A/N I love my beta's. I haven't forgotten about this story. I probably never will because it's my baby. This chapter is dedicated to one of my darling sweet Betas who waited out a phase I was going through for me to finish editing this chapter. This chapter is dedicated to my sweet Jessica who is the fairy godmother queen of this fic and I love her as much as I love coffee and books. Reviews are coffee to the soul. Thank you to those who have stuck with me.

"We are all mistaken sometimes; sometimes we do wrong things, things that have bad consequences. But it does not mean we are evil, or that we cannot be trusted ever afterward."

― Alison Croggon

A drink was a bad idea.

Matt didn't smoke anymore. He quit when he was twenty. He quit a lot of other things that year, but a cigarette was the one he still went back to from time to time. He'd gone to the roof to get some perspective. The skyline of his city always did that for him.

Chris said to sleep on it and implored him to not make any decisions right now, but Matt couldn't sleep and he wasn't letting anything go.

He hated feeling like he didn't have a plan. He'd been navigating wrong turns long before he decided to go into this publishing business and because of that, Matt always had a plan, but not tonight.

It was a really really good thing Chris was the level headed one in their partnership. It was even better Wyatt was the most level headed man either of them had ever met. Matt needed more hands to count how many times that level head kept him from making a mistake he couldn't come back from.

This wasn't about his mistake though. It was about Jess'. Was this how his dad felt after Matt did something stupid? Did his mother feel this nagging feeling? When Matt didn't call or he was ready to hit the self-destruct button did she hide her keys to keep herself from turning to the bottle?

Despite having her heart and mind in harmony, It took Rory longer than normal to get dressed. She walked to her car twice. Once just staring at the door handle and then walked back to her apartment. It took her twice as long to even get to his apartment because Rory turned around twice.

Finally, she made it into Logan's neighborhood and drove around looking for the perfect parking spot. She got coffee, walked around the neighborhood and even bought a sweater (it was cute). As the guy ran her card, she knew she was just wasting time.

She walked back to her car and almost got back in. It wasn't too late, she could go home, put on her cute sweater and turn in her story for the Yale Daily news. She'd made a decision and the lure of cute sweaters wasn't going to distract her anymore.

He didn't sleep that night and the next morning when Jess came downstairs, Matt didn't even acknowledge him.

Matt drank coffee at the table in their shared apartment just as the sun was peeking over the horizon when Jess came out of his bedroom dressed for the day.

"Morning," he greeted Matt tentatively.

"Morning," Matt was stiff. "So you have class all today?"

"Yeah," Jess answered, "but I was gonna get a head start on some of the inventory you wanted me to do."

"Huh," Matt said slowly. "So you're just gonna slack off this semester because you're almost done?"

"I didn't say that—" Jess answered curtly.

"Then why aren't you taking it seriously?"

"Since when did you become my mother?"

"Since you jeopardized this business and all we stand for, and worst of all you made my father half right."

"What?" Jess looked up from his paperwork.

"If a breath of this reached any author we work with or might potentially work with in the future, or if it reached any of our competitors, Truncheon would be dead in the water - not a single thing we could do about it!" Matt launched into a tirade. Jess was frozen in his spot. "So if you would like to continue working here, you had better stop screwing around and get your ass in a reputable undergraduate program, and stop treating publishing like a game show - you CANNOT 'phone a friend'!"

"Matt don't," Chris said. "We can talk later."

"I...I," Jess stumbled on his word and walked away grabbing his backpack.

"We don't make decisions without talking to each other," Chris said after Jess left.

"I haven't done anything, yet."

Chris glared at his friend, his eyebrows raised, "It's time to cut the bull. What happened between agreeing to wait and two minutes ago?"

"Monty left a message for me," Matt confessed.

"And?"

"And he's not wrong, Jess is inexperienced. We literally found him and trained him…"

"What happened is partially our fault."

"We can't afford to make those mistakes."

"WE can't afford to fire Jess for our mistakes either," Chris shot at Matt.

The two friends stared at each other. Neither speaking, both daring the other to solve the problem they faced.

"What did your dad say?" Chris repeated. There is no way this would be good.

"He just wanted to see if we looked through the resumes he gave me."

"We need Jess," Chris said before leaving Matt alone. "Don't make a decision without discussing it calmly with me. We will at the very least need to put together a small severance package for him."

Rory stood out front of Logan's apartment—she breathed a deep sigh, summoning all her courage to knock on the door. She closed her eyes and pressed the call button.

"Rory," he answered, hesitating softly at the unexpectedness of her appearance at his door in the middle of a storm. "Do you want to come in?"

"No," she started. "I'm gonna stay out here."

