Free Naked Addiction by Caitlin Rother Page B

shedder. He let Kathleen pick Sheba’s hairs off his blue blazer because he thought it might get him somewhere later, but he was wrong. She refused to go out with him again. He didn’t care, though. It was sloth that got him The Big Story.
    As Norman drove toward the exit to the employee parking lot, he almost hit the executive editor, who was walking down the middle of the aisle. Norman wondered what he was doing in the parking lot for peons, because managers got their own coveted spaces under the building. Norman waved politely at the balding Mr. Thompson, who tried to shield his eyes from the headlights.
    Oh well. I’m just trying to do my job, Mr. Thompson, which is more than I can say for you, with your hand up your secretary’s skirt the other night. It was a pretty disgusting little scene.
    Traffic was bad in the Gaslamp downtown and his windshield was still dirty on the inside. While he was waiting at a red light, he tried to clean it with a napkin, but that only made it worse. He didn’t realize until too late that he’d wiped his cheeseburger hands on it after lunch. He could barely see in front of him through the glare of the streetlights on Broadway. Balancing the cup of soda between his legs, he spat on a clean napkin like his mother used to do, and tried to wipe the window again.
    Up ahead, he saw the satellite dealie-bob on top of Channel 10’s white van and knew he was in the right place. Rhona Chen was sure to be there, too. She was hot.
    Norman put his foot on the brake as soon as he saw the starry reflection of another car’s red rear lights in front of him. But it was too late. He heard the dull thump of his car hitting the fender in front of him.
    “Ahhhh!” he gasped as he felt a sudden chill ripple through his genitals. His cola—ice, and all—had spilled into his lap.
    He’d hit an old Plymouth Duster. The driver, a young guy with a pug nose, stormed over to Norman’s window and was giving him the hairy eyeball, but Norman was too busy to notice as he tried to wipe his pants at least semidry with what was left of his napkin.
    “You going to get out or what?” Pig Boy snapped.
    Norman rolled his window down a bit. “Yeah, give me a minute here,” he said. “I had a little accident.”
    “No kidding.”
    “I mean I spilled my drink.”
    “Drive much?”
    “What?”
    “Nothing.”
    Norman kept mopping until he realized he was just spreading little white pills all over his pants. He got out of the car and walked over to Pig Boy’s Duster, where he saw that rubber had hit rubber. Cool. Very cool.
    “I don’t see any problem,” Norman said nonchalantly.
    “Yeah, well, I’m not so sure. It looks like you made that dent right there to me,” Pig Boy said, pointing to a rusty area above his fender.
    “No way,” Norman said. He couldn’t believe the guy’s chutzpah. “That’s been there for years. You think I’m an idiot? Besides, I don’t have any insurance, so this is irrelevant.”
    “That’s illegal.”
    He didn’t need Pig Boy to tell him that. What he needed was to get to Fifth Avenue. Fast. He’d have to make up something to get the guy off his back. “No, actually, under the law you have a choice. I chose not to get any.”
    Pig Boy was frowning and shaking his head, but given that he didn’t seem to know enough to object, Norman decided to leave as quickly as possible. If he waited around much longer, he figured he could lose his teeth. And his job.
    “I’m a reporter and I’m on deadline right now,” he called over his shoulder. “Gotta go.”
    He truly did mean to get some insurance. He just couldn’t afford to buy it on his teeny salary. They’d promoted him to reporter, but it was in name only until he could prove he could do the job better than the applicants whose resumes were stacked up in the Metro editor’s office.
    When he got to the crime scene, all the TV vans had already left, but a couple of traffic cops were still hanging around, drinking