Chapter Twenty One
EVA
The multimillion-dollar machinery of Carrington Media moves with the precision of an arrow, and I’m the one pulling the bow.
The San Francisco air smells like stale espresso, hot plastic, car exhaust, and cannabis.
I’m not a fan. And even though it’s February, the midday sun is beating down on five hundred yards of plush crimson carpet, melting the hairspray on a small army of publicists who are issuing orders into wireless headsets.
I'm inside a control room trailer that may be on wheels, but it's every bit as high-tech and luxurious as the production facilities where my father built his career.
The awards show is being held at the Palace of Fine Arts downtown, and parked just down the street from the red carpet, the trailer is packed wall-to-wall with monitors, switchboards, headsets, and producers calling cues over one another.
And for the first time …
I'm here as the executive producer.
My name is on the call sheet. Every camera angle, lighting cue, celebrity arrival, commercial break, and acceptance speech ultimately runs through me.
No pressure.
“Eva, we’ve got an audio drop on camera four’s auxiliary feed,” my producer barks from three chairs down, his fingers flying across a digital mixing console.
“That talent interviewer on the western platform is picking up wind from the air conditioning vents. If we don’t damp it now, the audio track is going to sound like a wind tunnel when the athletes start arriving. ”
“Patch it through secondary,” I reply, my voice cutting through the headset with clarity I’ve spent the last year perfecting.
I don’t look up from the layout monitor, my eyes tracking the graphics sliding across the screen.
“We go live to the entire country in two hours. I don’t want to hear the air blowing.
Fix it, and give me a hard confirmation when the sound techs confirm the levels are green.
“Copy that. Swapping out the hardware now.”
I haven’t changed into my dress yet because it’s too hot and I’m just not feeling it. I reach down, my hand dropping into the pocket of my shorts, my fingers curling around my phone. I pull it out and read back through my texts with Aston.
He’s not coming. It feels like the words are mocking me with every minute that passes. My thumb scrolls through the log out of pure, masochistic habit.
Wednesday, 8:15 pm PST
Eva: Just landed in SF. Hotel is a circus. Sorry I didn’t get to see you before I left. Sorry it’s late. Call me in the morning.
Thursday, 8 am EST
Aston: Glad you made it there safely. Call me later when you get some free time. I miss you already.
Thursday, 10:30 am PST
Eva: Talking to you last night for three hours made me miss you even more than I already do.
Eva: The production meeting went on long. My reception was shit. Oh, but I got your credential. It’s with the talent coordinator at the VIP gate. Which reminds me, you never sent me your flight number. Send it over when you can, and I’ll have a car come get you.
Aston: Just heading out to work out with Brody. I’ll text you when I get home later.
Eva: Okay, sounds good. Tell him I said hi.
Eva: I know it’s getting late there and I just tried calling you, but it went straight to voicemail again. Can you let me know about your flight? Sorry I missed you tonight.
Friday, 5:00 am EST
Aston: Sorry. I’ve had some things going on here. And I have some good and bad news. I’m not going to be able to get out to LA this weekend. An amazing sponsorship opportunity came up, and it’d be great for my brand. I’d be stupid not to take it.
Friday, 9 am PST
Eva: You can’t be serious.
I wait all day for a response.
Friday, 4 pm EST
Aston: I know it’s not ideal timing, but you know how this business works.
Eva: Aston. Seriously.
Friday, 9 pm EST
Aston: I’m really sorry, Eva. I know you’ll be great.
The timing of his texts isn’t coincidental. He’s texting me when he knows I’m working.
Friday, 8:34 pm PST
Eva: I truly cannot believe you.
He bailed on me.
A cold spark of anger that’s been lingering since I read the text that said he wasn’t coming twists in my chest, sharp enough to cut through the professional focus I’ve been using as a shield.
Sponsorship opportunity? I don’t buy it.
Aston is one of the biggest stars in the NFL.
If companies want him, they'll wait a few hours to meet with him, and they’d be happy to see him getting media attention.
Tonight is one of the biggest nights in football.
No one skips it unless they have a good reason.
So it makes me think he isn’t skipping out on the awards.
He’s skipping out on me. The thought keeps circling my brain.
Maybe it’s the Carrington name, the cameras, the reality of standing on a red carpet as my boyfriend—maybe the weight of it all made him change his mind.
But the vague responses, the timing of his texts?
The cowardice of letting the clock run out without having the balls to tell me he was backing out?
