Aaron laughed. “She doesn’t trust you because she still thinks you cheated on her?”
“I think we’ve gotten past that, actually. She doesn’t trust me because she doesn’t trust anyone.”
“That’s a pickle. And you still want her back?”
“More than anything in this life. I can’t even put a finger on why, just that whenever I see her, I feel…” Brad couldn’t explain it. Something in him melted whenever they were in a room with each other, but that was the kind of schmoopy, romantic nonsense Aaron would definitely make fun of him for.
“Turned on?” Aaron suggested.
“Sure, that. But…happy. I feel happy. I think we can make each other happy. But winning her back is turning out to require a lot of effort.”
“In what way?”
Brad huffed out a breath and sipped his drink. “Well, she requires some convincing.”
“So you contacting me to get her onMystery Mealdidn’t do the trick?”
“I didn’t do that to win her back.”
“The hell you say.”
“Well, okay, maybe in the back of my mind, I thought she might be grateful, but I genuinely just wanted to help her. Because I still really care about her. If she decided to view that as a reason to give me a second chance, then bonus. Unfortunately, I don’t think that’s how she saw it.”
“Hmm.”
“And on top of that, I managed to piss off a journalist in the process.” Brad explained what had happened with Heather, theTimesreporter.
When Brad finished talking, Aaron said, “So let me get this straight. You pissed off aNew York Timesreporter for Lindsay’s sake?”
That wasn’t exactly how Brad had seen it in the moment, but… Yes, that is exactly what he’d done. But he said, “I didn’t think you’d do me another favor.”
“Nor could I have without pissing off my bosses. Especially in that case. Heather Chapman is a hack.”
“You know her?”
“She took over for Russo when he got promoted, but her writing lacks any life. She writes about food with about the same excitement I have for watching grass grow.”
“I’m pretty sure she’s a robot. She has no personality.”
Aaron nodded. “My boss doesn’t like her because she gave one of the Food Channel’s regular chefs a bad review. You know Wood Plank in the Village?”
“Yeah. That’s Billy Watts’s place, isn’t it?” Billy Watts was kind of the ur-celebrity chef. He hosted or worked as a judge on a half-dozen different properties.
“Yup. And Billy Watts is a god at the Food Channel. I’m not saying Wood Plank is this amazing restaurant, because I ate there once and it’s good but definitely trying too hard. Although the salmon there is…” Aaron moaned. “Well, anyway, her panning Wood Plank effectively got her blacklisted.”
“She said she’d been trying to getChampion Cheftickets.”
“Don’t mess with Billy Watts. That is for sure why she keeps getting turned down. He coproducesChampion Chef.”
“So just as well I didn’t try to get her in with you.”
“Yeah, that would have been embarrassing for all of us.”
Paige was still a little pissed Brad had biffed the interview, but so far no story had run. Brad thought no review was better than a negative one, which he’d been worried about. Heather might have been a robot, but she could have retaliated if she was genuinely mad at him.
He sighed and sipped his manhattan.
Aaron pulled over a stool and sat across from Brad. “Okay. So, let’s think about this for a second. You did Lindsay a solid. She was great on the show, by the way. I have zero regrets about setting that up.”
