Page 74 of How To Tackle A Crush
I stop.
“Oh.”
“That good?” Jack looks smug.
“That is… unfairly good.”
“Worth fibbing to a five-year old?”
I glance at him.
“Yes,” I say.
And I am not just talking about the dessert.
Chapter 13
Jack
Pudding slows everything down.
No one rushes something like this. Not proper French masterpiece that looks like it belongs behind glass. So we take our time. Small bites. Coffee between. Conversation that starts nowhere and somehow still matters.
She tells me about a headline she once stopped from going to print because one missing letter would have turnedpublic funding reviewintopubic funding review.
“That would’ve been memorable,” I say.
“That would’ve been my resignation letter.”
“And you caught that?”
“Two minutes before it went to print,” she says. “My editor still mentions it like I prevented a national incident.”
I smile. “That’s like stopping an own goal on the line.”
“That sounds stressful.”
“It is when it happens in front of thirty thousand people.”
“At least yours is over in a moment,” she says. “If ours goes wrong it lives on the internet forever.”
“Fair point,” I admit. “I’d take the goal.”
She smiles at that, then grows a little quieter. Not uncomfortable. Just thinking.
“Can I ask you something?”
“Of course.”
She hesitates just long enough that I know this isn’t small talk.
“Why did you ask for me to write the article?”
There it is.
I take a sip of coffee, buying myself a second. Not because I don’t know the answer. Because I want to say it right.
“You noticed things,” I say.
