up for work and pull out my laptop instead. I open up a new document and contemplate the blinking cursor for a few seconds before my fingers start flying over the keys.

Marie-France asked for a sample of my Sherbrooke Station story, now that I’ve got my research well underway, and I’ve put it off for as long as possible. It’s not just an impending deadline that’s got me motivated tonight, though; all the words and phrases that have been drifting through my mind these past few weeks seem to have come to a head, gathering into a storm cloud that demands to be unleashed.

I write until my eyes are on fire, until I’m nodding over my screen and realize I’ve been typing the same sentence over and over again for the past two minutes. I summon the effort to click ‘save’ and put the computer away before collapsing onto my bed.

* * *

Marie-France calls me into her office at ten the next morning. Her jaw is set in a line that looks even sterner than usual, and I can tell whatever news she’s got for me isn’t good.

“Assis-toi, Kay,” she orders, pointing to the chair in front of her desk. “I read your sample this morning.”

I brace myself for criticism.

“You English have a word for this,” she continues, waving hand at her computer screen. “It’s called fluff.”

Ouch.

I must do a bad job of hiding how shot down I am because Marie-France pauses to rub her eyes and sigh.

“It’s not bad, Kay. You write well. It’s just not what we need. It’s too...moelleux. Too tame. It won’t stir anything up.”

“I know you wanted controversy,” I explain, “but to be honest, I don’t think there is much controversy. They’re a good band. People like their music. I can write about that, but if we need some kind of earth-shattering exposé, I don’t think we’re going to find it here.”

“If you can’t find it, you can make it.”

I can’t help raising my eyebrows at that.

“With respect, Marie-France, I’m a journalist, not a reality TV show producer.”

“But people love reality TV!” she exclaims. “There’s a new one on chaque semaine. You don’t see any failing reality TV shows, do you? No. But newspapers are failing left and right.”

She drops her head into her hands and takes a few deeps breaths. I wonder if I should get up and pat her on the back, but decide that patting Marie-France on the back would probably be the most awkward experience of my life.

“Excuse-moi, Mademoiselle Fischer,” she says after a moment. “I am ben stressée. The paper is putting a lot of pressure on me now.”

I’ve never seen her crack like this before.

“Is there anything I can do to help?” I offer.

She shakes her head. “I just need this story, Kay. I know you can’t make a scandal where there is no scandal. It would be wrong to ask that, but I think there is an issue here, an issue we can use. Don’t be afraid to get at it. Go deeper. Give me more than fluff.”

“More than fluff. Right. Got it.”

I start to get up from my chair.

“You still have one more of their concerts to go to, yes?” Marie-France asks before I go.

I nod.

“Good. That will help you. When did you become such an enthousiaste of this band, anyway? I could hardly get you to cover this story. Now you sound like you’re in love with them.”

“In love?” I almost choke on the words. “No. No no no. I just started to like their music more after I saw them play. They’re...they’re all right.”

“Hmm,” Marie-France grumbles, her eyes already fixed back on her computer. “Just don’t let that affect your story, d’accord?”

“Not at all!”

I let myself out of the office before I break out into nervous giggles. Pierre spares me a glance as I settle down at my desk.

“You don’t look like that went well. Was it about the sample?”

“Yeah.” I wince as I decide to admit the truth. “She called it fluff.”

“Ouch.”

“My thoughts exactly,” I tell him. “She wants it to be ‘less tame.’”

“Less tame? La Gare really is trying to turn itself around, isn’t it?”

I nod and pull up a few documents along with my daily schedule. I have two phone interviews, a few hours’ worth of research, and an article to get done today. I’m as up to my neck as ever with deadlines, but I just keep zoning out every time I try to get down to business. When the screen blurs in front of me for the fourth time in twenty minutes, I turn back to Pierre.

“Do you think it’s possible to write a controversial article without jeopardizing the reputation of the subject?”

He turns to face me as well, reaching up to rub his bald spot as he considers me for a moment.

“Non,” he says finally. “La controverse, c’est la controverse. Even if you’re showing the subject in a good light, you still make them a target for criticism if you associate them with anything controversial.”

“You think so?”

“Yes.” He pushes his swivel chair closer. “Say you profile an actress. In your research, you find out she used to be a porn star and you mention it. You could position the article to say there’s nothing wrong with porn and that the actress is a talented and accomplished woman who deserves respect. People are still going to make a scandal over her being a porn star.”

I nod a few times. I’m not planning on exposing anything like a connection to the adult film industry, but if I give Marie-France the kind of article she’s demanding, there’s still no way Sherbrooke Station will get out unscathed.

“Have you ever hurt a source with something you wrote?” I blurt, surprising myself.

Pierre gives me a curious look. “Is there something you want to talk about, Kay?”

“No,” I answer quickly. “Just...have you?”

“I have,” he admits. “I think every journalist does, at some point. People don’t always like the things they read about themselves, even if they’re true.”

“Yeah,” I say distantly, as he wheels himself back to his desk. “Yeah. Yeah.”

I’m still repeating that under my breath when I hear Pierre give a little laugh.

“What?” I demand.

“I can hear you, you know.”

I stay silent and hope that will hide my embarrassment.

“It’s our job, Kay.” His voice has gone serious. “Telling the truth. It isn’t always pretty, but it’s what we do. It’s our rule.”

I don’t say it out loud, but I can’t deny it to myself: I haven’t been so good with rules lately.