Page 106 of Hello, Summer
Skelly tugged at his ear, a nervous gesture she remembered from their childhood.
“No,” he said, shaking his head. “This doesn’t feel right. It’s an invasion of his privacy. I’m sorry, but I really can’t tell you anything without Vanessa’s permission.”
She gave him a sheepish grin. “I figured you’d say that, but I had to ask, just in case.”
Skelly touched her hand. “Can we talk about last night for a minute? I’d really like to understand these mixed signals I’m getting. I mean, one minute we’re rolling around on the sand and you’re ripping off my pants, and five minutes later, it’s like nothing even happened.”
“God, I hate this stuff,” Conley muttered.
He raised an eyebrow. “Stuff? Like talking about emotions? Admitting you care for somebody and want to be with them?”
“I should never have told you any of that juvenile stuff about my crush and the condom. Any of it. It was teenage fantasy.”
“Then why did you?” He didn’t look away, so she did, gazing out through the drugstore’s plate glass window at people strolling by on the sidewalk outside.
Conley glanced at the old red Coca-Cola clock on the wall, with itsTHE PAUSE THAT REFRESHESlogo.
“Grayson’s gonna kill me if I’m late to work,” she said. “It’s deadline day, and we’re still chasing a huge story.”
He clamped his hand over hers. “Can you at least answer my question before you run off to chase your Pulitzer Prize?”
“I don’t know. Talking about old times, maybe I was feeling sentimental.”
“Nope,” he said. “Not buying it.”
“Okay. Maybe I was still curious. About what I’d missed out on that night at the country club dance.”
“That is a completely lame, bullshit answer.” His hand didn’t move.
“Skelly.” Her voice was pleading. “I know you’re looking for more. You deserve more. But right now, I need to concentrate on work. I wasn’t going to say anything earlier, but this Robinette story is blowing up. My old boss at theAJCcalled this morning and wants me to freelance a Sunday piece about it. While I was on the phone with him, the NBC bureau chief in Atlanta called. She wants me to cover the story as it unfolds. And then CNN called too. Their offer was bullshit, but still…”
He slowly lifted his hand, releasing hers. “What you’re saying is this story is your ticket out of Silver Bay. And theBeacon.And your family drama. And it’s a one-way ticket, party of one. Right?”
“Maybe. I don’t know. What I do know is, there are no jobs in print journalism right now. Nobody’s hiring, at least at my career level. I’d sort of halfway thought about trying to make the switch to broadcast, but that didn’t seem realistic. Now there’s a possibility that this NBC thing could work into something more. Like a real, full-time job with boring stuff like benefits.”
“And way more prestige than working for your family newspaper in some swampy Florida backwater,” Skelly said.
Conley slid off the barstool, snatched her backpack off the counter, and hitched it over her shoulder. “Ambition isn’t a crime, Skelly, and I won’t let you make me feel guilty for having it.”
The bells jangled noisily as she pushed her way out the front door.
“Neither is loyalty,” Sean Kelly said to nobody in particular.
She was about to make the turn into theBeacon’s parking lot when she spotted the Bronson County sheriff’s vehicle half a block ahead, making a left into an auto body shop. She sped up and parked the Subaru on the street.
The lot in front of the shop was lined with relics from another time. There was a rusting black hulk of a 1950s-era pickup with a white scriptedSILVER BAY AUTO BODYlogo on the door—complete with a four-digit telephone number. An olive-green 1970s fastback Mustang rested on four rotted-out tires, and a perky little orange 1960s VW bug missing its doors sat beside it. The bug’s rounded bumpers sported fading butgroovy pink and yellow daisy decals, and the interior of the car had been completely stripped. She’d always lusted after that car.
Conley’s phone buzzed, and she glanced down. The text was from Grayson.
WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU? SHIT IS HITTING THE FAN.
Her fingers flew over the keyboard.Working on Robinette story. Talk soon.
She checked her emails, hoping to see some kind of correspondence from Selena Kwan about the NBC offer. Her phone buzzed with an incoming text. It was from Roger Sistrunk. One sentence.
Do we have a deal or what?
She bit her lip. She didn’t want to burn any bridges with her old boss, just in case, but she also needed Sistrunk to recognize her value. She began typing.
