In Charge Read online

  Table of Contents

  In Charge

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Epilogue

  Postscript

  Further Reading: Newsroom PDX

  Also By L.J. Breedlove

  About the Author

  In Charge

  There’s a free short story for signing up to my newsletter Telling Stories. Click on the photo above or sign up here. (The short stories in Newsroom PDX are considerably more sexual than the novels. If you’d like a different short story to try, click here instead.)

  By L. J. Breedlove

  Published by L. J. Breedlove

  Copyright 2021 L. J. Breedlove

  ISBN: 9798201396756

  License Notes

  THIS EBOOK IS LICENSED for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase a copy. Thank you for respecting the work this author.

  Disclaimer

  This is a work of fiction. While place descriptions and news events may coincide with the real world, all characters and the plot are fictional.

  Contact Information

  For more information about this author, please visit www.ljbreedlove.com. Email address is [email protected].

  Dedication

  TO ALL STRONG-MINDED women who have changed the world. May our daughters know an easier path.

  Chapter 1

  10 A.M., TUESDAY, JAN. 12, 2021, Portland, Oregon — Emily Andersen sat in the waiting room of the women’s clinic on Lovejoy Street waiting for an appointment with a nutritionist. She was so damned scared, she thought, and if Cage hadn’t been sitting there, letting her squeeze his hand so tight it had to hurt, she would have walked out. Given that COVID was still rampant, she was wearing a mask, Cage was wearing a mask, the clerical staff were wearing masks, and she and Cage were the only two people in this small, partitioned-off waiting room. She tried to breathe. Slowly in. Hold. Slowly out. Hold. Slowly in. Hold. What was next? Oh right, Slowly out. Hold.

  She could run a multi-media newsroom, one of the largest in the city, with breaking stories, and a hundred employees, all part-time students, and not break a sweat. But she was sweating now. Because she was going to see a nutritionist. And the nutritionist was going to make her eat.

  Breathe, she told herself. Slowly in. Hold. Slowly out. Hold.

  She caught a glimpse of her reflection in the glass door, and she knew she didn’t see what others saw. She saw a big girl, too big to do ballet, and if she could just lose a few more pounds? They’d let her dance again.

  According to her doctor here at the clinic, she was actually 5-foot-9, and 40 pounds underweight, with only 8 percent body fat. She was anorexic. Exercise-enabled anorexic. Cage said she’d lost weight in the last month, but she couldn’t see it. She was eating more, she protested. Exercising less. She had to be gaining! No, he said, and it was the pain in his eyes that had convinced her he was right. No, you’ve been working 15 hours days to keep the ship afloat during COVID, and you’re losing weight. You’re so thin, so very thin.

  So yesterday, he proposed. This big, wonderful, talented man. And then he hauled her in to see the doctor here. And now they were back to see the nutritionist. And then there would be therapy.

  How was she going to fit all this in? she thought with a panic.

  Breathe. Slowly in. Hold. Slowly out. Hold.

  The doctor had been honest. She wouldn’t like this, any of this. She couldn’t see how thin she was, how little she ate. She would have to rely on Cage’s eyes to see those things. Rely on the team here at the clinic to chart her progress. She would have to trust them.

  And what if she failed? What if she couldn’t do this? Would Cage leave her? Did he think she was ugly? That something was wrong with her?

  “Babe,” he said gently in the rumbly low voice she loved. “I love you. I will always love you. And together? We’ve got this. We’ve got this.”

  She blinked, panicked for a moment, that she had said those fears out loud, and then realized no, he just knew. He loved her. He said so. And one thing you could trust about Cage Washington was that he wouldn’t lie. And she found she could breathe a little easier.

  She looked up at him and smiled. “Damn right,” she said fiercely. “Together we’re unstoppable.”

  Cage was one of the best-looking men she’d ever known. He was 6-foot-2, broad shoulders, with the physique that came from hours in the gym and long runs. A Black man in his early 20s, he tended to wear black T-shirts and black pleated trousers, and last fall he’d taken to wearing a black hat that had made her smile. She hadn’t seen it in a while. But then, things had gotten grim this winter. He’d lost some of his playfulness. She was sorry about that. Maybe things would get better. There was a vaccine. January’s cases were less than December’s cases which was good.

  But still. His father had died. Their friend and lover Sarah had died. So many deaths. And then he’d been on the stage with Dr. Bernice King at the Black Lives Matter rally when a white supremacist tried to shoot her. Cage had taken the bullet and saved her life. He still had a bandage wrapped around him under that black T he was wearing. The bullet went in and out, and didn’t do any internal damage, the doctors had assured them. But there was a lot of muscle damage. A lot of healing to do.

  They’d let that white supremacist out on bail, the bastards. And Randy Daily, former campus cop, had returned to try and take Cage’s life again. To take hers. And all the poison he’d leaked into the Blue Lives Matter student group culminated Saturday night when they’d assembled outside the newsroom building of Eyewitness News, and they built a scaffold and hung a noose.

