“Maddy?” Had Maddy been there?
“Anyway, you’re one to talk. I had the perfect source lined up for my first big policy story, and you took her.”
“I can’ttakea source.” Wes threw up his hands. “How about when we were assigned streeters in our City Reporting class? You stood twenty meters away and snatched all my interviews.”
It went on. Getting the highest mark on a test. Stolen stories. Pinched job references. Butting into coffee lines. Ten years of measly differences that kept piling up until they ended up here, yelling at each other across Dot Voline’s oak library table.
Nadine’s color was high, making her brown eyes darker, and he felt a quick thrill to finally, after all these years, be able to dig past her cold layers to the impassioned woman he’d known was there.
“And you got the last ticket to the special showing ofAll the President’s Men!” she said. Her voice was croaky.
Wes had to grin. “You were furious. That was your favorite movie.”
“It still is.” She sniffed. “It’s better thanSpotlight.”
“They filmed part of that in Toronto.”
“Jesus, they film part of everything in Toronto.” She caught his gaze across the table as he tried not to laugh. “What?”
“I can’t believe you’re mad about the wording on a slide from a class we took years ago.”
“Shut up. You’re upset because I liked listening to surf rock when I studied.” She hummed the first few bars of “Wipe Out.”
That was enough for Wes, who burst out laughing so loud the cats, who had been monitoring the situation from afar, ran from the room. Nadine stopped humming, a small smile on her face. Then she was laughing with him. It took them a few moments to calm down.
“God,” she said. “I knew I could hold a grudge but never thought I’d find someone to match me.”
“It’s probably not something to congratulate ourselves on,” he said, feeling better than he had in ages. The fight had been a pinprick deflating his long-standing balloon of bitterness.
“Gotta take the wins where we can.” She smoothed her hair back behind her ears as if to indicate it was time to get back to business.
Wes leaned back in his chair. “Now what? You got your reckoning. Do you feel better?”
“A little.” She shrugged. “I liked yelling at you for a while, that’s for sure. You?”
“Yeah.” He nodded. “The yelling was nice.”
“Good, so we can move on to next steps. I see two choices for where we go from here. We can keep on as we were. Or…” She looked at him as if waiting.
It was easy enough to finish her thought. “Or we can bury the hatchet and start fresh,” he said.
“For the sake of the project, I’m willing to let bygones be bygones if you are.”
“Noble.” Wes traced a finger along the table. “You know, none of what happened was really directed at each other. It’s the job.”
“That’s true. There was no deliberate malice.” She looked at him to confirm. “Was there?”
He snorted. “Not on my side, but I feel your very aggressive playing ofThe Best of the Sixties Surf Rock Compilationvolumes one through four was deliberately targeted at me.”
“Playing the music wasn’t.” Her look was impish. “Playing it on repeat was.”
Wes shook his head. “I knew it.”
“Yeah.” She grinned. “That’s what made it awesome.”
Wes couldn’t be mad when he saw that smile. “Then we’re agreed. Fresh start? No lingering grievances?”
“Fresh start.” She held out her hand, and he shook on it.
