“Thanks.”

Later, lying in her bed, staring into the darkness, she remembered his words, and how he’d looked when he’d said them.

In some small way, he’d noticed her today.

Maybe it wasn’t as hopeless as she’d thought.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER
THIRTEEN

From the moment Tully did her first on-air broadcast, everything changed. They became the fearsome foursome; Kate and Tully and Mutt and Johnny. For two years they were together constantly, huddled together in the office, working on stories, going from place to place like gypsies. The second story that Tully covered was about a snowy owl who’d taken up residence on a streetlamp in Capitol Hill. Next, she followed the gubernatorial campaign of Booth Gardner, and though she was one of dozens of reporters on the case, it seemed that Gardner often answered her questions first. By the time the first Microsoft millionaires began driving through downtown in their mint-new Ferraris, listening to geek music on supersized headphones, everyone at KCPO knew that Tully wouldn’t last on the smallest local channel for long.

They all knew it, but perhaps Johnny most of all. So, although the three of them didn’t talk about the future, they felt its shadowy presence constantly, and somehow that made their time together sweeter and more intense. On the rare night when they weren’t working on a story, Johnny, Tully, and Kate met at Goldies to play pool and drink beer. By the end of their second year together, they knew all there was to know about each other; at least, all that each was willing to share.

Except the stuff that truly mattered. Kate often thought it ironic that three people who searched through the rubble of life to find pebbles of truth could be so stubbornly blind about their own lives.

Tully had no idea that Johnny wanted her, and he was completely unaware that Kate wanted him.

So their weird, silent triangle went on, day after day, night after night. Tully always asked Kate why she didn’t date. She longed to come clean, tell Tully the truth, but every time she started to confess, she backed out. How could she tell the truth about Johnny, after the crap she’d given Tully about Chad? Your boss, after all, was worse than your professor.