I knock on the doorframe.
“Right. I’m off.”
Josh looks up. “Already?”
I check my watch. “It’s seven.”
“Exactly.”
I narrow my eyes. “Are you suggesting I should stay longer for the joy of it?”
“No. I value your wellbeing too much.”
“Good answer.” I shift my bag higher on my shoulder. “If anything catches fire between now and Wednesday, I’m officially elsewhere.”
“That’s inconvenient.”
“That’s management’s problem.”
He smiles faintly and leans back in his chair. “Before you go, there is one thing.”
I pause with my hand already on the doorframe.
There is always one thing.
One thing is never one thing. One thing is a meeting, a staffing issue, a complaint from somebody who thinks we personally control all smoke visible from their garden, or Kev asking whether the word mandatory is open to interpretation.
I sigh. “How bad?”
Josh takes his glasses off.
Oh.
Not ideal.
“Ispoke to the newspaper.”
That pulls me back into the room.
“You did?”
“I did.”
“And?”
He gestures to the chair opposite his desk. “You might want to sit down.”
“No.”
He waits.
“I’m not sitting down for newspaper-related information.”
“Suit yourself.”
I stay exactly where I am, because dignity matters.
Josh rests his forearms on the desk. “The editor agrees the article shouldn’t have run the way it did.”