"If that's what you want," he nodded, breath shallow as if he was halfway holding it. "Are you okay?" he asked.

She was dressed in jeans and a sweater. Her hair was up in a messy bun, she had no makeup on.

"We can't see each other anymore," she blurted out. "This. What we had is over."

"Rory," he begged.

"No, please just let me finish," her voice warbled and she bit down on her lower lip to still the trembling that took it without warning. "My mother said that if I loved you, I should give you another chance. And she was right, I do love you," a tear formed, "but I don't think it's enough. So this needs to be done, us, we need to be done," her eyes dampened and joined with the rain soaking the pale blue sweater she wore. "I need to be alone...for me...right now; and if you love me like you say you do, then you'll walk away." She handed him a necklace he'd given her.

"What's going on? I just got your text," Matt said, bursting into Truncheon that evening.

"He gave me his key and said he'll be gone tonight."

"Is he still upstairs?"

"Yep," Chris said, a large stack of folders on his desk. "Damnit, I told you not to be too bad of a bad cop."

Matt bit the side of his cheek, "Chill, I'll take care of it." He took a deep breath and climbed the stairs. Jess was in his room, half-filled trash bags out on the bed, his clothes on the floor, and he was throwing CDs into another bag.

"What are you doing?" Matt leaned up against the door.

"Packing," Jess answered simply.

"Why?" Matt asked.

Jess just glared at him, "I found a room to stay in temporarily. I'll be gone in a few hours. I put everything I've been working on in my desk and left the key."

"Okay," Matt said slowly. "So you're just gonna quit? No notice?"

"Wouldn't it be easier if I did?" Jess answered curtly.

"No, it wouldn't," Matt paused as an idea quickly formed. "I think you need to come with me. Just put everything down and follow me."

"I don't get a say in this at all?" Logan asked.

"No," Rory said, tempering her anger and trying to keep a rebellious lump in her throat from coloring her voice. "You had your say with all your sister's friends."

"Rory, that was nothing, less than nothing!"

"I believe you," she pressed, "but that's half the problem. I need someone who, at the first sign of trouble, won't sleep with the first girl who makes herself available...much less the first half dozen."

"But I love you," he said. "I only want to be with you."

"I love you too. But Logan, you cheated. We had one fight and you ran. I need someone who will face our problems head-on with me."

"I want to do that. It's just a lot of work and it's new. I'm just getting used to being in a relationship with someone."

"How do I really know you'll be there for me?"

"You have to trust me and trust that I love you and want us to work out."

"Okay," she started, "What if we stay together and in five years we are married with children and we disagree on something and you decide it's all too much and do the same thing again? Then we go through a messy divorce with a kid. I don't want to do that to our hypothetical marriage or our hypothetical children. I don't trust you now and so I'm gonna walk away now before it really hurts me or the hypothetical children."

Jess followed Matt downstairs. "We're gonna be around the corner," Matt said to Chris.

"Be nice," Chris didn't look up from the stack of papers he was working on.

"Do you know what I think about a lot?" Matt asked after the bartender delivered the two beers Matt ordered.

"There's really no telling," Jess answered.

"Failure."

Jess looked up at Matt.

"All the time. I've imagined every way that Truncheon could be a giant, massive failure. Sometimes we literally go down in flames. Sometimes I think I deserve to fail because good things shouldn't happen to someone who screwed up as many times as I have. But then I remember that my mistakes don't define me and I wouldn't have found what I love doing. The thing is, I'm still learning to be a boss and we should have done more than just joke about confidentiality. That was my mistake and I'm sorry I failed as your boss."

"But you can't trust me anymore," Jess said, Matt didn't need to say the words. "I'll be fine," he continued. "It won't be the first time I've had to—"

"I'm not firing you," Matt jumped in. "I'm frustrated and a little annoyed that you went behind our backs and consulted someone we don't know without clearing it with us first, but Truncheon isn't letting you go."

"You're not?" The expression on the younger man's face was carefully passive, but puzzled, the workings of the universe having been compromised.

"Not this time anyway. Everyone deserves a second chance, maybe even a third. If you'd asked me that question this morning, I wouldn't have given the same answer," he paused and took a drink. "There are a lot of people who don't think I deserve the opportunities I've been given, but here I am," he took another sip of his beer. "And beyond just Jerry Gergenheim."Matt twirled his beer glass on its edge for a moment, making an absent-minded pattern in the condensation.

Jess sat, waiting in silence, "What changed your mind?"

"There are a lot of people who don't think I deserve the opportunities I've been given, but here I am," he took another sip of his beer. "And beyond just Jerry Gergenheim."This was an error in judgment. A serious one. And that throws me because ordinarily, I trust your judgment. To the point that I've staked my livelihood and reputation on it in many ways. Taking that into consideration… I assume you trust this Rory person?"

