Page 52 of Goode Tidings

Her laughter subsides. "For a grouch, you're awfully funny."

"I wasn't always a grouch."

"You weren't?"

My lips flatten as I shake my head.

"Were you the guy from your website bio?"

I forgot about that picture. It was the most recent photo I'd had of myself, back when I was still blissfully ignorant of what Hailey and Todd were doing behind my back. I figured the guy spearheading the good news website should probably look happy in his photo. Looking back, it was a good idea. Definitely not the most honest depiction of who I was when I started Goode Tidings. Or who I am today.

"More or less," I answer Eden. "A little dry and sarcastic, but cleaner cut." I rub my face. "Less furry."

She nods at the lit-up dual computer screens. "Who's donating a kidney to a mistress?"

"It's a Goode Tidings submission," I explain, spinning my chair to face the screens.

"That's sweet," Eden says, leaning down. She plunks her elbows on the desk beside me, catching her face in cupped hands. "Can't say I'd do the same."

"I was editorializing. Let's read the submission before we start waxing poetic. Sometimes people use this inbox like a confessional."

"Seriously?" Eden shakes her head disapprovingly. Her hair swishes across her upper back, the ends flitting over my shoulder. The scent of black cherry and cinnamon settles over me. It's that perfume I smelled on the dresser the day we ate the cupcakes.

In a move I hope is subtle, I angle my face to the left and suck in a fresh breath. Don't fall in love with Eden. You don't deserve her. Nobody does.

Something tells me don't fall in love with Eden is an umbrella term, covering such acts like sinking my mouth onto her bare shoulder and curling my fingers into her dark head of hair.

"Callum!" Eden shoots forward, running her fingers parallel to the submission on the screen. "This woman released five hundred crickets into her husband's mistress's car. That's how she repaid her."

Eden turns to me with her mouth agape. My mouth is open too, but not for the same reason. Eden leans so far forward on my desk that she's practically bent over it. She cuts a beautiful line, and that dip in her lower back? I should receive an award for not allowing my eyes to get stuck there.

"Does this happen a lot?" she asks, straightening up.

"A woman releasing crickets into a car? Or spilling deep, dark secrets into my submission inbox?"

"The latter."

"Yes, unfortunately."

Eden cups my shoulder, her touch gentle. Just the soft swipe of her fingers and the light scrape of her nails. "That must be taxing. Going from good submissions, to deplorable."

"Between that and fact-checking the good news submissions, it can be a lot."

"Do you have employees?"

"Three."

"Can you write 'sifting through submissions' into their job description?"

"I could, but I won't. I would never put that on them."

Eden studies me. "Just yourself? You'd only put that on yourself?"

I drag two knuckles over my scruffy jaw. "When I started Goode Tidings, I hadn't known it would be like this. I had this picture in my head, but... it's silly."

"It's not silly. Tell me. What did you see?" Eden props her backside against the edge of my desk, the outside of her leg pressed against my chair.

"A little corner of the internet that people could seek out specifically when they wanted to feel hopeful or happy. It was right after Hailey and Todd did what they did, and I was feeling neither of those things. And that sucked. And every time I watched the news, or read the news, or went on social media, it was depressing. You know that old saying 'sex sells'?"