“A two-person relationship is still regarded as the only one that matters. Personally, I think that’s bullshit,” I heard myself say. “I don’t think sex needs to be tied to any kind of relationship at all. Why can’t it just be an exchange of pleasure with no strings or expectations?”
“I guess there isn’t a good reason but I’m not the one that needs selling on that idea,” Jeff said.
“You sure about that?” I asked, my brows raised.
“I’m sure,” Jeff said, and then the screen cut. It wasn’t bad for a half-hour show, and I was sure the audience would love it—that is, if they weren’t ready to kill us both thanks to the District Inquirer. I thought it was over but then a “Next time on For the Record...” piece of text showed up on the screen and I rolled my eyes. What was the point of having a next time teaser on a show that had all episodes available at once?
It flashed through things quickly, jumping way ahead in our interview timeline and showing clips from both of my speeches—I cringed at the realization they’d included the second one—and again I heard the last piece of conversation from the end of the episode over a black screen.
Then the screen flashed several images in quick succession of Jeff and me, none of them good. One was of me holding and massaging his hand at Adam’s Diner. Another showed us walking down the sidewalk, hand in hand, after we’d left maxbar. And yet another of Jeff slipping me a piece of paper in my condo by the bathroom. The blood turned to ice in my veins.
Not only had Lee been having us followed, and not only had he been having Ross and the others recording us when they weren’t supposed to be, he’d been having us photographed—and for much more of the time than either of us were aware of. I glanced at Jeff and found him staring straight ahead as if there were still something to see on screen. His mouth was a thin, tight line and his eyes were like steel. He knew about this. He had to have, I thought, my heart hammering in my ears. And then the credits rolled and the lights that had dimmed burst back into life.
“Wow, what a doozy of an episode!” Cameron said as we came back on air for the live stream. My head spun, totally unsure of what was happening. Lee had included my relationship with Jeff after all, and everything Jeff had said at the start of the stream had just been undone. Is this part of their plan, too? Are they still trying to drive up the drama and the views? I thought, the words crossing my mind so slowly that I felt like I’d been tranquilized or something. If the entire world didn’t know that Jeff and I were together before, they certainly knew now.
“The comments are pouring in and based on what we just saw, it looks like we’ve got a lot to talk about!” Cameron said, his annoyingly cheerful voice seeping into my ears and echoing in my brain. I felt like I was underwater and drowning. As if the District Inquirer’s photos weren’t damaging enough, now Lee and his editors had run with them and stitched them into the narrative of the show.
I’m fucked. I’m totally fucked, I thought. The words repeated over and over in my head. They played me yet again. Cameron’s mouth was moving, saying something to me, but I didn’t hear it, not a word of it. In a daze, I stood from my chair, tore off my microphone and threw it onto the seat behind me.
“I can’t do this. I can’t fucking do this,” I said, hearing my own voice as if I were outside of my body, and shoved through all of the crew who tried to keep me there, keep me hostage as they put the final nails in everything I had, to the elevator.
The last thing I saw as the doors closed was Jeff running to them.
25
Jeff
An intense, determined pounding startled me awake. I shot up off the sofa, dazed and confused, my head swimming and almost overwhelmed with pain. On the floor beside me was a broken glass, which I must’ve dropped after I passed out. I had no idea what time it was, or even what day it was. All I knew was the last thing I remembered was watching some dumb recap video online about everything that had happened during For the Record’s premiere live stream.
Slowly, because I thought I might step on a shard of glass and fall over otherwise, I stood up. The room spun and I realized quickly that I was still drunk and that the majority of the scotch I’d downed while I was still conscious hadn’t left my system. Sharp, harsh morning light poured in through the open curtains and I let out an anguished cry when the pounding at the door started again.
“I’m coming, dear God, please stop the noise,” I groaned as I shuffled to the door.
“Open up! I know you’re in there!” a muffled voice called from the other side. Truthfully, I would sooner have fallen back asleep on the couch and chalked the missed connection up to me not being home, but I knew whoever it was wasn’t going to stop knocking so I might as well get it over with and send them away so I could get back to nursing the severe hangover I was feeling that hadn’t even fully set in yet.
I opened the door and winced at the light. When my eyes refocused, I found Dylan standing in front of me, his face flushed.
“What are you doing here?” I croaked. My throat was dry and the words were like fire coming through it.
“Jesus,” he groaned, waving a hand in front of his face. “What the hell have you been drinking, battery acid?”
“It was bottom-shelf scotch, so it may as well have been,” I said.
“Why didn’t you answer any of my calls or texts?”
“Doesn’t this speak for itself?” I asked and he frowned at me. “Look, I’m sure you’re here to help or whatever but now’s really not a good time.”
“Now’s the perfect time,” he said and elbowed his way through the door. If I hadn’t been drunk and swaying, I would’ve fought him off, but there was no way I could do it now. Instead, I allowed him in and softly closed the door behind me to avoid another ringing hit to my headache. Dylan stepped through the living room, caught sight of the glass on the floor, and shook his head.
“How much did you drink?” he asked, stooping to pick up the largest pieces of glass.
