Chapter Twenty-Five
After that Saturday’s episode, Nate needed a few minutes to himself. Preferably to break something that wasn’t his own teeth.
So it didn’t help much when Paul found him in the green room, pacing and working on aforementioned teeth breaking, and said, “Hey. Can I talk to you?”
The answer was a blatant no. Before they had to work together, Nate hadn’t minded Paul’s company. They weren’t ever going to be best friends, but they were both amiable enough, or so Nate thought.
But ever since Paul stepped into Aubrey’s shoes, Nate’s general tolerance for the man had taken a nosedive.
Still, he couldn’t exactly have a temper tantrum in front of him.
He didn’t want to be difficult. He knew well enough what happened to bad sports in hockey—in the media as well as on the ice.
So he worked on pulling his shoulders down from around his ears, straightened his spine, and affected an open, inviting posture he absolutely did not feel. “Sure,” he said. “What’s up?”
Paul closed the door behind him and scratched behind one ear. He reminded Nate of a mangy dog.
Then Nate second-guessed himself. That wasn’t fair to dogs.
Damn it. He was going to shred his reputation for being easy to work with, and there was nothing he could do about it.
“So, I know the whole point of the show is for us to have some spirited discussions.” Paul helped himself to one corner of the single sofa in the room. “Or did I get that wrong?”
In that moment Nate utterly despised him. “You didn’t get it wrong.”
Paul spread his hands. “Okay. Then maybe you can help me understand. The point of the show is spirited discussions about topics hockey fans care about. So how come every time I try to start one, you act like I just pissed on the flag or something?”
A vicious, insistent throbbing started up at the base of Nate’s skull and then immediately migrated to his temple and frontal lobe.
Nate had only ever been in a handful of hockey fights. He prided himself on his equilibrium. He had patience.
Or he used to have patience until he had to work with Paul. “Paul. Seriously?”
Paul made another, broader shrugging gesture, as though he truly did not understand.
“What? Like, I never got the impression you wanted to wring Chase’s neck during the show, no matter how hard the two of you went at it”—Nate grimaced internally at the word choice; Paul didn’t know they were dating, and Nate sure as fuck wasn’t going to tell him now—“but me? You fucking hate my guts, dude.”
If I do, it’s your own fault. He took a deep breath. “Aubrey and I debated the finer points of hockey contracts, pros and cons of trades, play styles.”
“Isn’t that what we do?” Paul challenged.
“It’s what I try to do,” Nate clarified.
He was pissed now, and Paul was literally asking for it.
“You want to talk about whether women’s hockey has merit!
You want to talk about whether it’s okay for guys to use homophobic slurs on the ice, Paul, you fucking asshole.
It’s the twenty-first century, and I’m gay, in case you forgot. ”
Paul gaped as though it had never occurred to him that his shitty homophobic behavior could offend Nate. “Oh, come on. You don’t think I believe that, do you? It’s just entertainment.”
Just entertainment. Nate’s frustration, Nate’s pain—? “Entertainment?” Nate thundered. “You’re gonna let every queer kid watching a stupid fucking talk show about hockey know the game isn’t for them, that the game itself hates them, because it’s entertaining? Jesus fucking Christ.”
“Hey,” Paul protested. “Take it down a notch. Queer kids aren’t exactly our target audience.”
Nate’s jaw dropped. He could not come up with a single thing to say.
Paul either didn’t notice or didn’t care. “And look, you think I don’t know what I’m doing? You think the name Mitchell is a coincidence? My father’s on the network’s board of directors. When I came to him three months ago with the idea for the show he was all. Over. It.”
The idea for the show? “The show that was already on air?” Nate said. “Wow, I hope you didn’t strain yourself coming up with that one.”
Of fucking course. Nepotism at its finest.
“I think I’m done here,” Nate said coldly. And he walked out of the arena and hailed a cab.
“Where to?” the driver asked without giving him a second glance.
“Airport,” Nate said shortly. He wasn’t spending another second in Paul’s company.
There were a lot of calls he needed to make, but he didn’t want to talk in the car. He felt like he needed some small measure of privacy, and as contradictory as it might be, the airport seemed like a better place for that.
He checked in and went through security, then found an out-of-the-way seat near a coffee cart—at this time of night the airport was sleepy anyway—and sat down to dial.
Despite the hour, his dad picked up on the second ring. “Nathan?” he said. “It’s a bit late, isn’t it? Shouldn’t you be on a plane?”
“I’m at the airport,” Nate answered. “Sorry for calling so late.”
“It’s fine.” He could practically see his father brushing this off. “You know your mother and I are always here for you. What’s up?”
Nate took a deep breath, difficult with the lump in his throat.
He hadn’t really even thought the words to himself yet, but it was time to admit it all out loud now.
“I know you’re always saying you raised me to persevere against the odds.
” Professional athletes didn’t stop when things got hard. They’d never make it if they did.
“We did. Your mother and I are proud of everything you’ve accomplished, your determination….” He trailed off, sounding uncertain. “What’s this about?”
“I…. Dad, I’m not a quitter, but I hate my job.
” There. He’d said it. Pushing the words out seemed to loosen something in his throat, and more followed after.
“I was so proud of everything Jess and I did, and Aubrey made it all feel like it clicked. Then the network sold us out, and ever since then—well, you’ve been watching.
” Ratings in their previous demographic had dropped, though they’d picked up a few points in other areas.
Nate was more miserable now than he’d ever been when he was John’s co-anchor.
“Paul is a troglodyte. I feel like we’re catering to a completely different audience who wouldn’t like me anyway.
I don’t have any creative control, and I miss Aubrey. ”
“Nate….” He could almost see him shaking his head.
His gut churned. Disappointing his parents was something he absolutely could not do.
Not when they’d sacrificed so much for him.
“I don’t know where you got this idea that not being a quitter meant suffering through a job that’s making you miserable. ”
Nate’s breath came out in an unexpected rush. “I….”
“You want to keep your hand in in the sports-anchor world or in the entertainment world, then your mother and I expect you to put your best effort into that. What we don’t expect is for you to continue doing this show.
” He paused, and Nate could hear something vague in the background.
“Your mother says, ‘Please tell him to quit so we don’t have to watch this garbage anymore.’ Direct quote. ”
Nate barked a surprised laugh that brought a tear with it. Did he have a Kleenex or something somewhere? He checked his pockets. “All right. Thanks. I—”
He paused and pulled a tiny piece of paper from his pocket. It was crumpled—had it gone through the wash? Absently, he smoothed it out.
Follow the middle path. Neither extreme will make you happy.
“I have… some more news,” he said roughly. What a stupid time for an epiphany, but— “I’m not coming for Christmas. Tell Emily—tell her I’ll make it up to her, I promise, whatever she wants. I’ll take everyone on a vacation somewhere, just… I have somewhere else I need to be.”
“I understand,” his father said, and Nate didn’t think he was imagining the approval in his voice. “Say hi to Aubrey from us.”
Nate laughed a little incredulously. “I will.”
In retrospect, an airport on December 23 was a stupid place and time to come to a decision. On the other hand, at least he’d finally made one.
The idea of getting back on a plane with Paul, who wasn’t Aubrey, going home to Chicago, where Aubrey wasn’t, dropping off his bag at home and then flying on to Michigan to meet his own parents, finally made something inside him snap.
This was stupid. He was stupid. But he had the resources to stop being an idiot and do what he wanted with his life.
He sent a text message to his agent, because this was going to get messy. He sent another to his mom, because she deserved an apology of her own.
Then he found a ticket counter and prepared to pay through the nose to change his flight to somewhere he actually wanted to be.