Big Chicas Don't Cry(12)

Whatever it takes.

Amen.





Chapter Six


ERICA


I pulled into the parking garage located underneath the five-story building that housed the offices of the Inland Valley News-Press. God, how I wished I could turn around and drive the eight miles back home to my apartment. But there was a mandatory staff meeting in less than ten minutes. It was the only reason I hadn’t called in sick.

Two days into the New Year and I was already a fucking mess.

I blamed the jacket.

It had shown up at my door just as I was leaving to go to a New Year’s Eve party at a nightclub with Selena. I’d cursed Amazon when it had sent me an email three days before Christmas explaining that Greg’s gift would be delayed after all.

And I cursed Amazon again for finally delivering it. I wasn’t emotionally prepared to open the box and see the black leather jacket I’d purchased when I still thought my boyfriend loved me.

So instead of going to the club with Selena, I’d ended up at Greg’s apartment with the stupid jacket and a bottle of his favorite whiskey. And then we’d ended up in his bed.

Of course, the pinche asshole had acted just like a pinche asshole as soon as it was over.

I’d spent New Year’s Day both miserable and disgusted with myself. I couldn’t even admit to my cousins what had happened until this morning.

“Okay, guys, I’m about to park,” I said. “Thanks for letting me vent. Again.”

“Anytime, sweetie,” Selena sang through my phone’s speaker. “And please stop beating yourself up. Having sex with your ex is part of the breaking-up process. We’ve all done it. Well, except for, you know.”

“Whatever, Selena,” Gracie said, annoyed as usual. “Erica, good luck meeting your new boss.”

I blew out a big breath. “I’ll need it. Did I tell you he’s a Pulitzer Prize winner and a New York Times bestselling author?”

“You did,” Selena droned. “Many, many, many times.”

I grimaced. Before the breakup, Adrian Mendes had been the regular subject of my venting—and cursing. Our staff had found out two weeks ago that he was going to be the paper’s new city editor. Tom, our publisher, couldn’t contain his giddiness as he told us that our new boss, Adrian Mendes, was the Adrian Mendes—the Washington Journal reporter whose investigative articles had uncovered a major bribery scandal involving two senators and a highly respected fund-raising organization. Although I had absolutely no idea who the man was, at the time I had pretended to be as impressed as everyone else. Apparently, this Mendes guy had left his newspaper after landing a big book deal, and his first novel, about a political scandal and murder, had topped all kinds of bestseller lists. Five years ago, he was the hottest new thriller writer.

And now he was joining the staff of the News-Press.

None of it made any sense. So, of course, it freaked me the fuck out. Actually, it was freaking the fuck out of everyone in the newsroom. What was a guy like Adrian Mendes doing in Inland Valley—a suburb forty miles east of Los Angeles? We weren’t a small town, but we weren’t exactly a bustling hub of political intrigue either. I mean, the last national news story to come out of the city was when a plane carrying a Hawaiian congressman had to make an emergency landing at the local airport after one of his aides suffered a heart attack in midflight (the aide survived!).

Brian, our fact-checking guru, wasted no time in trying to google as much information as he could about our new boss. And except for a few magazine interviews and links to his old articles, not much could be found about him. He barely had a social media presence, and his website was super out of date. As for pictures, Brian could only find one that seemed to be his author photo. It wasn’t a close-up, though. You couldn’t even see any distinguishable features except for the semiscowl across his clean-shaven face.

Basically, the man was a mystery.

So conspiracy theories about why he was joining the staff ran the gamut from him being a spy from the paper’s parent organization sent to evaluate operations ahead of a major layoff, to him being a spy from the paper’s biggest competitor sent to evaluate operations ahead of a major takeover.

Whatever the reason he was here, I hoped it wouldn’t make my job harder. Especially now that my personal life was absolute basura. No, worse. Like the trash you forgot to pull out to the curb on trash day and now had to wait another week before it got taken away.

“It will be fine, Erica,” Gracie said. “You’ll see.”

Gracie’s last words to me still hung in the air as I stepped inside the coffee shop located within the building’s lobby. Maybe she was talking about my job. Maybe she wasn’t. Either way, I couldn’t shake the nagging feeling that things were going to be far from fine.

I checked the time on my phone. I had exactly seven minutes to get a mocha latte and a raspberry streusel bar—my go-to stress relievers. With one guy ahead of me in line, there was no reason I couldn’t make the meeting on time.

“I’ll take a cortado,” I heard the dark-haired man tell the girl at the counter.

“What is that?” she asked.

“It’s like a cappuccino, but cooler.”

“Oh. Then, no, we don’t have that.”

“Okay. What about a chaider?”