"I do, I trust her," Jess stammered out.

"I need you to get her to sign a non-disclosure agreement as a precaution. I want you to go back to sending me your notes and edits the day you do them. Also, I want to be CC'd on any correspondence with writers you are in contact with, specifically with Ed. And, I want you to forward all previous author correspondence threads, so we can review them."

"Whatever you want…" Jess said quietly. He hadn't intended to squawk about getting fired since he was clearly at fault. Being put on any kind of probation was still going to suck, though.

"There's one more thing," Matt took a deep breath, "I've been needing to meet Ed and his brother, so when you go to Connecticut this weekend, I'm going with you."

"Okay."

"There are a lot of people who want to see me fail; and I'm not going to run a business where an author has to fear that their blood, sweat, and tears are shown to another person outside this office before they get published. Are you clear on this?"

"Yes."

"Under any circumstances, if you question the validity of the work, you talk to me and Chris first. There are other ways to figure out if something has been plagiarized. If you think you've got a great source, run it by us. Maybe there's a way to make it work. But, don't go out on a limb—don't go off on your own—there are no mavericks here. You got me?"

Jess took a deep breath, nodding with a pained wariness.

"Good. 'Cause we want you here. You may occasionally be a pain in the ass, but you're our pain in the ass."

"There's something else I should tell you," Jess paused. "I…," he took a drink. "I had lunch with Monty, he came to Truncheon and insisted I go with him. He took me to some fancy steak house, ordered food for both of us and then offered to pay for my tuition if I got a bachelor's degree. He said he could get me into Harvard."

"He did, huh?" Matt said, swallowing. "That explains a lot." He took a drink of his beer. "Congratulations, you've met the real Monty."

"You're not upset?"

"No, it explains a lot actually," Matt said. "He handed me a stack of resumes and said we should hire someone with more experience."

"Oh," Jess looked away.

"Listen, this isn't the first time my dad has tried to manipulate someone. Just ask my mother."

"He's not wrong is he?" Jess asked.

Matt shrugged. "No, but he's not right either," Matt answered. "But if you wanted to go to Harvard, he could definitely pull a string or two. At least according to him, he can pull these imaginary strings and get anyone into Harvard, except of course his wayward son."

"I don't want to go to Harvard."

"Shocking! Mariano, I never would have guessed that you wouldn't want to go to Harvard," he looked at Jess sideways.

"But maybe I should do something about people thinking Truncheon is a joke?"

"Only if you want to," Matt said. "It doesn't matter to me if you have a piece of paper or not. We might even find a way to help you. Truncheon isn't a joke if we keep putting out good content. Rome wasn't built in a day."

"So you're just going to walk away from us because I screwed up."

"Yes," Rory said, her heart aching in the process. "Because I need to."

She turned to walk away from Logan and paused, "But I will always love you."

"Rory please," he begged. "I'm so sorry."

"I forgive you," she said. "But I don't trust you and it's important to me to trust my partner."

She walked away as Logan closed the door and let out a sigh of relief. She quickly got in her car and drove away, but as soon as she got back to her apartment she let her tears fall. Because it was over with Logan. She did love him and only time would heal those wounds.

Later that night as the two friends arrived back home, Jess went about cleaning up the mess he'd made when packing.

As he came down the stairs, Jess saw Chris at his desk, tracing a detailed outline in ink with the use of a lightbox. His eyes stayed fixed on his work, not even acknowledging Jess' presence. Through all of this, he'd come off as completely impassive. But that was something Jess knew firsthand—that mask of impassivity you put on when something hits too close to home. You fade into the shadows and let the scene play out as it will, pretending to have neither part nor vested interest in anything that goes down. Has nothing to do with how much you feel it.

Bodyweight shifted from one foot to the other, and Jess swallowed painfully. "Chris, I just..." he trailed off and Chris didn't look up. "I want you to know that I..." he blinked for a beat, "I know how bad I screwed up. Won't happen again if I can help it. Just..." He shrugged as the words got caught in his throat. "I hope that you— that w..."

Sometimes the spoken word strangled the life out of you.

Chris kept tracing lines, his eyes following the delicate patterns, but his mouth opened, his words with a faraway quality, almost hushed, so as not to cause the slightest wobble of distraction to his pen. "There's something my dad used to tell me when I was a kid..." he licked his lips. "If you step forward, own up... and take responsibility for your mistakes... take whatever licks you've got coming... apologize and try to make things right..." he set down his pen, "then there's not a man on earth you can't look in the eye." The hazel eyes that had been so diligent in their tracing, lifted, along with a tiny fraction of a smile.