That doesn’t match. It feels like … a betrayal.
I don’t have emotional hang-ups. I don’t sit around crying into pillows when things go sideways.
I get angry. And then I handle it. But right now, the problem is a six-foot-two linebacker who’s broken my heart.
I put my career and my reputation on the line and risked coming clean with my dad for him.
And now he’s a no-show for not only our relationship and standing together, but also for this big career opportunity for me, and he’s missing it.
“Eva?” my producer breaks through the static in my ears, his eyes wide as he looks over his shoulder at me.
“Your father’s on the executive line. He wants to know if the VIP arrival feed is cleared for the Carrington Media board directors.
He’s got three network sponsors in there who want to see the pre-show metrics before the broadcast hits the satellite. ”
I take a slow, deep breath, letting the ice in my veins settle until my face is back in professional mode. I slip my phone back into my pocket without texting Aston again.
“Just tell him the feed is live,” I say, my voice entirely devoid of the shaking that’s threatening to tear my throat apart. “And tell him the carpet is secure. I’m doing my job, and the sponsors will get their metrics when the first commercial breaks.”
“You got it, Eva. Relaying now.”
I can’t wait for Aston to show up. I have a multi-million-dollar broadcast to run, a crew of eighty people depending on me and a name that doesn’t allow for personal mistakes.
If Aston Griffith wants to hide in New Jersey like a pussy, I’ll let him rot there.
But I’m walking onto that red carpet, and I’m going to finish the broadcast.
An hour later, I step out of the air-conditioned trailer and into the blinding hot glare of the California sun.
The noise hits me instantly—a chaotic, deafening wall of the sound of screaming fans in the bleachers, the clack-clack-clack of two hundred or more cameras, and the thumping bass of the sound system.
I might no longer be a field producer, but it’s hard for me to not be part of the action. I love this part of the job and no matter how high up in the company I go, I always want to lead this way. With boots—or shall I say, heels—on the ground.
I walk down the media barrier, my headset wire tucked neatly behind my ear as I check the camera positions, my feet already hurting in these heels.
“Camera two, push in tighter on the arrival gate,” I hear the director call out in my ear to the camera operators.
My eyes track the black SUVs as they begin to drop off the first wave of athletic royalty.
“We’re losing the window on the step-and-repeat banner, and I don’t want the network logo washed out by the glare.”
“Copy that. Adjusting now,” the operator rumbles back.
A massive black Cadillac Escalade pulls up to the main drop-off point, its tinted doors swinging open. The crowd in the bleachers erupts into a high, frantic shriek.
I stop walking, my fingers tight on the clipboard.
A man steps out of the vehicle who has the same face as Aston.
Ace looks amazing in a custom-tailored emerald-green suit that catches the sun, almost as well as his blond hair does, his wide Texas grin flashing for the cameras before his feet even hit the carpet.
He looks every inch the Offensive Player of the Year nominee, the superstar who loves to be in the spotlight.
But as he turns to wave at the bleachers, he reaches back into the vehicle and offers his hand to a gorgeous blonde wearing a proud smile.
Alicia Griffith. Their mom.
My heart does a violent twist against my ribs. I stand behind camera two, completely invisible to the arrival line, my gaze locked onto Ace’s profile as he guides his mom forward with his hand on her back.
Every instinct in my body—the raw hunger for information that has been keeping me away since yesterday—screams at me to step over the velvet rope. To walk right up to Ace and ask him what the hell is going on with his brother.
I can see the faint tension on Ace’s jaw, beneath the polished grin. His posture is guarded as the photographers shout his name.
Don’t do it, Eva.
No, I won’t give Aston the satisfaction of knowing he’s managed to shake me. I won’t minimize my worth by making a spectacle of myself. Fuck him.
“Eva?” my new field producer’s voice crackles in my headset. “Ace Griffith is getting moved toward the main interview platform, but his mother is getting separated to the secondary line. Should we get security over to her?”
I look over at his mother, and she doesn’t look frazzled at all. Sure, her hand hasn’t left Ace’s, but she’s handling the chaos perfectly.
“You can send the talent coordinator from the west platform,” I instruct him. “Keep them together. Frame the shot for the network. They look great. Give them the VIP lane into the auditorium.”
“Coordinator is moving in now.”
I turn my back on the arrival gate, walking away from the brother who has the face of the man who’s breaking my heart. The show is going live in ten minutes, and the cameras don’t care about the empty space on my arm.
I have a job to do.