  She closed her eyes in pain at the memory of it. Of cops who stood by and just watched. Of her fellow students who chanted ‘lynch the bitch’ about her because she was the Editor-in-Chief of Eyewitness News and dating a Black man.

  Well the scaffolding was down. Randy Daily was dead, killed when he shot a cop and cops returned fire.

  “Ms. Andersen?” the nurse said. “The nutritionist will see you now.”

  Cage got up with her and held her hand, as she followed the nurse back into the offices. You can do this, she reminded herself. You can. Cage is right. After the last week? The last month? The last six months? Piece of cake.

  She wondered when was the last time she had a piece of cake? A whole piece? Her 12th birthday? She remembered it. It was chocolate. With chocolate frosting.

  The woman stood up to greet them, properly masked, with a short bow that had replaced handshakes. She was probably 60, Emily guessed. Without the clues of lines hidden by the mask, it was harder to tell. The woman wore her gray hair short and probably had even before the pandemic.

  “I’m Judy Mason,” she said, and there was warmth in her voice.

  “Emily Andersen,” she said. “A
nd my fiancé, Cage Washington.” Just saying the words made her grin at him.

  “Have a seat,” she said. “I’m really proud you came back today. We don’t usually let our clients leave without visiting here on their first day. They find all kinds of reasons not to return.”

  “Hardest thing I’ve done,” she said seriously. “And you have no idea how hard things have been lately.”

  Cage snorted. He started laughing, and she wasn’t sure he could stop. He looked at her, and started laughing again. “Sorry Ms. Mason,” he managed. “But she’s had threats made against her life. She almost got shot last week. And she’s telling you the truth. She’d rather do it all over again than be here today.”

  “I believe it,” Judy Mason said laughing herself. “If it helps? I’ve been where you are. And getting well is what made me go into this field. You’re so lucky that your fiancé is with you on this. Going it alone is almost impossible. I know Dr. Smith told you this, but I want to repeat it. You have to trust his eyes. You have to trust us. You think you need to lose weight, and you freak out and want to go for a run, right?”

  She nodded, and bit her lip. She wanted to go right now, as a matter of fact. Just talking about it made her need to go for a run. Breathe, she told herself.

  “We’re going to work on that,” the nutritionist said. “So, let’s start. First, please, call me Judy. We’re going to become good friends before this is over. Second? I want you to keep a food and exercise diary for the next week. Log when you eat, how much you eat. How much exercise you’re getting. When you go to bed, when you get up. Did you sleep well?”

  She handed her a journal with the pages set up for her. “Bring it back each week when you meet with me. Do you weigh yourself? How often?”

  “I used to,” she said. “But when Cage and I moved in together, I lost my scales. And it’s been too hectic to buy another one.”

  “Freaks you out a bit?” Judy Mason was sympathetic. Emily nodded. “Well that will make it easier in some ways, because I don’t want you to get weighed except on your visit here each week. We’ll log it in. And you need to realize that even a gain of ounces is a victory. Especially since Cage says you’re losing weight. It may be that it takes a few weeks just to stop losing.”

  “The doctor said you’d give me an eating plan,” Emily ventured. “We have a saying at the newsroom, see the hill, take the hill. Cage says that it’s my plan to take the hill.”

  “Good,” she approved. “Yes, I have a plan for you. And you’re going to be horrified. But truly? It’s 1,000 calories. Most women who are trying to lose weight would find it too restrictive, and they’d probably lose three pounds a week if they could stay on it at all. You? I’m hopeful you can just eat this much. One caution.” She hesitated, glanced at the file in front of her. “We don’t have any record of vomiting or bulimia. True?”

  Emily shook her head. “I just go running,” she said quietly.

  “Good,” Judy said with relief. “If you do start having nausea, call me immediately. OK? Even after hours, they’ll forward you to me. It’s important that this few weeks go smoothly for you. Second, you can’t increase your exercise to compensate. So, let’s start with that.”

  She handed her a sheet of paper. Cage looked at it too. Three miles, three times a week. A strength workout twice a week. Emily looked up in horror. “Only nine miles a week?” She hadn’t been able to get to the gym with COVID, although she did a routine each morning. “Two strength sessions?”

  “That’s it,” Judy said. “That’s a normal exercise plan for a busy young woman. Any more is really counterproductive, even if you aren’t anorexic.”

  Cage just nodded.

  “Here’s your meal plan. Cage? How are your dietary skills?”

  He considered that. “Pretty good, but I’m a guy,” he said. “I eat a lot.”

  “But if the plan says a cup of carrots and she doesn’t like carrots, but she likes beans, you can guide that exchange?”

  He nodded.

  “I know that!” Emily exclaimed, feeling insulted.

  “Yes, probably down to the exact number of beans and carrots,” Judy agreed with a laugh. “But I find that it helps, if you have a partner, for the partner to double-check the exchanges. Otherwise, clients will substitute cucumber for those beans — not the same calorie count at all. Right? After I see your food diary, we can plug in foods you like and dislike and fine tune your eating plan. But this first week, we have to go with the generic plan.”

