Page 50 of Making It Live!

"His dressing room."

Jillian picked up my bourbon and drank from it.I didn't stop her.She set the glass down, pressed both palms flat on the table, and looked at me with an expression that was half horror and half something I didn't want to name because it looked dangerously close to delight.

"In the building.You slept with your anchor in the building where you both work."

"The building was mostly empty," I shrugged, trying to downplay it.

"Oh, well, if it was mostly empty."Jillian flagged down the bartender without looking away from me."I need my own glass of whatever this is.Immediately.Do not make me wait."The bartender, who had clearly served bossy divas before, moved with impressive speed.

Jillian's bourbon arrived.She drank half of it in one go, set it down, and straightened her spine in a way I recognized from years of friendship.This was Jillian shifting from gossip mode to operational mode.The difference was subtle but critical: gossip Jillian wanted details.Operational Jillian was about to tell me things I didn't want to hear.

"Okay."She held up a hand."First of all.You cannot sleep with your coworker."

"I know."

"You especially cannot sleep with your coworker when your coworker is the star of the show you produce."

"I know, Jillian."

"And you especially cannot sleep with your coworker when your coworker is your ex-boyfriend who you left in a spectacular fashion that I have heard about roughly nine hundred times from both you and—"

"What?"Who the hell had Jillian been talking to?

Jillian waved this away like a gnat."The point is, this is the trifecta of bad decisions.It's a workplace violation wrapped in an emotional landmine wrapped in thirteen years of unresolved baggage.Jimmy, you are a Peabody Award–winning journalist.You’ve survived actual gunfire.You do not need me to tell you that this is—"

"A terrible idea.I know.Which is why I told him it can never happen again."

Jillian studied me.The operational assessment continued — I could practically see the gears turning, the data being sorted, the conclusions being drawn with the ruthless efficiency of a woman whose day job involved managing information for New York City government.

"How was it?"she asked, biting her lower lip.

"Jillian."

"I'm gathering intelligence.Answer the question."

I stared at the amber in my glass.Swirled it.The low light caught the liquid, throwing warm shadows across the table, and I thought about Nelson's dressing room, the dim light, the shattered glass and grooming supplies on the tile floor, the sound he'd made when…

"That bad, huh?"Jillian said softly.

"The opposite."My voice came out quieter than I intended."It was—" I searched for a word that would be honest without being revealing and couldn't find one, so I just shook my head.

Jillian was quiet for a moment.A real moment, not a dramatic pause.She wrapped both hands around her glass and stared at me the way she'd stared at me sophmore year at Columbia, when I'd told her I thought I was falling for a guy in the journalism program — with a gentleness she would deny possessing if you ever mentioned it publicly.

"It can't happen again, Jimmy."

"I just said that."

"You said the words, but I'm not convinced you believe them."She took a measured sip of bourbon."You just started the best-paying job of your life and you are finally — finally — out of financial survival mode.Jimmy, you can afford a real apartment and probably a therapist, which, by the way, you desperately need.If this thing with Nelson blows up at work, you lose the job, the salary, and the first stability you've had in years."

Every word landed.Jillian had a gift for saying the exact thing you already knew but hadn't been willing to say to yourself.

"It won't happen again," I muttered.

Jillian held my gaze for a long time.Then she finished her bourbon, set the glass down, and pointed at me with one perfectly manicured finger.

"You are a world-class journalist and an absolutely catastrophic decision-maker when it comes to Nelson Mackenzie, and I say that with genuine love."

"Noted."