Bradford was a tool.He’d been squatting in my office all week, looking over my articles and our workflow and generally being an obnoxious ass about protocol and procedure.I couldn’t stand him—even if he was moderately good-looking.I guess that was a little unfair—I had a proportionate rate of attraction to men that seemed to fall off the more douchetastic a person was.Bradford was the living embodiment of douchebaggery, so his unarguable supermodel looks were totally lost on me.
“Hey, Gabe,” Bradford said.“You mind getting me a refill?”
“Black?”Gabe asked.
Bradford winked at him.Gabe blushed and grabbed his coffee cup, disappearing down the hall.
“He’s never been that useful for me, and he’s supposed to be my assistant.”
Bradford shrugged.
“I went over the first few weeks of articles.You know, despite your technical failings and your blatant lack of regard for others and their schedules, you really do great work at keeping the budget down.”
“Well, I know what it’s like to run on a shoe-string,” I said.“I started my own digital magazine a few years back.”
“Oh, really?What was it called?”
I blushed.
“Christian Teen Oklahoma,” I said.
“Ah,” Bradford said, and then turned back to what he was doing.There was so much I could read into that single exhaled syllable.
“So have we decided on the premiere episode?”I asked.
“Yeah,” Bradford said.“I took a look through the tips inbox.”
I tried not to spit on him.The ‘tips inbox’ was my work email, with my name on it.
“And?”
“And it seems like there are a lot of sightings of dead people walking around the city,” Bradford said.“That might be a great thing to look into.Sister of Mercy Hospital seems to be a particularly strong hotspot.”
I sucked air in backward through my teeth, mind churning.
“I think we may need to let that one rest for a bit,” I said.
“Why?It’s all anyone’s talking about when you search ‘Chicago weird things’ on Google.”
I sighed.
“Look, I have a pretty strong nose for this stuff.We have to have an emotional core behind the stories we take on, right?I just don’t see what emotional core we could have beyond ‘people seeing things.’”
“You’re kidding me, right?”
“Hot stuff coming through.With coffee,” Gabe said, coming back into the room.
“What do you think, Gabe?”Bradford asked.
Gabe blinked up at Bradford’s Spartacus chin and piercing blue eyes.
“About what, Mr.Dowellers?”
“Stacey thinks—”
“Who cares what she thinks,” Gabe spat.“She’s a buzzkill.”
I gasped.
