Chapter 27
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Nelson
Nine days.
I'd been counting, which was a clinical symptom of a condition I didn't care to name. I was a man who dealt in metrics — ratings shares, demographic leans, the precise duration of a commercial break — but I’d never been the kind of person who counted "good days.
" Counting implies a finite supply. It suggests that you are walking a tightrope and waiting for the inevitable gust of wind that sends you back into the canyon.
But for a week and a half, the count had become the quiet metronome of my life.
The work was the best it had been in a decade.
On air, I felt sharpened, honed by the voice in my earpiece.
Jimmy didn't just produce the show; he conducted me.
He knew exactly when to push me toward a senator's throat and when to pull me back into a moment of devastating silence.
When he talked, the sound didn't just hit my ear; it settled in the base of my spine, a warm, low-frequency hum that made the studio lights feel less like an interrogation and more like a spotlight.
After the broadcast, the ritual was always the same. I'd return to my dressing room, the adrenaline still a metallic tang in the back of my throat. I'd wait. Three minutes. Five. Then, the sound: two sharp raps of knuckles against the heavy oak door.
Jimmy would lean against the frame, his auburn hair a chaotic halo under the fluorescent hall lights, his glasses pushed up onto his head.
To anyone passing by, it was a senior producer checking in on his anchor.
He'd step inside, the heavy door would click shut, and the icy anchor of Beacon Broadcasting would simply…
melt. We were being profoundly unprofessional. Reckless.
And for nine days, I'd actually convinced myself we were getting away with it.
On the tenth day, the broadcast ended with an interview about the latest Middle Eastern war — a surgical strike that left the Secretary of Defense stammering into his lapel mic. I walked off set with my pulse still elevated, my skin humming.
Jimmy and I played the game with the practiced ease of double agents.
I lingered in the hallway to discuss a "scheduling conflict" with a floor director.
He stayed in the control room to "review the b-roll.
" We waited for the building to thin out, for the late-night skeleton crew to settle into their cubicles, before we met at the elevators.
We rode down to the lobby in a silence that was loud with everything we weren't saying. My eyes took in the lean line of him, and I could smell the faint scent of vetiver from the product he put in his hair. I had to clasp my hands behind my back to keep from grabbing him.
Outside, the October air was crisp, carrying the scent of rain and exhaust and the particular electric ozone of Midtown at night.
Terrence's black town car was idling at the curb.
Jimmy tilted his face into the wind, his eyes closing for a brief second.
"I'm starving," he said. "Actually, I'm beyond starving.
I'm at the point where I might start eating the upholstery in that car. "
"There's the Italian place on Ninth," I said, my voice sounding more casual than I felt. "The one with the green awning."
He looked at me, a challenge dancing in his eyes. "The town car is right there, Nelson. We could be at your place in fifteen minutes."
I looked at the car. Then I looked at him. The "safe" choice was the sedan. The sedan meant privacy. But it had been ten days of us pretending to only be co-workers, and I felt a sudden, sharp needle of defiance. I wanted to walk down a street like a man who wasn't hiding.
I raised a hand, stopping Terrence before he could open the door. "Terrence, I'm fine tonight. Take the evening off. I'll see you at the usual time tomorrow."
Terrence, a man whose professional discretion was his greatest asset, didn't blink. "Yes, sir. Good night, Mr. Mackenzie."
The car pulled away, leaving us on the sidewalk. We started down the block, our shoulders not quite touching, but the gravity between us was so heavy it felt like we were leaning into a gale.
We were half a block from the restaurant when the world caught up to us.
"JIMMY!"
The voice didn't just carry; it commanded. It was the kind of volume that came from a lifetime of being the loudest person in any room.
Jimmy froze mid-step. "Oh, god," he whispered. "The universe has a terrible sense of timing."
Across the intersection, Jillian Morris was practically vibrating. She was clutching a bag of takeout, her glasses perched precariously on the bridge of her nose. Beside her, looking like he wanted the pavement to open up and swallow him whole, was Harry.