  Emily relaxed a bit in her chair. “OK,” she said. “Like having an editor and a copy editor go over a news story.”

  Cage smiled at her.

  “And here’s the biggie,” Judy said. “One night this week, I want the two of you to have a dessert. Get takeout from Papa Hayden’s. Make a pie together. You’re newly engaged, right?”

  “Yesterday,” Emily said shyly.

  “Well, then, this week celebrate that with a dessert. OK? And congratulations.”

  “Questions?”

  Emily looked up at Cage and raised an eyebrow. He shook his head. She looked at the older woman who would be her lifeline through this. She’d been anorexic? She understood then. Didn’t mean she’d go easy on her, probably the opposite. “No questions,” she said.

  “And you have a therapy appointment for Friday, correct?”

  She nodded.

  “Good. Cage, it was nice to meet you. Emily, you and I are going to become partners in this, and we can beat it.”

  If she saw Cage and Emily both flinch at the word partner, she didn’t say anything.

  Emily put her new journal, the eating plan, and the exercise plan in her backpack.

  The two of them got in Cage’s Camry and just sat there. “I feel like I’ve just done the whole news hour by myself,” Emily said. “I sweating!”

  “But you did it,” he said with approval. And then he shook his hand out. “But my hand may never be the same again.”

  She swatted him on the shoulder and laughed.

  “While we were waiting, I thought about the last time I ate a whole piece of cake,” she said, and explained the context for the thought. “My 12th birthday, I think. Chocolate, with chocolate icing. Think we can get a piece from Papa Haydn’s to celebrate our engagement?”

  “We can,” he assured her. “Papa Haydn’s makes the best chocolate cake in the city.”

  And then they headed back across town to Goose Hollow and the apartment they shared.

  I can do this, she thought. Just breathe.

  Cage dropped Emily off at the newsroom — she could walk to her 1 p.m. class from there, and he headed back to their apartment in Goose Hollow to drop off the car. He was exhausted from that session, he admitted to himself. He had let Emily do it, just sitting there to give her support, and that alone had been hard. She was so close to losing it. The strongest woman he knew — besides his mother — and she was close to a nervous breakdown over talking about eating with a nutritionist. He couldn’t wait until Friday’s therapy session. Not.

  He went inside, checked the time, and decided he had enough time for a nap before the 4 p.m. editor’s meeting over Zoom. That had been started in response to COVID, but like a lot of things, he didn’t think it would end if the pandemic came to an end. When, he corrected himself. Surely it was when the pandemic came to an end?

  Teresa and Ryan were in the living room reading while their 3-year-old son Rafael played some game on the floor. It was Rafael who looked up and grinned at him, lifting his arms up to be picked up — something Cage knew better than to try. Damn that wound that seemed to be taking forever to heal, he thought grumpily. He squatted down and let Rafael give him a big hug, making them both happy.

  Teresa put down her book. “How did it go?” she asked, her voice soft with concern.

  Cage just nodded. “It’s going to be tough on her,” he admitted.

  “Tough on you, too,” Ryan said, looking up.

  Cage nodded again. He go
t some cold water out of the refrigerator and drank thirstily. The doctors said the best thing he could do to aid healing was drink lots of water and eat plenty of red meat. He did so dutifully. And wasn’t that a bitch when eating a steak became a duty.

  “You got anything going on this afternoon, Ryan?” he asked. When Ryan shook his head, he told him what he needed. And then he went into the bedroom to take a much-needed nap.

  “Want to go for a drive, you two?” Ryan asked. Teresa nodded, and there was a flurry of getting shoes and coats. The three of them were out of the house and into the rental car in reasonably short order — if there were three of you, and one was a 3-year-old boy who had a penchant for losing his left shoe. Why the left only? Ryan wondered. He had no clue.

  “Is Cage healing like he should?” Teresa asked.

  Ryan frowned. It had been a month. “I think so,” he said, slowly. “It’s compounded by the pace he’s been keeping as EIC. Emily bears as much of that as she can alone, but he won’t let her go unsupported.”

  “And you,” his wife said. “You are there for them both.”

  “Well, I didn’t carry all of EWN on my back as EIC while the staff succumbed to COVID,” he said uncomfortably. “And I wasn’t shot by a white supremacist aiming for the daughter of Martin Luther King. And I did dump it on them and run out.”

  Teresa tilted her head as she did when she was considering something he’d said. “Do you feel guilty about that? Regret it?”

  “Regret! Oh, hell no,” he said startled. He’d done it because Teresa needed him and he loved her and their son. “No, I have no regrets. And I have no intention of letting them dump it back in my lap either. But nevertheless, that’s why two inexperienced editors-in-chief faced the biggest challenges Eyewitness News has ever faced. And they did magnificently. I don’t think anyone really understood, maybe even still, how much damage COVID did to the EWN staff. Em told the Media Board last week, that at the low point, there were only 12 healthy, completely exhausted, staff left. Out of 100. Average age? 21? Maybe?”

  Teresa nodded. She stayed in the car with Rafael and waited while Ryan ran Cage’s errands. Waiting and thinking.