Page 1 of How To Tackle A Crush
Chapter 1
Ava
Something is wrong.
I know it before I even reach my desk.
The Carlisle Gazette newsroom is never really quiet. Even on slow days there is always something. Keyboards. Phones. Someone arguing about a headline like national security depends on it. Someone talking as if silence might cause them physical harm.
Today there is almost nothing.
Just the hum of the lights. The distant drone of a vacuum cleaner. And AJ’s voice travelling across the room in one uninterrupted stream of words.
I stop just inside the doorway.
Either I have forgotten a bank holiday or everyone has been abducted.
I consider this carefully.
Statistically, the bank holiday seems more likely.
I check my phone.
Tuesday.
Definitely just an ordinary Tuesday.
No festive emojis. No apologetic email from HR. No indication the rest of the country knows something I don’t.
Weird.
Three rows of desks sit abandoned. Coffee mugs left behind. A cardigan draped over the back of a chair. Someone’s half-eaten apple slowly turning into something else beside a keyboard. Itlooks less like people left and more like they vanished mid-sentence.
AJ is by the news desk, phone wedged between shoulder and ear, one hand gesturing dramatically despite the fact nobody on the call can see him.
“Yes but was it definitely the chicken?” he says. “Because if it was the quiche, that changes the narrative completely.”
The cleaner, Sheila, pushes her trolley past me.
“Morning, love.”
“Morning.” I step aside so she can reach the bin beside my desk. “Do you know what’s happened?”
She gives me a look that contains both sympathy and mild amusement.
“You didn’t go to that picnic then.”
“I had… deadlines.”
“Well,” she says, “best decision anyone made this week.”
That does not sound promising.
I hang my coat on my chair and automatically straighten the stack of proofs I left yesterday. The top page has a comma where there should be a semicolon.
I swap them without thinking, then stop myself from continuing down the page. There is a difference between professional diligence and using punctuation to avoid reality.
AJ finally ends his call.
