Page 24 of Goode Tidings

Dan bites off the sharp end of his candy cane, crunching loudly. "How so?"

"I had to vacate my cabin." My cabin. Perhaps not the most honest description.

"Rats?" Dan asks.

"No."

"Raccoons?"

"No. No vermin, no animals."

"Social media influencers?"

Trinh rolls her eyes. "The guy sees one influencer act terrible at a restaurant and now they're all on his shit list."

I sense an opportunity to change the subject, and take it. "Oh yeah? What restaurant?"

"Nice try." Trinh sips from her aesthetically pleasing lavender matcha iced latte. "Why aren't you living in your cabin?"

I take a beat to answer. "There was an ownership mix-up and now I'm staying in the office."

Trinh jiggles the ice in her cup. "Ownership mix-up?" The only rat in here is me and she senses it.

"Yes, and that's all I'm saying about it."

"Who's staying in the cabin?" she presses. I pinch the bridge of my nose. I know who wears the pants in their relationship, and it's never been Dan, and it never will be Dan.

"A woman and her son."

"Ahh." Dan nods knowingly. "She's hot."

They're met with my silence. There is no acceptable answer.

Trinh rolls her eyes. "There's more to people than looks."

Dan shakes his head. "Not at first. You meet someone with your eyes before you really meet them. Anyone who tells you they don't judge a book by its cover is lying."

There's that cynicism Trinh works against. Am I the same way? I think I might be. Sometimes.

"Anyway," Trinh says pointedly, steering the conversation back to the topic. "You're sleeping in the office now, Callum?"

I give the recliner the stink-eye. "As much as one can sleep partially reclined. I'll have to work on another solution. This one's unsustainable."

"Hey," Rachel's high-pitched voice jumps into the conversation. Her image appears on the screen. She's naturally a snow-white blonde (according to her) but dyes her hair a blue-black. A tattoo of a snake winds around her right arm, ending with its face on the top of her hand. She says she likes the way it looks when she clicks a computer mouse.

"Sorry I'm late. I was romancing the algo before I posted for today." Rachel's my social media manager. She takes the new stories for the week and creates snack-size content to help draw traffic from the socials to the website. Romancing the algorithm is Rachel-speak for interacting before posting. I'd call it Give before you receive. "What are we discussing?" She sits back, drumming her nails on her desk.

"Callum's love life," Dan says, candy cane back in his mouth.

Rachel's eyes light up. "We have never talked about that before. I thought it was, like, verboten."

"It is," I say harshly. "And now we're moving on." Not only is it inappropriate for me to discuss such a topic with my staff, there is nothing to discuss. What am I supposed to say? My former stepbrother's ex-wife lawfully swiped the cabin right out from under me and I accidentally flashed her and now I'm sleeping where I work and I was partially sprayed by a skunk and now I'm sort of hiding from her?

No, thanks. Time to start the meeting. "Dan, have you gone through the submissions I forwarded?"

He nods his affirmation. "Got anything heinous you wanna share?"

"I filter those out for a reason," I remind him.