“I have literally no idea. I’m still drunk,” I admitted.
“I noticed,” he said over his shoulder.
“You don’t have to do that.”
“I know I don’t, but I also don't want you getting hurt in your less-than-capable state,” he said and took the largest pieces of glass to the trashcan in the kitchen. I went back to the sofa and fell down onto it, covering my face with my forearm to make the piercing pain of the light go away.
“What is today?” I asked over the sound of water running in the sink.
“Sunday,” he answered and each of his footsteps were like thunder in my head as he walked back to the sofa. He picked up my forearm and laid a warm, wet towel across my eyes and forehead. “Thanks,” I said. “But why are you doing this?”
“I watched the premiere and had a feeling you’d need a friend right about now,” he said, sitting down on the sofa beside me. He picked up my legs, weaseled beneath them, and let them fall into his lap.
“Not like I have a lot to choose from,” I said and he chuckled.
“Exactly. Dude, you seriously fucking disappeared last night,” he said.
“Do you blame me?” I asked, my heart lurching at the thought of what’d happened. It’d all gone down so fast. The interview with Cameron and Kile had been awkward enough, and though I didn’t know what exactly he was up to, I knew Kile was planning to do something stupid, something to get back at the both of us. Luckily, he hadn’t gotten the chance, but we’d both gotten so much more than we’d bargained for.
“I still can’t wrap my head around it. Lee sold both of you out,” Dylan said.
“Oh, I believe it. I told you he was a snake,” I said.
“Yeah, but this? I mean, this is on an entirely different level, even for him,” he said. It was the first time I’d heard him say anything even remotely critical of Lee. I already liked Dylan, but hearing those words made me like him twice as much, on the spot.
“Have you heard from Kile?” he asked and I laughe
d.
“Please, he has no reason to talk to me right now. He thinks I had a hand in all of this,” I said.
“What? Seriously?”
“Yes, seriously. He thinks I’ve been helping Ross and the rest of Lee’s goons record us, thinks I’ve been telling Lee where we’re going and what we’re up to so that Lee could record it all and put it in the show,” I said. It sounded completely absurd as it came from my mouth, and yet Kile believed it.
“Well, that explains him running off set like that,” Dylan said. “Holy shit, dude. This just keeps getting crazier.”
“Yeah, hence the booze,” I said. “What’s the reaction been like?” I asked, not really wanting to know.
“About as varied as you’d think,” he said. “The ratings were through the roof from what I gathered, but there were some, well, nasty things being bandied about on social media.”
“Of course. Everyone’s a critic, especially the people who don’t have a fucking clue what they’re talking about. Have you heard from Lee?”
“Well… that’s part of the reason I’m here,” he said and I lifted the rag to look at him. He avoided my gaze.
“What does that mean?”
“I don’t like this, any of it. It’s totally fucked what Lee did,” he said.
“I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again: I knew I liked you for a reason,” I said and he chuckled. “So, what are you saying?”
“I’m saying you have to fight back. You’ve got to go public about all of this,” he said and I sighed, the very idea making me feel fatigued—more than I already did.
“What the hell can I do, Dylan? I don’t have any power here. Literally none. Who’s going to believe me over the editor-in-chief of NewSpin, especially after dragging my reputation through the mud thanks to my little meltdown at GNN. I have no credibility. I don’t have anything,” I vented, tears burning at the corners of my eyes, tears I’d refused to let fall.
“I’ve lost everything. Literally everything. My career is gone, dust or worse at this point, Kile will never forgive me no matter what I say, and I don’t have any prospects. I’m going to be stuck at NewSpin at Lee’s mercy for the rest of my life. This is all I have left. I’ve accepted it and you need to do the same,” I continued, letting everything I’d been suppressing come crashing out of me.
“I’m a liar,” I choked through the tears that now poured from my eyes. “Or at least that’s what everyone thinks I am. And how can I possibly prove them wrong now? I lied on a live stream, to the eyes and ears of millions of people, and then was contradicted almost immediately after by my own words and actions,” I said. “There’s no coming back from that, not as a journalist.”
“So maybe you don’t come back as a journalist, then,” Dylan said.
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“I mean that maybe this part of your career is over and maybe there are other, greener pastures on the other side of this nightmare,” he said.
“Like what? What the hell am I good for now? Not even a third-rate blogger would hire me at this point, and I wouldn’t blame them.”
“You’re not thinking outside of your own immediate circle, Jeff. Yeah, sure, this looks bad, I won’t deny it, but there are some people out there who would kill to have a controversial ratings magnet like you,” he said.
“Yeah, sure, I bet there are just dozens of editors and producers out there lining up to talk to me,” I bit back. “It’s over, Dylan. I’m over. I appreciate your support, but it’s a waste,” I continued, and he laughed. Actually laughed. “I don’t see anything funny about this,” I said.
“It’s not funny. It’s sad. Here you are, a titan of the industry, drunk and sobbing into a wet rag because you’ve given up. Totally fucking thrown in the towel,” he said and anger flashed in my chest.
“Given up? Given up?! No, you’re more than a little misguided there,” I shouted, jolting up from the sofa to look him in the eye.
