As I lean back in the tiny chair at my tinier kitchen table, staring at the laptop screen, satisfaction flows through me. This is a good piece. This is a fair piece.

The next step is to show it to my brother. I don’t have enough distance to know if I’ve done the job. If I’ve been critical enough in my observations.

I email him.

Your mission, should you choose to accept, is to apply those finely tuned ethics to my piece. Let me know if I’ve been fair. Let me know if it’s patently obvious I like the guy, or if you can’t tell one iota that I have a massive crush on him.

He must be up late too, because his response is swift.

Mission accepted. I have a test tomorrow, so let me read it later in the day. Also, I knew you had a crush on him. And I’m glad you’re being so introspective and thoughtful about whether you can even do this piece.

I blink. Whether? No, I’m doing it. I’ve done it. It’s done. All I want to know is if I pulled it off, or if it needs more wordsmithing.

But I don’t need to get into those details yet. I send him a thank you.

It’s funny how feedback from my little brother is what I needed. He’s been my benchmark for how to behave for the last several years, and I needed his input after the kiss with Flynn.

My stomach drops with guilt.

But it’s more than a morsel of guilt. It’s snowballed into a too-tall boulder.

I don’t regret kissing Flynn.

How could I? When he kisses me, I feel it in my bones, it radiates to my soul. He kisses me like I’m cherished. Like I matter. Like I could matter for a long, long time.

My regret comes from the work.

From my fear that somehow my feelings for him could hurt the reputation of Up Next. Bob Galloway put his neck on the line for me, and I want to deliver. I don’t want to bring scandal or gossip to his publication.

As my stomach dive-bombs in a nervous loop, a part of me thinks I should tell Mr. Galloway I have feelings for the subject of my piece.

But as I stare at the mail on my table, and the bill for divinity school, I can’t. I can’t risk this assignment, and really, it was only one bone-shatteringly good kiss.

What happened before doesn’t count.

What happened at the costume shop was a mistake, and I can’t let it happen again.

I can’t have both Flynn and the job. Mr. Galloway would ax the piece if he knew I’d been involved with the subject. Editors love to wield their scepters of impartiality and fairness. I get that—it’s the foundation of the field.

That’s why my best bet is to make sure there’s nothing to know. It was one kiss, and it’s over. Nothing more will happen now. Maybe one day in the future, a year down the track, if we’re both still single. But that’s a lot of what-ifs and you can’t plan for what-ifs.