Chapter 15
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
S cott typed away at the laptop in front of him. “What page do you want the engagement photo on?”
A moment of pure terror ripped through Amy at the word “engagement.” She took a deep breath before replying. “ Proposal. You proposed. We aren’t engaged.”
He turned to her, grinning. “Technically, you said yes to my proposal, so I think that makes us engaged.”
When her usual panic at the word “engaged” quickly faded, relief washed over her. Maybe she could heal from her past. “I concede. Had that been an actual proposal, and had I said yes, we would be engaged. But it wasn’t, and I didn’t, and we aren’t.” Amy sat back with her arms folded over her chest and watched him as he processed her words.
“You’re right. I proposed, and you didn’t answer.”
She turned back to her computer. “Told you.”
“But you did hug me. I think a hug implies a yes. Don’t you?”
Amy felt heat rising on her face. She cleared her throat. “What it implies is that I’m a great actress.”
He chuckled. “I won’t argue that point. I do have a question. Is this the front page story, or is it going to be buried on page four? You’ve left openings on both of those pages.”
“I’m going to put the story about Nosey on page one.”
He laughed. “Are you so afraid of showing the world the proposal photos that you’d rather feature a rabbit as your lead story?”
Under her breath, she said, “He’s a cute rabbit. A really cute rabbit.”
He shrugged. “It’s your newspaper. I’ll get to work on it.” A few minutes later, he said, “I think the layout is done. If you want to look it over.”
Amy checked her watch. He’d finished the job a full three hours ahead of the time it took her. Having Scott around had helped her feel as if she was on top of things. Not that the newspaper took so much time that she couldn’t get the job done. It was actually the opposite. But this part wasn’t her favorite. Now she had time to think about other projects, and more than that, spare time freed her thinking up to consider other projects that could bring in extra income.
But that thought also built up stress. A different perspective could be helpful. “Do you have any ideas that could help me bring in extra income?”
He turned to her with a smile. “You mean other than pretending to propose to you over and over?”
She laughed. Scott had a way of slicing through her stress and bringing out happiness. “Yes. I’m still waiting to see if that helps. And I keep considering other ideas, but nothing seems to be a good fit.”
“Could you write articles for another publication?”
Her blood pressure rose. “I did that for years. It’s a lot of work and often for very little money. Plus, I’m working on someone else’s schedule. That’s the biggest thing. Working at midnight to meet a deadline. No, I need to figure out something else.”
“Maybe wait and see how the proposals do? You’re hoping they will bring in subscribers and advertising, right?”
“Yes. It feels like a long shot, though. What about—” She blew out of breath. “Never mind. I could recognize that as a bad idea from a mile away.”
She brought up the completed newspaper on her computer. When she flipped through and saw the placement of the articles, she knew immediately she’d been wrong. “Uh, Scott, could I get you to flip those two articles? Or I can do it. I was wrong, and you were right. I need to focus on the thing we’re doing to try to bring in money. And I’ll put our proposal photo and the one of Nosey on my website and social media. I think I’ll get a fair number of views on each, but my money’s on the engagement photo as the big winner.”
He typed a moment, then said, “I just shared a new file with you.”
She opened that up and gave the top half of the front page a quick glance. He’d already swapped the two photos. “How did you do this so quickly?”
Scott grinned. “I had already done it both ways. I had a feeling you were going to change your mind when you saw the finished project.”
When Scott left town, she was going to have to get an assistant. Maybe she could offer a small amount of money to a student intern who’d work here because they wanted to learn how to do this. Amy certainly couldn’t pay somebody enough to live on since she wasn’t even doing that for herself. Yet. She had to keep telling herself she would succeed.
They both stood. “I’m going to send this off right now. And on Monday, I’ll go pick up the completed newspapers to distribute. I think I should probably wait until then to put up the social media and everything. Don’t you agree?”
“Yes. I think you’ll lose interest in the newspaper itself if you give away too much before then.”
She loved having somebody to bounce ideas off of. Dexter was an awesome human being, but to say he had an interest in anything like this would be a massive overstatement. Scott fit in well with her business and maybe her life.