His Mafia Queen

Admitting the Truth

Riley

When I walk into the newspaper building first thing on Monday morning, it feels like I'm starting a new job. My stomach clenches with first-day-of-school jitters, which is absurd. The entire office seems foreign to me, filled with sights and sounds and smells that are unfamiliar. The place reeks of decades of ink, burnt popcorn, and mold.

A far cry from the hotel I was just in yesterday in New York. But that's not real life, I remind myself.

This is.

I try to slip in unnoticed, but Christopher the busybody editorial assistant pounces the moment I step inside.

"Look who it is! Riley Murphy. Oh my god, I haven't seen you in forever." His tone is bubbly and gushing and I immediately don't trust him.

"Hi," I say shyly, pausing at his desk at the front of the newsroom. It would be rude if I didn't acknowledge him.

"Welcome back." He peers over the rim of his black glasses. He's staring at me as if I'm an alien who recently landed on Earth. "I heard you were sick. Appendix?"

"Kidney," I say with a tight, sad smile, hoping he doesn't ask for more information. The last thing I want to do is explain to a coworker that I got a raging infection in my organs because I'd had too much sex with my boyfriend.

"Sucks. I hope you're feeling better."

I nod. "I'm great now. Anything new here?"

He snickers. "Yesterday, John told the city editor to suck his dick."

"Oh, whoa. That must've been...something." I giggle. John covers city hall and acts like he's on the White House beat. My first week on the job, he yelled at me for using his stapler.

"Yeah, the editor asked him to write a brief about a car crash. John was all like, 'I'm working on something important, you can suck my dick,' " Christopher mimics John's snippy baritone. "And let's see. What else? Two copy editors were laid off, and someone in business news is sleeping with someone in advertising."

"Wow. A lot has happened. Who in business news?"

He mentions a woman I've chatted with in passing. She's in her fifties, who is apparently having an affair with a younger — and married — woman in ads. Honestly, I'm less shocked about the clandestine lesbian love affair than I am Christopher's chumminess. Usually he's frosty at best, and catty at worst.

"Well, thanks for catching me up," I say with a wave. "I'm going to try to get back into the swing here. Mentally I'm on vacation."

Christopher knows I'm dating Gabriel. The entire world does. Probably he's wondering why I don't quit and be on permanent vacation as the girlfriend of a mafia boss.

"Good luck," he says, eyeing me sympathetically. "Maybe you can come with us tomorrow for lunch. We're planning to go to that empanada place."

A smile spreads on my face. Probably I look way too eager, but I nod enthusiastically. I've never felt like I fit in here, and perhaps this is a new beginning for me. "Sounds good."

I settle in at my desk, which is still in the same messy state that I'd left it in a few weeks ago. I check the notebook I'd been writing in. It's filled with story ideas and possibilities. All of them seem stale now. It's as if I've been away for years.

Memories of that night I was working when the restaurant shooting come flooding back into my brain. So much has happened in a short amount of time. The local shooting, the New York boutique shooting, my hospitalization, the entire trip to New York, all of the angst with Gabriel...