[have one more b4 I leave]

Six months later

Hayley points to me as she finishes filming, and she peeks out from behind the device with a smile. She slides the cap back over the lens and picks it up, folds the unused emergency tripod, and flashes a thumbs up. "Another one wrapped and aired, Weekes. You're still killing it, you beautiful motherfucker."

I smile and join her on the short walk back to my car, grabbing the tripod for her and setting it in the trunk. She follows suit and dumps her backpack beside it, along with the bag that holds all the extra equipment. "You're killing it, Hayley. I can't do any of this without you."

"You definitely could without me," she climbs in the passenger seat and buckles up as I start the car and roll out into traffic, "so don't act like you're clueless. You're Dallon Weekes, you're a fucking daydream, everyone loves you. I bet if you filmed a dog shitting in a box on a flip phone, the entire population of the city would still watch to hear what you have to say."

"How about a dog shitting in a box? It isn't that interesting."

"You would turn it into a metaphor about homelessness and the tyranny of the corrupt and pointless government. Stop lying."

My special little corner of the news station is one of the most viewed sections of the day, second only to sports recaps. My reviews can apparently make or break an entire company, and anyone I interviews gains unfathomable fame overnight — its a little ridiculous, but I live a stable life, and it's perfect. I am the epitome of contentedness. "I know, I know. But look, I don't even have a strict dress code in the first place, and I look like a homeless street fighter — imagine if I ran this by myself. It would be chaos. I'd probably lose my shit and get two full sleeve tattoos with a dozen piercings."

Hayley smirks at the thought of the masterpiece falling to a disaster. "You're right, but full sleeves would be totally hot. I can't believe they let you wear that stupid leather jacket and the same pants every single day. Don't you have any other jacket, or do you own a dozen types of the same one?"

I can feel heat rise to my cheeks while I have to admit the truth; the leather jacket has not been washed in quite sometime. I always need it, there's no time to leave it in the laundry for a day, not including the time it would take it to air-dry. It sounds like a pain, so I never does it. He does own a lot of Febreeze, I think specifically for just me. "This, and a beige sweatshirt that's as boring as the weatherman. Also, Brendon would hate me if I got tattoos. He's been trying to find a design to cover the ones on his forearm but he just ends up adding to it to make it something else."

Coincidentally, my car dings and a message pops up on the dashboard screen. It's a message from Brendon, but it reads as "message from Finance."

She squint at the screen. "Finance? How did you spell fiancé so wrong, fifth grade spelling bee champion?"

"It's an inside joke."

She nods and reads it aloud. "Can't wait to see you tonight. I've been thinking about the dessert at the restaurant all day. Also you, but mainly the double chocolate ice cream malt cake."

Hayley smirks and slides it away to check the map. We're still a few blocks away from the news station headquarters. "Date night? Again?"

"Every Tuesday and Thursday. It's a new thing. Work has been getting in the way more than usual for the last few months, more his than mine."

She frowns and stares at the road. "He's a biological scientist for the Life Foundation, right? I'm pretty sure you said it was a promotion. Anyways, I fucking hate that place. Swift makes me want to die, but she can also stomp on my throat with her heels. I'd let her."

Hayley has intense mixed feelings about her. I hate her, and she's deep between love and anger. It's entertaining to watch her falter between them, but I don't understand the feeling that isn't extreme hatred. She's shady and hides everything, she wastes money on space trips and exploration. She unknowingly projects the vibe that she's a complete asshole. "Yeah, he runs experiments and shit. It's all confidential, so don't ask me. I'd love to know what they do twice as much as the next guy does."

I stop at a red light and she grabs my arm for me to look at her. "You mean you haven't peeked into his fancy little company-issued laptop after, like, eight years together? I would have. She's gotta be up to some shady stuff, and he definitely knows about it."