My personal assistant. The man who managed my life with the cold efficiency of a Swiss watch. He looked at me, and for the first time in three years, I saw him lose his composure. He didn't just look surprised; he looked guilty.
The light changed, and Jillian surged across the street like a heat-seeking missile.
"JIMMY GOODMAN," she shouted, ignoring the two tourists who stepped out of her way. "I was going to call you tomorrow to stage an intervention, but here you are, delivered by the gods of Ninth Avenue."
She slammed into Jimmy, a full-body hug that looked more like a wrestling maneuver. Jimmy grunted, trying to maintain his balance.
"Jillian, hi. What a… coincidence," Jimmy said, his voice strained.
Jillian pulled back, her eyes immediately darting to me. She didn't look away, or offer a polite social smile. Jillian looked at me with the analytical intensity of a grand jury. "Nelson. You haven't aged a day. It's genuinely offensive."
"Jillian," I said, my television voice sliding into place like a shield. "I'll send you the name of my dermatologist."
I turned my gaze to Harry. He was standing a foot behind Jillian, his hands buried in his coat pockets. He wouldn't meet my eye. He gave a small, jerky nod. "Nelson."
"Harry," I said, my voice dropping an octave. And I decided to make him truly uncomfortable. “I wasn't aware you and Jillian were on a first-name basis."
"We're on a 'three bottles of Pinot' basis," Jillian chirped, her eyes gleaming with a dangerous sort of mischief. She looked between Jimmy and me, her smile widening into something that felt like a trap. "Where are you two headed? You look like you're on a mission."
"Dinner," Jimmy said, a fraction of a second too late.
"Where?"
"The Italian place. A block down."
"Perfect," Jillian said, looping her arm through Jimmy's. "Harry and I were just looking for a reason to sit down. We're joining you."
Harry looked at me, an expression of profound apology flickering across his face. He knew I hated surprises. But he also knew Jillian Morris, and clearly, he had learned that resistance was a waste of energy.
"Of course you are," I said, the words tasting like copper.
* * *
The restaurant was loud, smelling of garlic and old wood. We were led to a booth in the back, away from the windows. It was the kind of place where the waiters had seen everything and cared about nothing.
A bottle of Montepulciano appeared on the table within minutes. Jillian poured four glasses with the practiced hand of a woman who didn't wait for permission.
I sat across from Harry, the silence between us heavy.
For three years, Harry had been my shadow.
He knew my coffee order, my dry cleaning schedule, and which politicians I secretly loathed.
He was the only person who saw me without the makeup and the lighting.
And now, he was sitting across from me with Jimmy's best friend.
Jillian set her glass down with a definitive thud. She folded her hands on the table and looked at us both.
"All right," she said. "Let's stop the theater. It's exhausting for everyone involved."
Jimmy reached for his wine, his hand trembling slightly. "Jillian, don't."
"Don't what? Pretend I don't have eyes? Pretend Harry doesn't have eyes?" Jillian leaned forward. "Nelson, you're a professional interrogator. You tell me — if you saw two people walking down Ninth Avenue with that much electricity between them, what would your lead story be?"
I stayed silent. I didn't look at Jimmy. I looked at Harry. "How long, Harry?"
Harry took a slow sip of his water. He looked tired. "A couple of weeks," he said quietly. "Give or take a day."
"And you didn't think to mention it?"
"In my defense," Harry said, his voice regaining some of its dry, understated humor, "I figured it out from the second coffee mug."
I frowned. "The what?"
"The blue ceramic mug," Harry said. "The one that's been appearing in your dressing room every day before I arrive with your actual coffee.
I thought I was losing my mind at first, thinking I'd brought it and forgotten.
Then I realized I hadn't. There is only one other person in the building with the clearance to bypass the floor director's station and get into your suite. "
He looked at Jimmy. "I admire your tradecraft, Mr. Goodman. But the mug was a tell."
Jimmy made a small, stifled sound — a laugh that was dangerously close to a sob.
"The point is," Jillian said, her voice losing its edge and becoming something closer to concerned, "the two of you are doing that thing you always did, even back in college.
You're building a fortress and thinking no one can see the smoke coming out of the chimney.
