Chapter Two
When they broke for commercial, Aubrey let his smile relax and eased back in his chair. Samira, their makeup and hair tech, swooped in to check for strays, casting sideways glances at Overton every now and again.
Aubrey didn’t blame her. Their animosity had to be obvious, and she’d only just met Aubrey. She couldn’t exactly ask him about it. But maybe she was judging whether she could ask Overton.
Probably not, he decided, if his own read of his cohost could be trusted. The guy was shut down, mask in place. Handsome but unapproachable.
Aubrey didn’t know what he’d expected. More professionalism, yeah.
And a smile wouldn’t have killed the guy.
A little more recognition—the figure skater, really?
Aubrey was vain, all right. He liked to know people recognized him and his accomplishments.
He liked to be looked at—not just looked at but checked out the way he’d checked out Overton.
Not lecherous but appreciative. Aubrey couldn’t help that Overton was his type.
Married, though, he reminded himself. Like a model gay. Straight-passing haircut, conservative suit.
Ass that wouldn’t quit.
Still, some show of solidarity might be nice.
Maybe they just got off on the wrong foot.
Aubrey’d had a day or two to get used to the idea of being on the program with Nate, but according to Carl, Nate hadn’t even known Jess fired John until this afternoon.
Maybe he was pissed she’d left him out of the loop, and Aubrey being in the know just made it worse.
“Hey,” he said tentatively as Samira shifted over to Nate. “Look, I’m sorry if, uh, you were expecting someone else or whatever.” Hell, Aubrey would be surprised he’d gotten this gig too, if he hadn’t filled in for John once before.
Overton didn’t look at him—couldn’t, as Samira was touching up his makeup.
“Sixty seconds!”
“Who else would I have been expecting?”
Aubrey shrugged. “I don’t know, maybe one of your old hockey buddies wanted the job. Hockey’s an old boys’ club. I know how it works.”
Overton scoffed. “You don’t know Jess, obviously.”
“Hey, she let John Plum sit in that chair for eight years despite the excrement that spewed out of his mouth—”
“Forty seconds!”
When Nate didn’t react, Aubrey pushed on. He didn’t want his cohost to hate him. “I’m just saying, I didn’t mean to step on any toes, but I also didn’t get here through nepotism. I’m good at this job, if you think you can unclench long enough for me to prove it.”
A muscle worked in the corner of Overton’s jaw. Aubrey bet he ground his teeth at night. Probably drove his husband nuts. “If you’re done insulting me—”
Samira finished with him and scampered off. He reached for the water bottle the PA held out.
“Insulting—?” Damn it, where had Aubrey gone wrong?
Did Nate think Aubrey was implying he’d gotten the job through nepotism?
Talk about delicate. “Excuse me for trying to make conversation. You know, you could stand to loosen up,” Aubrey said, then added under his breath, “Someone needs to get laid.”
The set went dead quiet, and Aubrey remembered for the first time in twenty seconds that he was wearing a hot mic. Everyone had heard him.
The blood drained not just from his face but from the entire upper half of his body. Fuck his stupid temper and his own sensitivity about being overlooked. Fuck, fuck, fuck.
The PA called, “Thirty seconds!”
Overton took a long, deep breath. He didn’t look at Aubrey. “We have an update on the Nielsen situation?”
Gina answered from just off camera. “Bob McKenzie is reporting the ask is Simmonds and a second-round pick. Not sure if they’re going to take the bait yet.”
“Keep refreshing his Twitter feed and get ready to call him if this goes through. I want a soundbite.”
“Ten seconds!”
Aubrey couldn’t even open his mouth to apologize, not that Overton would look at him anyway.
Not that Aubrey blamed him. Shit, was he going to ignore Aubrey unless the camera was on?
That would make this even more uncomfortable.
Probably only for the next two hours or so, though.
Good thing Aubrey didn’t actually need this job.
The show’s theme played, and the teleprompter counted down the seconds to air.
Aubrey sat up straight again. If this was going to be his only show, he at least wanted it to be an entertaining one.
“Welcome back to The Inside Edge. I’m Aubrey Chase.
If you’re just tuning in, the Chicago Snap leads Toronto 2–1.
Puck drops for the second in five minutes. Meanwhile, around the league….”
They played a few clips from yesterday’s and tonight’s games, including the Colorado-Dallas shocker, and Aubrey managed to find the same reserves of professionalism that let him get up and keep skating when he missed a jump, even though inside he was dying.
“I expect the Stars will announce a partnership with Cuisinart, as the coach gets out the line blender at the first sign of trouble,” Aubrey quipped.
Apparently Nate didn’t find that to be terribly substantive, but instead of trying to make an in-depth response, he just went with, “The line blender works.” Yawn. Boring.
Aubrey couldn’t let it go. “Yes, turning a 5–0 deficit into a 5–4 regulation loss is progress which—let me check—you still get zero points for.”
“And those are points the Avalanche need more than the Stars now,” Nate asserted. Was this guy joking? It was the second week of October. A little early for the playoffs race. But he doubled down with, “Let’s pull up the Central Division standings.”
It was going to be a long night.
Nate was still bristling when he closed the door to Jess’s office behind him.
Jess raised an eyebrow and gestured to the chair in front of her desk as she lowered herself into her own. “Have a seat, Nate.”
