Page 55 of Make No Mistake

“Yeah.” I hugged him back, not quite knowing where this had come from but not minding it. He’d become more and more physical over time since Sean left, but in the past few weeks, he was either hugging me or had his arm around me most of the time.

I caught Carter and Aubrey out of the corner of my eye making kissing faces. I glared at them and eased out of Jay’s arms.

He picked up on what I was doing and led us to the front door.

“Thanks for helping me with the blog. I never would have been able to figure that out without you.”

He smiled sweetly. “Of course. If you need anything let me know.”

“Okay.”

He pulled me in for another hug, gentler this time, and kissed the top of my head before letting himself out.

I closed my eyes and turned around, knowing what I would see. When I opened them and made my way to my bedroom, I didn’t look over, refusing to give them the satisfaction. While I shut the door behind me, I called out good night and heard them giggle.

Even though itwas early on Saturday morning, there were already a few other people in the newspaper lab. Our big paper came out on Mondays, so we usually had busy weekends prepping.

I walked in just after six so I would have enough time to edit my articles and the ones assigned to me from Jay before going shopping with Carter.

Mallory was sitting at one of the design computers, working on the layout.

“Morning.” I sat next to her and turned on the computer at the station. Usually I could edit from my laptop, but there were a few that needed to be cut down to fit in the paper, so I wanted to see the layout while I worked on them.

“Hey.” She picked up her coffee mug and sipped. “The blog looks great. I posted it last night, and it already got thirty shares.”

“Wow.” That was amazing. “Thanks so much.”

She shrugged. “It’s important information to get out there, so of course I’m going to post it.”

One of the sports columnist, Jake, leaned around his computer. “It really does look good. I can’t believe you already interviewed all of the girls.”

“I was surprised too.”

He laughed with me and Mallory. “I saw the assignment come in to write about the blog, but Cynthia took it already.”

“Perfect.” She was the community columnist and would put a twist on it. She had a way of making even the most random things seem relevant and important. Even people that never read the paper always seemed to follow her work.

Lennon walked toward our table and handed Jake a thumb drive. “Here are the photos from this week’s basketball game.”

“Thanks, Lennon.” Jake disappeared around his computer again and went silently back to work.

“So that’s your blog, Mckayla?”

I wanted to keep it as anonymous as possible, but I knew people from the paper would obviously find out.

“Yeah, but try not to spread that.”

“Sure.” He turned and walked back to his table, collected his things, and left without another word. He was such a strange guy, but an amazing photographer. I’d always thought of him as one of those quiet, artsy types.

I worked quietly next to Mallory for almost two hours before I stood. “See you on Monday.”

“See ya!” She slid on headphones and went back to work.

There was just enough time for me to change out of sweats and eat a bowl of cereal before my phone buzzed.

I answered it, but before I could say anything, Carter spoke. “Hey, is she there?”

I looked at her open door. “Nope.”