Mistletoe and Mr. Right by Lyla Payne

wants to continue. “Brennan’s not a bad guy. If you have concerns, you should talk to him. Give him a little more credit.”
    â€œYou guys are friends?”
    â€œWe both grew up in Fanore and we’re the same age, so, yeah, we’ve always been friends.” He points a finger my direction. “But I said a
little
more credit not a lot. He’s still a guy.”
    â€œSo are you.”
    â€œHow kind of you to notice, Jess.”
    I roll my eyes this time. “You’re just doing that to get a rise out of me now.”
    â€œDoing what?” he asks, all innocent big eyes.
    A smile sneaks onto my face despite my exasperation, and silence settles over the barn. Coziness lulls me, creates a buffer between us and the world outside, as though things are possible in here that could never even be spoken out in the cold.
    â€œWhy do you want to be a news anchor?” he asks, startling me out of my cocoon. I frown at him, but Grady doesn’t even have the good sense to pretend to be sorry for eavesdropping.
    â€œI don’t know. It’s a steady paycheck, and it’s a service people need.”
    â€œHmm
.” I’m starting to realize that Grady is good at watching, at listening, and he might not realize he’s looking at me like I’m an idiot when his brain is focused on gathering information. “But with the Internet and considering that most people
avoid
the news because all it does is remind them of things they can’t change, don’t you think that’s a tad . . . obsolete?”
    â€œWell, when you put it that way.” I poke him and he grabs my wrist to thwart the attack. A pop, then a sizzle shoots up my arm, dissolving into a shiver when it hits my armpit.
    Grady drops my wrist like it’s covered in acid, swallowing hard and shifting on his crate. I’m desperate to break the sudden tension, to bring our level of comfort back to where it was moments ago. My brain function fades to a minimum in the wake of his touch, my tongue stumbling over
ums
and
wells
before finding the rest of my explanation.
    â€œI think you’re right. With the way the Internet is changing reporting, people our age and younger are going to go out of their way to avoid the networks. They’re slanted. In politician’s pockets. News is going to be a grassroots project, probably through social media because of its immediacy. Any network that wants to stay relevant is going to hire more reporters and send them everywhere with their smartphones.”
    The opinion rolls off my tongue without a second thought because it’s something I’ve thought about often—I even turned in a massive research paper on the subject. If I were a different person, traveling the world and reporting news in real time, no network filter, would be super appealing.
    â€œI can see that. We’re
already s
eeing it, really, with the way social media sites are where people go to see what’s trending by the minute.” He nods, his gaze thoughtful but more guarded than it was a moment ago. “But you, Jessie MacFarlane, still want to sit in a studio every night and read someone else’s words off one of those things.”
    â€œTeleprompter,” I supply, feeling attacked. “And I don’t think my getting blown up or working for pennies, never knowing where I’m going to lay my head from one night to the next is going to change the world.”
    â€œI think we don’t know who or what will change the world.” A strange sadness touches his smile. “Our world changes, and then we trace back to the spark. The moment the earth tipped on its axis.”
    Questions stick in my throat because he’s lost in a memory. As someone with deep, private closets of her own, I know better than to force open the door. The idea that this guy I’ve never met thinks it’s possible to change the world—that
I
could change the