Page 76 of Making It Live!

My dressing room.Now.

I pulled the earpiece out with a sharp tug, the plastic rubbing the skin of my ear raw, and walked off the floor without a word.

Harry appeared at my shoulder."Nelson, the post-show notes from the—"

"Home, Harry."

"But the digital team—"

"Home.Now."I didn't look at him.I couldn't.If I looked at anyone, the frost I was using to hold myself together would shatter.

My footsteps rang against the corridor floor like rifle shots.My thoughts were racing, and by the time I reached my dressing room, I was just a man in a stiff, expensive jacket trying to remember how to breathe.

I shut the door and started to pace — three steps to the vanity, three steps to the door — my pulse a frantic, jagged rhythm in my throat.

Then the door groaned open.No knock.No two-knuckle warning.Jimmy came in like someone walking through a hurricane.

"Jimmy."I crossed the room, my hands reaching for him instinctively, but he looked so brittle I was afraid I'd snap him."Jimmy, what happened?I've been calling you for hours—"

"They fired me."

The air left the room.

"What?"My voice was a rasp.

"Restructuring."He gave a hollow, terrifyingly mirthless laugh."For the 'post-cable era.'They're invoking the probationary clause.Friday is my last day."

He moved toward the couch, his legs looking like they might give out.I didn't let him get that far.I reached out, my fingers curling around his forearms, and guided him down.I sat beside him, so close I could feel the frantic heat radiating off him.

The words began to spill out of him then — a frantic, broken stream.He told me about the calendar invite from Bruce.The corporate lawyer, Lauren, sitting in that second chair like a vulture.He told me about the scripted praise, the "renaissance" of the show, and then the knife in his back.

"Optics," he whispered, his voice finally breaking.

I felt a surge of pure, vitriolic heat rise in my chest."They said optics?"

"They wrote down 'conflict of interest,' Nelson.The supervisor and the anchor — clean, defensible, the version Legal can put in a file."He finally looked at me, and a single, heavy tear broke the line of his cheekbone.He didn't wipe it away; he looked too exhausted to try."But that's the shield.The real reason doesn't go in writing, because the real reason costs them a lawsuit.They'll bank the ratings from a gay President they had no choice but to air, and then get squeamish about two men on their own payroll.So they're protecting you, the star.I'm the liability.I'm the problem that gets 'restructured' out of a job."

I reached out and pulled him to me, my arms wrapping around him with a fierce, possessive strength.He collapsed against me, his face buried in the crook of my neck.Jimmy clutched the back of my shirt, and he started to shake.Deep, racking sobs.

I held him, smoothing my hand over his hair, my fingers tracing the tension in his scalp.My own eyes were stinging, but the tears were being boiled away by a white-hot fury.

The fucking network had done this to him.They’d taken his brilliance, his awards, his years of war-zone grit, and reduced it to a PR problem.And they had done it in my name.

"They think they own the anchor chair," I murmured into his hair, my voice vibrating with a cold, surgical rage."They think they can edit my life like it's a thirty-second clip.But the network forgot that the chair is nothing without the man in it.Me.Nelson Mackenzie."

"Nelson, don't."Jimmy pulled back just enough to look at me, his eyes red-rimmed and panicked."Please.I can find another job.The severance is enormous.It'll tide me over.I'll move into the new place, I'll… I'll be fine.Just don't risk the show.Don't let them do something awful to you, too."

He was asking me to let him go.Again.

Thirteen years ago, he’d left me with a note on a kitchen table, and he'd carried that guilt like a stone for over a decade.Now he was standing on the edge of the same cliff, ready to jump just to keep me on the air.

I looked at him — really looked at him.I saw the freckles on his nose, the way his hands were still shaking on my lap.This was the man who had taught me how to be a person again, and how to love.

I'd spent half my career being told what I could and could not do.I had a list — a long, quiet list of lines I'd drawn for myself when I was young, frightened, and learning that if you don't draw them, the network will draw them through your heart.Don't use the leverage.Don't burn the bridge.Don't make anything personal.

I watched Jimmy try to pull himself together for my sake, and every line on that list went out like a row of blown bulbs.

I would burn it, all of it.I would burn the anchor desk, the eight-figure renewal sitting in my agent's drawer, and my carefully constructed reputation.I would burn the whole damned broadcast down if it meant I didn't have to watch Jimmy walk away from me twice.