Chapter Fifteen #2
“I mean . . . a few weeks ago, my boyfriend ran me a bath after a rough day. Lit a few candles. Played Enya, of all things.” I gave a small, awkward laugh.
“He didn’t say a word. Just sat behind me and held me.
And for once, I didn’t feel like I had to perform or protect anything. I just . . . was.”
Carson and Chelsea stared at me, frozen in identical masks of wide-eyed disbelief, mouths slightly agape, like I’d just announced I believed in mermaids or that the earth was flat.
I blinked, suddenly aware of the silence my admission had created. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see all the color drain from Ravi’s face behind the camera.
“I, uh . . .” I cleared my throat, fumbling for my footing. “I mean, it’s not like he does that sort of thing every night. Though, yes, he is very thoughtful.”
Too late. The moment was already spiraling, and I knew it. I’d cracked the veneer. And they’d seen everything.
“Boyfriend?! So you do have a boyfriend?” Carson squealed like he’d caught a kid with their hand in the cookie jar. “I thought you’d be the last person on earth taking bubble baths with their beau!”
Chelsea, sensing blood in the water, poised like a hyena to attack and quickly joined in on the razzing. “What happened to ‘Love is a capitalist construct designed to sell diamonds and disappointment’?” she teased, her glossy lips curving into a smirk.
I forced a laugh, the kind that didn’t quite make it to my eyes. “Okay, fine, I admit. I crumbled. I’d had a hell of a day and wasn’t even thinking. The call of the bathtub was too enticing to ignore. But I maintain it was a very temporary lapse in judgment.”
Carson leaned forward, practically vibrating with glee. “Oh, come on, Elliot. You can’t drop an Enya-size bath bomb and not give us more details. Let’s call him! Your boyfriend!”
“What?!” I shrieked, my eyes darting to Ravi in the wings, pacing again. But even he couldn’t save me from what was coming.
“Such a fantastic idea,” Chelsea squealed. “Yes, let’s get him on the air. I’m sure our audience would love to hear from the man who managed to chip away at your stone-cold heart.”
“I don’t know if that’s really such a great .
. .” But before I could finish protesting, one of the production assistants was already holding out their palm for my phone.
I tried to swat him away, but like the eager gnat that he was, he continued to grab for it.
In the throes of resisting, I caught a glimpse of Ravi, who looked like a fully steamed kettle ready to blow, and lost focus on the PA with the quick hands.
He snagged it from my grip, and seemingly the breath from my lungs with it.
He jotted down Leo’s number and passed the paper over to Carson, who made a dramatic show of waving it around before dialing.
“I’m sure he’s busy working. He may not even answer,” I muttered, only to have Leo pick up on the second ring.
“This is Leo,” he said, his voice low and just a little rough, like he’d been caught off guard, which of course he had.
“Leo! Hey, this is Carson and Chelsea from Good Day, Manhattan! We’re sitting here with your girlfriend, Elliot West, who’s currently regaling us with stories of your grand romantic gestures, including a candlelit bubble bath.
” Carson grinned into the mic. “So tell us, what is it like dating the woman who’s built an entire career convincing people that love is complete BS? ”
“Um.” Leo cleared his throat, like he was unsure how to answer. “I would just say her public and private persona are very different. She’s . . . not exactly the person you all think she is.”
Shit.
At that, Ravi’s top had completely boiled over, and I watched him stalk off the soundstage without looking back.
The very last thing I needed was for Leo to make me sound vulnerable or fake. Nothing alienated listeners more than a phony. This interview was sinking faster than a ship with a hole in its hull, and I knew I had to turn it around before I lost absolutely everything in the wreckage.
“Look,” I jumped in, “Leo’s a nice guy, but it’s nothing serious.
We met in Mykonos on Paradise Beach, so you can imagine how casual it all was.
” I turned to the audience, flashing a bright, confident smile.
“It’s a fling, because, ladies, we all deserve a bit of fun without needing to call it love, right?
We’ve only been dating a little while, and the truth is, he doesn’t really even know me or honestly mean all that much to me. ”
“Leo, do you hear that?” Carson smirked. “Guess no matter how many bubble baths and Enya playlists you throw at her, some things . . . and people . . . just can’t change.”
I forced a laugh, light and breezy, the kind that had gotten me through hundreds of segments. “Well, if he thought he could fix me, that’s on him. I’m not a rescue dog. I didn’t come with a sad Sarah McLachlan montage and a promise to love him forever.”
There was a deafening silence on the line. A full beat. Two, actually.
“Wow,” Leo said flatly. “Okay.”
There was a long pause. Carson and Chelsea blinked at each other, deciding whether to dive into action, sussing out if the dead air was a disaster or just enough of a dramatic pause that would cause the ratings to blow the roof off the studio.
