Page 10 of Fraud
Usually, if there was a question about my column, Aaron Sanders—or Boss Man, as everyone called him—would just delegate the task to someone else.
I mean, you couldn’t write stuff as radical as I did and not get complaints. But, with ratings like mine, it was all taken with a grain of salt.
As long as I was making the paper money, the Boss Man left me alone.
But, now, he suddenly had time for me.
This could be good…or really fucking bad.
As I chanted silent prayers to the heavens on my way to the back of the building, I tried to hold on to that Zen-like calm I’d arrived with this morning.
Stepping up to the door of his office, I took a deep breath.
Nothing.
I had nothing in my lungs but a bottomless pit of nerves.
Man up, dude!
The post-sex bliss I’d been riding was gone like a puff of smoke. Peeking my head in the small window of the closed door was enough of a signal. Boss Man motioned at me with a quick wave of his hand.
Here goes nothing, I thought as I entered, feeling like a delinquent child entering the principal’s office.
“Killian Turner, always good to see you,” he said almost immediately, standing to shake my hand.
I tried to think back to the last time he’d actually seen me and couldn’t recall. But, sure, what the hell? It was a nice gesture all the same.
“Have a seat,” he offered.
I quickly took him up on it, angling back into one of the plush leather chairs in front of him. He bent forward, neatly folding his hands, as he reviewed a stack of papers.
Meanwhile, my insides slowly melted from the hellfire burning inside me.
Exactly fifty-four seconds later with a gallon of sweat lost down my back, he decided to speak, “Tricky business, journalism. We never seem to give enough, you know?”
I nodded, like I understood where he was going…even though I had no fucking clue.
He went on, “I’ve never been married. Not once. No kids, not even a dog.”
I wasn’t sure how to respond to that.
Sorry about that.
Do you want a ride to the animal shelter?
But, luckily, the rambling continued, “This job takes a lot of you. It’s been my family, lover, and religion for longer than I can remember. Do you have a wife, Killian?”
“Uh, no, sir,” I answered, wondering if he was about to give me dating advice.
He nodded, as if my response didn’t surprise him. “I see so much of me in you. That drive. That unrelenting need to be heard. You could have been great.”
“Could have?”
For the first time, I saw sadness in his stone-cold eyes.
“I’ve given you freedom in what you do, most of the time ignoring the chatter that came in.”
“Yes, and I appreciate it,” I said.