“There it is, there’s the Jeff Taylor fire I know,” he said.
“Yeah, and a whole lot of good it’s done me.”
“Maybe it just wasn’t harnessed correctly. Maybe with discipline and the right kind of target, it could move mountains,” he said.
“Is this your idea of a pep talk?”
“Something like that,” he said with a smirk. And, well, damn, it was fucking working. I didn’t want to be cheered up or cheered on. I wanted to mope and allow myself to feel it, I didn’t want Dylan to come waltzing in here and telling me that everything was going to be OK. Because it wouldn’t be. It couldn’t be. There was no way out of this.
“Maybe Lee should be your next target, the next guy you take down,” he said and the anger I’d previously felt balled up in the middle of my chest switched to intrigue.
“How? What do I have over him?” I asked, genuinely not knowing the answer. Dylan fished in his pocket for a few moments, eventually producing a business card, which he handed to me between two fingers.
“What the hell is this?” I asked, snatching it away from him, my hangover and confusion coupling to make me much more irritable than I had the right to be with him. I pored over the card and my heart skipped a beat. Wade Barrett. President of NewsAmp. Ex-exec at GNN. Suddenly, it all clicked into place.
“Holy shit,” I whispered, staring at the card. “Dylan, you devious, devilish genius,” I laughed.
“I’m glad someone at least recognizes my genius,” he said. It was a long shot, and even if it worked to take Lee down it didn’t guarantee that it would make things right with Kile, but I had to try. I had to. I owed it to the both of us.
“Here you were worried about getting on my bad side when it should’ve been me that was worried all along,” I said and he smirked.
“Nah, I always knew you were a good guy. You’ve got nothing to worry about with me,” he said.
“I’m sure I’ve said this before, but you’re going places. Like, big places,” I said, still in awe.
“I know,” he said, beaming at me. “I’ve always known.”
“But what about Kile?”
“What about him? This is your only way back to him. If you can prove that Lee is the lying, scheming scumbag he is, Kile will forgive you. He’ll understand. I mean, I don’t know the half of what went on between you two, but I have to believe that at least some part of him doesn’t believe you had a hand in all of this,” he said.
“He’s stubborn. Like, arguably more than me. I’m not sure he’ll buy it, even then,” I said.
“Well, maybe that explains why the two of you were so good together. You’re two peas in a pod, two very different and yet very similar manifestations of the same thing. What do you have to lose by trying?” he asked, his words echoing in my head. He leaned forward and picked my phone up off of the coffee table in front of us to hold it out before me, shaking it.
“If you really want to be with him, really want to be happy, this is your only way to make that happen,” he said. “Call Wade. Make it right.” I snatched the phone out of his hand and dialed Wade’s number as quickly as my still-intoxicated fingers would allow me. Though my head continued to pound, it hurt much less now that I had a mission, a way out of all of this, even if it was about as likely to work as putting bleach on a wound.
“Hello?” he asked after three rings, his voice deep and gravelly. I’d never heard him speak before, but now as I took his voice in, I easily pictured him as the no-nonsense leader he no doubt was.
“Hi, Wade Barrett? This is Jeff Taylor,” I said, unsure of what else exactly to say. The line went silent for a few moments until I heard him sigh quietly.
“Hi, Jeff. I had a feeling I might be hearing from you,” he said and I chuckled.
“That’s funny because it hadn’t even occurred to me to call you until about three minutes ago,” I said. “Look, I know this call is probably as awkward for you as it is for me, but I couldn’t just sit back and let this happen without doing something o
r trying to do something anyway,” I said. Though I’ve really got Dylan to thank for all of this, I added in my thoughts.
“Yeah, last night was… Something else. Don’t get me wrong, the views were fantastic and traffic was high all night thanks to it, but I’m not sure the price was worth it,” he said.
“Sounds like we’re on the same page, then,” I said. “Since you brought it up, and since that’s obviously why I called, there are some things I need to explain. Well, lots of them, actually.”
“I assumed as much. Lucky for you, I’ve got some time available to hear you out,” he said. “So, what did you need to say?”
“First things first, Lee Noble is anything but noble. He’s been trying to screw me since he first brought me on at NewSpin,” I said and Wade laughed.
“You know, you’re not the first person to tell me that about him.”
“I’m not surprised.”
“But how exactly? What did he do?”
“For starters, he hired me under the impression that I’d be doing some beat work to start before I moved up to bigger, better things. He hinted at new opportunities opening up at NewSpin, and well, I didn’t really have any other options so I agreed to it,” I said.
“That doesn’t sound all that grievous to me,” he said.
“I know, but that’s where it gets interesting. He hired me to do For the Record with Kile Avery, but he didn’t tell me that that’s what he was going to be assigning me to do until after I agreed to take the job,” I said.
“Hmm… Something tells me it only gets more interesting from here,” he said.
“Yeah, that’s putting it lightly. From there, and I don’t think I really need to explain this since I’m sure you saw the episode last night during the stream, things between Kile and me really did escalate. We were together, I won’t lie about that. I shouldn’t have let it happen as a professional, but it did,” I said.
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