The only time he doesn't touch it is when he goes to bed. It doesn't leave his backpack, which never leaves his sight until he hangs it on the chair before hitting the sack. I have more than enough opportunities to break in to it, but I always fall asleep before him, and I'm apparently a heavy sleeper. "Probably. I don't know what I'd even do with knowing whatever she does once I get it. I don't exactly have enough power to make my own article about her. The worst I could do is interview her, and she probably wouldn't even tell me anything that excludes her money and success."

"Yeah, well you can still bust her for not answering. If she was sincerely innocent, she would definitely say she didn't do anything, or she wouldn't say a word if she was guilty."

"No answer, no proof."

Hayley continues to sulk in silence as I pull up along the curb, climb out, and toss my keys to the valet. She stays behind, scrolling through her phone — her friends always meet her for food after she films. Recently, they've been on an Arby's binge.

Through the turning glass doors, I have to shove my way through a cluster of people all standing around nothing, in order to get through to the front desk. The lobby is huge, and stretches multiple stories tall, but it's still suffocating. The security team doesn't even bother to ask for my badge or anything of the sort, and I'm glad to get away from the crowds.

The walk to the elevators is threatening; guards keep watch by the locked room of safes downstairs, and the hallway is under construction so you have to walk through opaque white tarps to get to the elevator that block any peeking. From there on, it's smooth sailing, but I'm not a fan of that one part. It looks exactly like the opening set to a horror movie.

Pete catches the doors just before they close — he must've been in the hallways to check up on the renovations. His suit is pressed crookedly in the wrong spots, which means he did it himself, and his hair is tousled, again signifying he took matters into his own hands. He shouldn't have. "My favorite reporter," he smiles when he recognizes me, "just who I wanted to see! I've got some big news for you, buddy."

Pete makes my head hurt and he drives me up the walls, but he's the boss. "What d'you have for me? Is it a virus outbreak from the new fast food joint downtown that is totally undercooking their burgers? Political campaign fraud? A string of burglaries? Triple homicide? Quadruple homicide?"

He frowns and gives me a look like I sprouted horns from my head and grew a pair of wings. "No, no, no, and no. None of the above, Dallon. Look, I have an interview for you that's lined up with a private celebrity tomorrow, but I can't reveal her name until tomorrow, when you go to see her at her company headquarters. I thought it was exciting, but we have very different conceptions of that word."

There's a fairly large number of successful females running their own businesses. I can't pick out anyone in particular. "You sure you can't let the name slide? I'll keep it under wraps for you. I'm a pretty good secret keeper, if I do say so myself."

"You're a shit secret keeper. You run a time slot on the news. You have hundreds of thousands of followers because someone made an article about you being super attractive. You have fan pages. Twitter is your personal life in some long ass fuckin' threads."

"Hey, now, name one incident—"

"We told you Bryan might be getting laid off in a casual conversation about the possibility of downsizing, only because he does nothing but drink coffee and watch Jenna Marbles for six hours straight, and you turned around and told him."

"That was important, and he had the right to know."

"You called him two seconds after I told you and left a voicemail!" He stares at me like I had just suggested murder, glaring holes through my head.

"I'm still not really sorry, Pete. I would think about apologizing though, if you told me who I'm interviewing. It can't be that much of a secret, you know. I have to know."

He buries his face in the palms of his hands and laughs. He laughs like my parents would when I was three and drew all over the walls in permanent markers. "I. Can't. Tell. You."

"I'm pretty sure you can, you just won't, and I take serious personal offense to that—"

He grabs me by the shoulder and shakes me back and forth like I'm a rag doll. "I can't! Shut up and listen! Just don't act out of the norm when you meet her. There's a lot riding on this interview, so just ask things the majority of the public knows about. We can't risk pissing off someone with so much power."

I hold my hands up in surrender and he stops as the elevator doors open, smooths his suit, and promptly exits. He's so stressed and too aggressive sometimes, and on the occasion he'll let his position go to his head and we'll all work overtime. Pete is a weird guy. I'm still not sure if I like him or not, and I don't have a clue as to where we stand in a friendship.

I'm gonna piss off whoever I'm interviewing, even if it's the last thing I do.