Love In All Colors (BoyxBoy)

III. Two Different Sides In The Same World

Jesse Adams

After dropping Zeus back off at the penthouse and scheduling the dog walker for his afternoon walk, I finally made it to the Fletch News headquarters. Waiting for coffee and talking with Annika about Malachi had made me a little over thirty minutes late, but I didn't really care. I was their best reporter.

What were they gonna do? Fire me?

"You're late again," our Editor-in-Chief, Paul, mumbled, not looking up at me from his desk. He was writing down some notes from his computer screen. Paul was an elderly man who's seen more of life than your seventy year-old neighbor. I stared at the bald spot in the center of his completely gray head before he looked up at me over his sliding glasses, "Well? What do you have to say for yourself?"

"Sorry?," I shrugged, framing my apology as a question. I was already annoyed with the conversation and was ready for my assignment, "What you want me to say? It won't happen again? Fine. It won't happen again. Are we done?"

Paul rose up from his slouched writing position and blinked at me with a blank stare, completely unfazed by my attitude. He grumbled inaudible words before rolling in his chair over to his file cabinet and pulling out a folder that he slapped on the wood desk in front of me, "This one is for you."

I picked it up and began reading the paperwork.

'Don't Silence Us': A Black Lives Matter movement demands the media to cover the ongoing investigation in the shooting of Theodore Clifford, a black teenager, by a white police deputy, Frank Peterson.

"Shit," my jaw dropped, reading the details of the situation and the articles attached to the news, "But I thought the bigger networks were following this? What happened?"

"The APD wanted the the investigation all over the outlets when race tensions and the Black Lives Matter protests were making the most noise. Now that they died down, BLM thinks the APD is trying to bury the story so Peterson gets off easy."

"So you want us to pick up the story and air it?"

Paul smirked and took off his glasses, looking down at them before looking back up at me, "Not exactly. I want you to run a story about how Frank Peterson was just doing his job as a member of law enforcement and Clifford should've just complied and this whole thing would've never happened."

I slowly closed the folder and gave Paul an uncertain look. I raised an eyebrow and tried to comprehend just what the hell he was saying to me right now, "So... you want me to spin it as if Clifford was in the wrong?"

Paul smirked, "I knew a smart young man like you would understand," he stood up and walked over to me and placed a hand on my shoulder before whispering in my ear, "You do this right, and a promotion to Field Reporter is in the cards for you."

A promotion. To Field Reporter. That's something I've wanted for so long now. I've always had dreams about reporting on the scene, presenting my own broadcast to the world about what was going on as it happened and now the opportunity has finally presented itself before me. All I had to do was follow up with a few leads, write a few columns, present to Paul and I'm in.

"Alright, I'll do it," I said with a reluctance in my voice. Paul cheered victoriously and patted my back in praise, telling me how this was going to make my career as well bring some really good publicity to the network.

He ran back over to his desk and looked at me, "I need to make a few phone calls, there's a few people that need to hear about this. It's going to be great, you watch, Jesse. You'll be the new face of Fletch News when all is said and done."