Harry and I have been having dinner with each other just to talk each other down from the ledge. "
"You've been talking about us?" Jimmy's mouth dropped open.
"We've been comparing notes," Jillian corrected. "Jimmy, you've been glowing like a radioactive isotope. And Nelson…" She paused, her eyes softening in a way that made me want to flinch. "You've been looking… peaceful. Which, frankly, is terrifying for the rest of us."
The rest of the dinner was a blur of heavy red wine and breadsticks that tasted like sawdust. Harry and Jillian did most of the talking, a strange, frantic duet of stories and observations.
Mostly about Jimmy and me, and how inevitable our reunion seemed.
Unused to being the main topic of any conversation, I reverted to silence.
I felt Jimmy's knee brush against mine under the table. He didn't pull away. He leaned into the contact, a silent anchor in the middle of the storm.
When the bill came, Harry reached for it, but I beat him to it. "My treat," I murmured. "For your discretion."
The cab ride home was a study in sensory overload.
The car smelled of a sickly sweet cinnamon air freshener and the lingering ghost of a previous passenger's cologne.
Jimmy was leaning against my shoulder, the weight of his body both familiar and foreign.
Two glasses of Montepulciano had softened his edges, and he was watching the lights of the West Side slide across the window in rhythmic pulses.
"My place is closer," he said, his voice thick with sleepiness.
"Your place is a glorified closet," I murmured, my hand finding his in the dark.
"It's a studio with character."
"It's a studio with a futon that hasn't been comfortable since the Clinton administration."
He laughed, the sound vibrating against my coat. "It was free. Found on the curb."
"My place has a bed," I said. "And a shower with two heads. And towels that actually absorb water."
"That's corporate cable news money talking," he teased, tilting his face up. "You've become such a snob, Nelson."
"I've become a man who knows what he's earned," I countered.
The cab took a turn too fast, throwing him more firmly against me. I didn't let him go. I put my hand against the back of his head, my fingers tangling in the hair at the nape of his neck. He was so warm.
I kissed him.
It wasn't the frantic stolen moments in my dressing room. It was a slow, unhurried kiss that tasted of wine and the end of a very long day. It was the kind of kiss you give someone when you aren't worried about the clock.
He pulled back, settling his head on my shoulder again. "I had a really good time tonight," he whispered. "Even with Jillian being a menace."
"She's a treasure," I said, the words feeling surprisingly true. "In a 'highly combustible' sort of way."
The cab slowed as we approached my building — the glass and steel monolith I'd called home for years. I watched the doorman step out from under the awning, his face a mask of polite indifference.
For years, this had been my sanctuary. I'd come home to the silence, to the empty rooms, to the apartment that felt like a hotel suite because I didn't want to leave a mark on the world. I had confused being controlled with being alive.
But now, as I stared at Jimmy — at the wreck of his auburn hair, at the bridge of his nose, at the way he was already half-asleep against my shoulder — I felt something monumental happen.
It was the feeling of a fault line finally giving way. A slow, heavy shift of tectonic plates that I'd spent thirteen years trying to hold in place.
I knew the word. I'd been avoiding it for days, editing it out of my internal monologue like a clumsy piece of dialogue. I'd told myself this was nostalgia, mixed with a massive dose of physical chemistry. Hell, I'd even wondered if I was afflicted with a schoolboy crush.
But here it was, undeniable and enormous, arriving in the back of a cab with a cinnamon air freshener.
I was falling in love with Jimmy again.
Not the version of him from thirteen years ago — the boy on Morningside with the loud laugh and the radical dreams. I was falling in love with this man. The one who pushed me, the one who saw through my armor, and the only man who'd ever made me come completely undone.
The cab came to a full stop. The doorman opened the door.
"We're here, Jimmy," I said, my voice cracking just enough for him to notice.
He sat up, rubbing his eyes and giving me that crooked, sleepy smile that always felt like a punch to the gut.
I looked at him, and for the first time in ten days, I stopped counting. Because the count didn't matter anymore. The tightrope was gone, and I'd already fallen.