Finally, Leo’s voice came through the line quieter, distant, and something else, something harder to place. “Right. I guess some things can’t change,” he muttered.
Then the line clicked, cutting off sharply.
“Well, that’s all the time we have,” Chelsea chimed in as she wrapped up the show. “Let’s thank our guests, the incredibly talented Jason Isaacs, musical guest Gracie Abrams, and host of Love Is a Four-Letter Word, Elliot West.”
The cameras cut, and the PA moved to unmic me, but I barely noticed, Ravi’s words about having to choose between Leo and my career from earlier still echoing in my mind. And I had chosen. Publicly. In a way that no doubt hurt and humiliated Leo.
I checked my phone, the empty screen mocking me. No message. No sign of him.
“Great show, Elliot,” Carson said, clapping me on the back with a grin. “We’ll have you back when that book of yours hits the New York Times bestseller list.”
I forced a smile, but it felt like a mask slipping off. The words came easily, but my mind was still back on TV, replaying the moment I’d dismissed Leo, making him sound like he didn’t matter to me at all.
Another glance at my phone. Still nothing.
It was okay. I’d be okay. I did what I thought was necessary for my career. For Ravi’s career. I did what I had to do.
But then the doubt hit like a wave, crashing over me, and with it came the heavy realization: I might have just thrown away the possibility of everything.
My phone buzzed in my hand and my heart leaped. I flipped it over in hopes of seeing a message from him but instead was met by a flood of notifications on my socials, most likely reactions to the segment. I couldn’t even bear to look at what they said. My stomach fell to my feet.
Ravi: What. The actual. Hell.
Ravi: You torched the segment and Leo. On air. In real time.
Ravi: Come to the greenroom. Now.
I sat there, staring at the text thread like it had just punched me in the gut. My mouth still wore the fake smile I’d plastered on for Chelsea and Carson, but inside, my organs were staging a full-on revolt.
Leo hung up. On air.
I’d embarrassed him—on air.
My legs moved automatically, carrying me through the hallways with all the grace of a crash test dummy. I barely registered the intern offering me a refill of coffee. Just waved them off like I was swatting at smoke and begrudgingly stepped into the greenroom, where Ravi was waiting for me.
“You want to tell me what the hell that was?” he shouted.
“They put me on the spot, and I did my best to turn it into a bit,” I said weakly. “It . . . it just got away from me.”
“A bit? Elliot, that was a PR disaster in real time. People now think your love life is a joke. You know who doesn’t find that funny? Our sponsors. Corporate. Sirius execs, who’ll have real money on the line. And me. I do not find this funny.”
Tears were welling in my eyes, from frustration, from shame for what I’d just done to Leo, for this undeniable guilt I couldn’t stop feeling, “This is my life. My personal life!”
Ravi was unfazed by my tears or my plea.
“Not when you make it live on air, it’s not.
Not when you are your brand. You think you can keep these worlds separate.
That’s impossible. I could have told you months ago that they’d bleed together like cheap dye in a washing machine.
And guess what? You’re the one throwing in the red sock.
This is about me too, El. You’re taking me down with you.
Everyone who has worked to get you to this point. ”
My mouth was as dry as cotton, and I struggled to swallow. “So, what? You want me to break up with him and then share all the gory details in some flashy segment? Issue a press release about my emotional availability?”
He fired off the final shot, unfiltered and unapologetic.
“You can’t have it both ways, El. You want to be in love?
Then be in love. You want to be this brand?
Then be this brand. But the middle-of-the-road thing you’re doing?
It’s going to kill the show and leave you with absolutely nothing. You need to choose. Him or the mic.”
His words stung like an actual slap. Ravi had been my producer since my radio show at Brown.
He knew me better than almost anyone. He’d been there for the whole breakup with Matty.
He knew what it did to me. How it was the final blow to my belief in anything lasting.
He watched me harness all that pain into becoming hard-edged radio personality Elliot West, who wore sarcasm like a shield and kept everyone at arm’s length.
He was one of my best friends, and to hear this unflinching and merciless review cut me to the core.
I opened my mouth to answer but didn’t know what to say.
“Figure out your shit, Elliot. I mean it. There are millions of dollars on the line. Our careers are on the line. All the deals we have in the cooker and everything that matters. All of it will disappear in the blink of an eye. You’re walking a tightrope and pretending you’re on solid ground.
Either your career matters to you or it doesn’t.
But if it does? You can’t keep playing both sides.
Not like this. Not like today. Not ever again. ”
With everything I’d fought so hard to reach hanging in the balance, despite the unrelenting ache in my heart, the choice became painfully clear. And this time, I couldn’t let myself be swayed.
I knew what I had to do.