The Paper Boys (The Brent Boys #1)

Prologue

Sunny

Becoming one of the least trusted people in Britain doesn’t happen by accident. I worked hard to achieve it. Some days I wonder why I bothered.

I became a journalist to make a difference to the issues I’m passionate about, like fighting poverty, discrimination, and climate vandalism.

In reality, since moving from Leicester to London to work on (the now strictly metaphorical) Fleet Street, I’d spent most of my time parked up outside the Beckhams’ house in a cold Vauxhall Astra, waiting for everyone to go to bed so I could sift through their bins looking for “exclusives.” Apparently, they’re what the people want to read.

In eighteen months at the Bulletin, I’d spent more time standing outside courthouses shouting “Are you a nonce?” at disgraced national treasures than I had shining a spotlight on the absolute scandal of inequality and the intergenerational hardship it causes in communities like the one where I grew up.

When pollsters ask the people of Britain which groups in society they trust the least and thirty per cent say journalists, I get it.

And I can just about take that on the chin.

But what they don’t tell you when you become one of Britain’s least trusted people, what really hurts, is that it makes you proper undatable.

When you tell a boy you’re a reporter for the country’s most hated tabloid newspaper, they disappear faster than you can say “But I’m a good person, really” or “I would never write that about a member of Girls Aloud, please don’t judge me by the actions of my employer.

” The only people who get it, who understand what it’s like being a journalist looking for love, are other journalists.

Which is a shame, because if there’s one cast-iron rule in this business, it’s that you never date another journalist. After all, how could you possibly trust them?