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Her stomach flipped and her heart lodged in her throat again.
“Hello?” she almost squeaked when she answered.
“You coming in, or am I going to have to talk to this old hack?” Carmen greeted her.
Gemma scoffed. “Don’t call him that. He’s a legend.”
“Yeah, a legend about to roll up to an empty studio full of leftover chow mein unless you get your butt in here, missy. You have two minutes or I’m calling it, and thenyouget to explain to Marsha and Nigel Black’s people why we canceled at the last second.” She hung up and left Gemma swearing at her phone.
“Problem?” Jack asked.
The nerves screaming through Gemma’s body felt like electric cables in a thunderstorm. Her voice shook when she spoke.
“Um, only that a very famous musician who I happen to be a very big fan of is due here any minute for a live interview, and since my boss is out, I’m going to have to do it.” She had stood up at some point, and she was clutching her phone like her hands were a sweaty vise.
The memory of that day she met Nigel as a child lived in vivid color in her brain, seared like a feature film of shame. Her father had taken her with him to the recording studio, and Nigel had been there with his whole band. Cool andtall and ruggedly handsome, he smelled like leather and spice and a refreshing burst of mint. He was everything Gemma had imagined and more. Larger than life in the best way possible. Her father shook his hand and nudged Gemma forward to do the same, but she had gone catatonic. She’d had the chance to claim her industry birthright as a miniature mogul who casually rubbed elbows with rock stars, and she blanked. Everyone thought it was cute, but she thought it was a failure. Her chance to be who she was born to be, and she’d blown it. The brief interaction that probably didn’t register as relevant to anyone else in the room still haunted her.
If it were anyone else at her studio today.Anyoneelse.
“I want a job in radio, like, actually on the air someday,” she told Jack, still breathing too hard. “It’s my dream, but I can’t—Nigel is—I think I’m going to throw up.” She threw a hand over her mouth.
Jack popped up from the bench and gently gripped her shoulders. “Hey, don’t throw up. Having to interview a rock star is a pretty awesome problem to have as far as problems go, right? I mean, look at the rest of the day in comparison.”
Gemma tried for a smile, but she had broken out in a clammy sweat. She glanced around for a trash bin and hoped she wasn’t about to ruin Jack’s shirt for the second time that day. If she couldn’t pull it together for one interview, she had no hope of hosting her own show someday. She would never prove herself to Marsha. Perhaps she was not cut out for her dream job after all.
“You don’t understand,” she told Jack. “I met Nigel as a kid, and I totally froze. I couldn’t even speak. I don’t knowhow I’m supposed to interview him now. This is going to be a disaster.”
“Hey hey hey, you’re fine, Gemma. You’re fine.” He squeezed her shoulders and took a deep breath, nodding his head in an effort to get her to do the same. “You were a kid when that happened. You’re an adult now. A professional. And I talk to famous people all the time at work. They’re just people. So what if Nigel is the front man of one of the biggest bands of all time—okay, that was the wrong thing to say! Forget I said it!” Jack jumped sideways when she dry-heaved.
She tried to focus. Earlier, she had momentarily thought it would be a thrill to talk to Nigel Black, but facing the situation head-on, she didn’t know if she had it in her, and the clock was ticking. There on the hot sidewalk, her body a rigid ball of nerves and sweat, she couldn’t decide what would be worse: canceling the interview and enduring Marsha’s and Nigel’s people’s wrath or going through with it and throwing up on a famous rock star she had idolized since she was a child.
“Hey, Gemma, listen, listen.” Jack gripped her shoulders again and met her eyes as she took deep pulls of air through her nose. His brow bent in concern, but he kept focused. “I know you don’t like me telling you about things before they happen, but I think this situation calls for breaking the rules.”
She sucked in two tight breaths. “What are you talking about?”
“What if I told you that you get this nervous every time, but you do the interview, and you totally nail it?”
It might have been the lack of oxygen to her brain, but she couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “Really?”
“Yes,” Jack said with a sure nod. “I’ve heard it a million times, well, about a hundred and forty-six times, actually.” His face split into a crooked grin that summoned a vision of him in the bar from the night before. It put a flutter in her chest that dampened the panic.
“And it goes well?”
“Yes. I know you can do it because you’ve done it before. Over and over.”
Gemma stood up straight and fought for a deep, full breath. He could have been right, she thought. She had not remembered the conversation she’d just had with Patrick and she had reasoned it was because it was too overwhelming. Perhaps her mind was protecting her.
Jack smiled at her. “When I say you got this, I really mean,you got this. Trust me.”
Hearing him say it gave her an undeniable confidence boost. Though she had to admit she could not imagine pulling herself together from a state of sidewalk panic to being composed enough to go on air in a matter of minutes.
Right then, a black SUV with tinted windows pulled to the curb with a low, imposing purr. Gemma could not see inside it, but she knew who it was. She knew there was no turning back.
“There’s your cue,” Jack said with a reassuring nod.
Her heart was about to beat out of her chest for all kinds of reasons. He released her arms, and as his hands dropped to his sides, she reached out and gripped one.
“Will you come in and watch?”
