Page 120 of Cut Off

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I don’t stop, but I file it.

King Bean is warm and smells like cinnamon and the particular brand of expensive soap that Jane uses on the counters. Jane is behind the espresso machine, wearing a beanie indoors.

She sees me. “Zoe Lane! Oh, my God. Get over here. Lavender? Oat?The big one?”

“The big one,” I say. “Always the big one.”

“Sit. Sit. I’m coming around.”

I sit at the little two-top by the window. Jane is steaming milk, and shooting me looks every six seconds like she has something to say.

She slides the latte across the table and sits down across from me with her own mug. She leans in and lowers her voice to a whisper that everyone in a six-foot radius can absolutely hear.

“Have you heard?”

I sip the latte. It is perfect.

“Heard what?”

She gasps and puts a hand to chest. “You haven’t heard! Oh my God, Zoe. Where have you been? Oh right, Seattle. Whatever. Okay, listen.”

“I’m listening.”

“Marcus.”

“Marcus what?”

“Fired,” she says again. “Like, walked-out-by-security fired. Box-of-stuff fired. Monday.”

“Marcus Steele.”

“The very one.”

“What did he do?”

She waves a hand. “Where do I start? Apparently, corporate’s been looking at his numbers for months. And then there’s a whole thing with expense reports. And also—and this is the cherry on top—he tried to fire one of the new hires for, quote, being too unattractive for the front desk.”

“He did not.”

“He did. She has texts. HR has texts. It was a whole situation.”

“Oh, my God.” My heart is singing, I can’t help it.

“Wait.”

“There’s more?”

She nods. “Donny Dickens. Donny Donny. Mr. Sports.Fired. The same day. They walked them out together. Linda from accounting was at the window, and she said it was glorious.”

“On what grounds?”

“Donny was apparently—and I’m reading between Linda’s lines here—sending some very unprofessional DMs to the new weather girl. Marcus knew and did nothing.”

“That tracks.” I sit back. I take a long pull of the lavender latte. My brain smells a story. “Who’s running the station?”

“Jerry.”

“Jerry.” Now my heart’s doing a cappella.

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