Mike sat down on the edge of the couch and stared at his girlfriend. He could not take his eyes off of her face as his fingers brushed the hair away from her right eye. There were moments, just like this one, where Mike got so lost in Callie’s beauty that he’d forget about anything else he had on his mind.
“What are you looking at?”
“You.”
Callie smiled bashfully and pulled him down towards her, kissing him as she unbuttoned his shirt. Mike allowed his hands to roam Callie’s body and started to caress the inside of her thigh, when a frantic knock interrupted their time alone.
“Callie…Callie…”
“No way, Cal. Tell me you called her?”
Callie’s face told him all he needed to know. “Oh my god, I totally forgot. She’s going to kill me.”
Callie sat up and closed the top three buttons of her blouse. Once on her feet, she attempted to regain her composure even as Mike tried to pull her back onto his lap. Callie turned slightly behind and slapped his hands off of her, “Stop,” she said, then headed for the door.
“Just a second.” Callie straightened her skirt and paused at the mirror in the hallway. She flipped her hair a few times then ran her pinky finger across her lips twice before flipping her hair once more.
On the other side of the door stood Robyn Baxter, a thirty year old African American woman and a friend of Callie’s from law school. She was still pounding and screaming Callie’s name until she saw the door open just a crack then pushed her way inside, already talking, as if she had a time limit.
“Okay, I so thought you were dead…I mean why else would you not have called me to tell me how everything went? You had to be dead, right?”
“Sorry, Robyn, I got so caught up in everything…”
Robyn noticed Mike standing in front of the messy couch with his shirt open. She turned to her left and saw the two long candles on the dining room table and obviously knew she had interrupted something. Undaunted, Robyn plowed ahead. “Well, now, this explains what you were caught up in.”
Robyn laughed and gave Mike a long hug then seductively ran her fingers along his bare chest. “He is so yummy. Let me know when you’re done with this guy, ‘cuz I’ll be glad to take him off your hands.”
Mike wasted no time responding to Robyn’s come-on. “What about your husband?”
“Who?” Robyn nestled her head under Mike’s shoulder. “Honey, when I’m in your arms Kenny doesn’t even exist.”
“What about your husband? What kind of question is that?” Callie asked as she slapped Mike on the arm.
Robyn released Mike, but not before she pinched his ass. “Mike, you seein’ the way she treats you? I’ll handle you good, honey,” Robyn said then turned to Callie, folded her hands and began to tap her right foot. “You gonna make me wait all night? C’mon, girl, what happened?”
“What happened with what?”
“Stop playin’. You get the job?”
“I got the job.”
“Oh my god, Callie, you got it?…you really got it?…this is so great,” Robyn said then slapped Mike’s ass. “Okay, I just stopped by to make sure you weren’t dead. Gotta’ get home to what’s his name. Love you guys.”
Callie and Mike walked Robyn onto the porch before Callie hugged her good-bye. “I think your man got you some roses, honey. You see them?” Robyn asked whispering in Callie’s ear.
“I saw them, they’re beautiful, but I think I’m going to make him sweat it out a bit.”
“Damn, Cal, you’re bad.” Robyn said as she released her embrace and walked down the steps towards her car. She opened the door of her 2004 Toyota Camry, stood silent for a moment, then closed the door and walked back towards the porch. “You told Kacey, right?”
Callie slowly shook her head, realizing that she had dug herself in deep.
“Are you crazy?” Robin said turning and walking back to her car. “She is gonna shit…if she finds out that I know…I mean, she is totally gonna shit--”
“I get the point, Robyn.”
“Y’all need to stop this sex thing and call your girl or you’ll never hear the end of it.” Robyn opened the Camry and slid inside. “Love you guys.”
“Love you…say hi to Kenny…”
Robyn blew Callie a kiss as she pulled away.
“What about your husband? Seriously?”
Mike rubbed his stomach, totally ignoring the question. “Yum, lamb chops.”
Callie playfully punched Mike on the arm and headed inside. “I’d better call Kacey.”
• • •
Barry swirled his glass of Southern Comfort while he gathered his thoughts then punctured Callie’s daydream when he began to speak. “Callie, I wanted to apologize for what happened before.”
“Okay…”
“I shouldn’t have done that to you in front of everyone and I was wrong.”
Callie heard the words, but had a hard time believing they were coming out of Barry’s mouth. She nodded her head in agreement and sat quietly as he continued on.
“The points you brought up at the meeting were valid and I’m sorry for blowing them off like I did.”
“Are we still going to bill clients for work we did for someone else?”
“I’m going to address that issue as soon as I finish with you. I only stopped by to let you know I was sorry and I’m in your corner and always will be. Don’t ever doubt that.”
She already had. Callie had learned over the years that there was only one thing Barry cared about more than power and that thing was money. She was well aware that when it came to revenue, no one brought in more than she did. Barry understood that better than anyone and Callie knew it was the sole motivation why he had made his way to her office with a half-hearted mea culpa. She also knew him well enough to know that he did nothing by accident.
“Let’s get together in the next few days. There’s something I wanted you to work on.”
“What about Whitaker?”
Barry stood up, walked towards Callie then stopped as he approached her chair. “You are all we need on this project. I’ll finish with the loose ends, then we’ll talk.”
“Sounds good,” Callie said as she watched Barry leave her office and wondered if anything he had just said to her were true.
Five
The Washington Post was the oldest daily in the Nation’s Capital and had long been the paper of record when it came to Washington politics. The technological advancements of the twenty-first century had made newspapers an endangered species. Gone were the days of the journalist working their beat to break stories for the morning edition. With instant real-time news updates accessible on numerous websites, a paper like the Post that could not deliver the very same news item until the next morning, had to find a way to compete in the real-time arena. For most dailies, the Post included, the website had become their anytime of day salvation, but the nuts and bolts of their revenue stream was still the morning edition of the actual physical newspaper.
Kacey Mercer had recently been promoted to the congressional beat at the Post after toiling in the obscurity of the City section since being hired straight out of college. As a sophomore at Wilkes University, Kacey was awarded an internship at the Times-Leader, the oldest local paper in her hometown, Wilkes-Barre,