now he was over here introducing me to someone he knew as his mate. The man was giving me emotional whiplash.
“It’s nice to meet you,” I said as Cider just looked between me and Seren. I felt sure she could tell that this was weird and new and that he wasn’t completely on board with it, or I could just be projecting my own fears onto her. You know, whichever.
“You too,” she said, eyeing me with some curiosity.
Seren pushed his glasses up on his nose before he fixed Cider with his gaze. “So the interviews are something we’re hoping will bring more humans to Silver Springs, either to visit or to live, so that we don’t have such a large imbalance between supes and humans. I just wanted you to have a frame of reference for your answers. Oh, and do you mind if I record the interview?”
“Go for it,” Cider said with a grin.
“Fantastic, thanks.” Seren pulled the recording device from his satchel. Apparently, he didn’t trust his phone to get the job done. He set the little black rectangle on the table directly between them, positioning it just so before he pressed the record button.
“Cider’s interview. Let’s jump right in with the most important question—why did you move to Silver Springs? What brought you here?”
Cider thought for a moment before she said, “My best friend, Billy, moved here to start his landscaping business and needed help paying rent. I jumped on board right away.”
“And how long have you—”
My phone began ringing right in the middle of Seren’s next question. I pulled it from my purse, my stomach dropping as I saw my father’s name on the screen. “Sorry. So, sorry. I have to take this. Please continue without me.”
I walked out of the cafe as quickly as possible, pressing the answer button as soon as the door started to swing shut behind me. “Daddy?”
“Neve. I’m calling to get an update on the paper. What’s your plan?” His voice was harsh and demanding, just like the man himself.
“We are going to start a series of interviews, starting with local business owners, which will provide a boost to their business and encourage them to advertise with us. Since we aren’t going to run the interviews in order, people will need to subscribe to see their interview when it runs. If this is successful, then we’ll extend it to other members of the town, probably starting with officials, like the mayor and such. We’re hoping that with some targeted advertising, we’ll be able to get the paper into the hands of humans in the surrounding areas and it will encourage them to move to Silver Springs, which would then increase the number of subscribers.”
There was a long, pregnant pause as my father analyzed my plan. Admittedly, it wasn’t amazing, but there was only so much I could do with a human paper in a supernatural town. Finally, he said, “That’s a good start. What’s your time frame? I assume you’re tying the advertisements to the pieces on the business owners, which would mean you have to tell them when their piece is running, making the second part of your plan moot.”
“Not exactly. We’re asking them to book an unspecified ad spot that will run next to their piece at some point in the next few months, but they won’t know exactly when.” I chewed on my lip. He was going to tear into me for this, I just knew it.
“And they are agreeing to this?”
“We have our first set of interviews this afternoon.”
“Fine. Come up with a plan B for when they refuse. Also, you didn’t answer my time frame question.”
“Well, we’re hoping to get this going over the next few months, so I would expect the paper to start turning a profit in the next year.” If we’re lucky. I didn’t say that last part aloud, but I knew we were both thinking it. He’d set me this task expecting me to fail. I was going to do my damnedest to prove him wrong.
“We need to turn it around faster than that. If we don’t get profit in the next six months at the latest, and I do mean latest, then I’ll shut it down and take the loss. Then I’ll have to figure out what to do with you, but I’m sure I can find you a filing job somewhere.” The last part was said as though he was talking to himself, but there was a definite note of