She was playing it cool, so Nate was probably about to have his ass handed to him for being a dick. And he probably deserved it. Who the hell talked about the points race not even two weeks into the season?
People who were so disoriented from having their show rearranged immediately after their divorce they didn’t know which way was up, that was who.
He sat.
But instead of taking him to task for the clusterfuck of an episode, or even better, addressing Aubrey’s heinously inappropriate comment, she just asked, “How was Houston?”
Damn it. Nate slumped in his chair and rubbed a hand over his face. He could feel the makeup smearing. He should’ve taken it off first. Instead he’d sat in his dressing room, stewing.
“That good, huh?” Jess said sympathetically.
Nate pulled his hand away and drew a deep breath. “I mean, what do you want me to say, here? I went. I signed the papers. It was a long time coming.”
“It’s less about what I want you to say and more about what you need to say.” Jess loved to pull lines like that, ones that sounded straight out of a Psych 100 class. Unfortunately she actually meant them.
Even more unfortunately, Nate fell for it every time. “Marty’s getting married.” It didn’t hurt exactly. It didn’t feel good—the ink hadn’t even touched their divorce papers when Marty made the announcement—but they’d been separated for years. Nate didn’t love him anymore.
But seeing his ex comfortable in his gorgeous new house with his gorgeous new husband-to-be, getting ready to start the family he’d put off having with Nate—Nate was never home, he said; they could wait until Nate retired, he said, except somehow they never made it that far—okay, Nate could admit it. It hurt.
“Ouch.” Jess winced. “And then I sprung these changes on you while you were gone. I thought I was giving you time and space to sort out some personal things, but I should’ve called. Are you okay?”
No, Nate thought. He was thirty-eight and he’d spent the best years of his life with a man who’d left him as soon as Nate started being home more often. He’d done everything right, and it hadn’t mattered in the end.
“I’m fine,” he lied. “Let’s talk about the show.
” Because yes, she should’ve called, though he knew why she hadn’t.
The internet gave people a forum to show their entire ass, John had done it, and Jess had to react to that in a certain period of time or risk being seen as endorsing his behavior.
And obviously she didn’t want to bother him while he was taking personal time to get a divorce. The timing just… sucked.
“Wow, you really don’t want to talk about it.
” Jess shook her head. “Fine, let’s talk about the show.
You want to tell me what your problem is?
I could tell you had a chip on your shoulder even before it all went truly to hell.
I thought you’d be grateful to get rid of John, move up to the lead role. ”
“I am. But is Aubrey Chase the right guy to replace him?”
For a long moment, Jess held herself absolutely still, inscrutable. Then she slowly leaned back in her chair. “You know I can’t comment on the discussion I had with him, but I promise you that I’ve addressed it, and if it happens again, he’s gone, no questions.”
In his three years in the industry, Nate had heard a lot of horror stories. “Thanks.” Aubrey didn’t strike him as that kind of problem—more like a guy who had trouble holding his tongue—but it comforted him to know Jess had his back.
“I’m more concerned about his qualifications,” she went on shrewdly. “You think he doesn’t know hockey?”
“I’m just saying—I know John had to go, he was awful, I hated working with him. But we already alienated a lot of people when we got rid of him, and now….”
“Now I’ve replaced a conservative windbag with a flamboyant figure skater?” Jess suggested.
Nate had to be on the only mainstream sports news show with two gay hosts—and probably the only gay guy to question whether that was the right decision. And he couldn’t figure out how to object without feeling like an asshole. Without being an asshole.
“Look, we’re not alienating anyone by hiring Aubrey that we didn’t already piss off when we let John go.”
With a slow exhale, Nate admitted to himself she probably had a point.
But in the meantime, Nate’s divorce was bound to become a minor news item in the near future now that they’d signed the paperwork, and he knew it wouldn’t take much for people to jump on Aubrey as a possible reason.
Marty and his new fiancé weren’t famous; they’d easily fly under the radar.
People online will think we’re dating and that annoys me would not fly as a legitimate objection, unfortunately. “All right,” he said finally.
“And we’re hoping to tap into a new market,” she reminded him.
“Young, left-leaning viewers who are tired of hockey being an old boys’ club”—he wondered if she were throwing Aubrey’s words back at him intentionally—“and want a little less xenophobia with their sports commentary. Not to mention Aubrey’s got a horde of Twitter followers from his skating days, and hey, maybe they’ll follow a new sport if we get a hip, hot, visibly gay athlete to feed it to them. ”
“You’re a mercenary,” Nate said glumly, nonplussed at the implication that he was neither hip nor visibly gay.
Then, “Things are that bad?” Because he loved this show, but with video-streaming services on the rise and entertainment budgets in the tank, advertising revenue took a hit, and so did their profit margins.
For the first time, he noticed the dark circles under her eyes. He’d been so involved in his own problems he hadn’t even seen them. “Things aren’t great. But that’s why we’re making changes, okay?”
He nodded, mostly because he could tell she needed him to believe her.
“Yeah, of course. I trust you.” And if the show flopped, it wasn’t like he’d be out on his ass.
He hadn’t been the best-paid hockey player of all time, but he’d played professionally for over a decade and managed to avoid major financial disaster.
He didn’t need to work. “Just keep me posted, okay?”
“Promise,” Jess said, flashing a quick, brittle smile. “All right, that’s it. Get out of here. Let’s go home.”