Page 10

chapter five

Jillian

“ A re you Jillian from the news?” Olivia’s words broke the silence in the car as Graham backtracked his way to my house.

I looked over my shoulder at the girl, who slipped her phone down into the side pouch of her backpack.

She was sitting behind her father, and he kept glancing at her in the rearview mirror.

“That’s me,” I said, flashing a smile. She had beautiful eyes, blue like her dad’s. Her mascara was smeared beneath them.

I just knew a boy had to be responsible for this.

Olivia looked from me to the back of her father’s head, as though she were trying to work something out.

I spoke quickly to prevent her from making any assumptions.

“I was at a party in the neighbor’s backyard and needed a ride.

Your dad came to my rescue tonight, too.

” I looked over at Graham, witnessing the corners of his lips tug upward.

“At Owen Gardner’s house?” Olivia asked.

“Yes.”

She nodded, adjusting the clip securing her dark hair at the back of her head. “I can’t believe we live next door to him,” she said. “He has, like, half a million followers.”

“I know, isn’t that wild?”

“Probably because he’s so hot,” she said, making her dad mutter something under his breath. “So were the Gardners having a big rager, or what?”

I laughed. “Not quite. There’s only a few of us every Friday. The guys play poker for a while, and the women have a sort of book club meeting. And then we end up—”

“Book club?” That caught her attention. “What do you guys read?”

“Romance, mostly. Sometimes something a little more murder-y. Sometimes both.”

Olivia’s phone lit up, and she pulled it out of the pocket of her bag just enough to read the text message that flashed across the screen.

Whatever it said, it made her roll her eyes.

I decided to turn around and face the front.

“Speaking of books,” Graham said, peering at her in the mirror again.

“You should peek at the shelf in the den when we get home.”

“Oh. You have a den?”

“Yes, we have a den. At least that’s what I’m calling it.”

“What’s on the shelf? My books?”

“Yes,” Graham said, clearing his throat. The corners of his eyes crinkled like he couldn’t contain his happiness. “And then some. Actually, I don’t want to ruin the surprise. You’ll just have to see.”

“Hmm. Okay,” she mumbled. For a few minutes, she pulled out her phone and texted someone. Graham and I were quiet in the front seat, other than him asking me if I was cold.

Graham’s expression gradually turned into a concerned scowl as he concentrated on the road. The lively, jokey guy he was before the call from his daughter was gone. I wondered about the conversation they’d have after he dropped me off. Would Olivia open up to him?

He seemed like an easy person to open up to.

When Olivia’s phone screen turned off, I twisted my body to face her again. “So, Olivia, do you have any exciting plans for the summer?”

She glanced around and stared at her fingernails, as though searching for the right answer. “Not really. My friend Sasha just got a pool, so I’ll probably just… be at her house a lot.”

“Ooh, nice. It pays to have a friend with a pool,” I said.

“Do you have a friend with a pool?”

I let out a little chuckle. “Well, no. I did when I was your age.”

“You should convince the Gardners to get a pool,” she said.

“That’s not a bad idea, you know. Maybe I will.”

Olivia glanced at the back of her dad’s head again before looking at me. “You look so different from your picture on the billboard.”

“That was taken ages ago, back when I first moved here,” I said with a grunt. “They really need to update that.”

She crossed her arms and in a monotone voice, she said, “You should complain to the new CEO about that.”

A smile tugged at the corners of my lips. This girl definitely had her dad’s sense of humor. Stealing a quick glance at Graham, who was shaking his head, I said, “Good thinking. It’s about time he does something useful.”

“Hey,” Graham said, slowing the car as he drove through a school zone. “You’ll be happy to know I’ve been busy implementing the new intern program. And… not much else, but it’s something.”

I grinned, knowing the high school internship initiative was one of Silas’s few good ideas before he resigned. “Didn’t your predecessor come up with that one?”

“I said ‘implemented’,” Graham snapped back. He glanced at Olivia in the rear-view mirror. “I tried to get this one to recruit some of her friends for it, but she thinks journalism is dorky.”

I scoffed, pretending to be offended as I looked over my shoulder at Olivia. She spoke up before I could say anything. “I wasn’t talking about WWTV. Just the paper.”

Graham clutched his heart. “Oof. That hurts.”

“We’re taking some summer interns at the TV station, too,” I told her.

“Wait,” Olivia said, sitting up straighter. “What will the interns be doing?”

“Well,” I said, having not really considered this. Marco told me I’d be getting an intern to assist me in the mornings, but he hadn’t really mentioned any specific tasks. It was probably up to me to decide, after all.

My workload had increased over the past year after my co-anchor accepted a job in Indianapolis.

Doing the morning show solo was supposed to be temporary, but when Silas swooped in and started making cuts, he saw that I was capable of carrying the show on my own.

So he made no effort to hire anyone else.

I was drowning in all the extra work, and having no one but Bernard to riff with on-air devalued the quality of the show.

At that point, though, I’d been so used to making it work that I didn’t complain.

“Whoever they give me will just be in charge of helping me keep my head on straight,” I said with a laugh, but it was the truth. Olivia smiled from one side of her mouth as she listened. “And supplying me with fresh coffee throughout the morning.”

I watched the girl fiddle with the zipper on her backpack. “When does that start?”

“Um…?” I couldn’t remember the exact date, so I looked at Graham for an answer.

“Next week. Wednesday.”

Olivia chewed on her bottom lip. “Okay, so it’s like, way too late to sign up then, isn’t it?”

An involuntary gasp escaped from my lips. “Why, do you want to do it?”

“Maybe,” she replied with a casual shrug.

“Are you kidding me? You little traitor,” Graham said with a laugh, leaning back to get a better look at his daughter in the mirror. “When I told you about this, you said, and I quote, ‘nobody wants to work with their dad.’”

“I know, but I didn’t really think about how fun it could be to work in the TV studio. I wish I’d filled out an application.”

“Maybe it’s not too late?” I looked from her to Graham, arching one eyebrow. “I bet we could convince the CEO to accept a late application.”

Graham shifted, wincing, as he flipped the turn signal on.

The car slowed before turning onto my street, where a row of towering oak trees lined the road.

I loved the way the branches created a canopy over the streets in my neighborhood, even if the roots made the sidewalks crack and lift from the ground.

When I used to jog before work in the mornings, I’d stick to the street, wearing reflective clothing so I wouldn’t become a breaking news story myself.

But that was before I realized jogging was exacerbating my pain. I’d traded jogging in the dark to walking on the treadmill at the gym, and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t considering signing up for a water aerobics class with all the senior citizens.

Graham tapped his fingers on the steering wheel, his eyes flicking from his daughter in the rearview to me in his passenger seat. “I can hear the cries of nepotism already,” he said with a sigh.

“It’s not nepotism if I’m requesting her,” I said, smiling over my shoulder at Olivia.

She looked pleased. “Would you actually do that?”

“I actually would!”

“Livvy,” Graham exhaled, his tone mixed with caution and amusement, “this might not work out.”

“It’d be a good distraction from Richie this summer…”

Graham immediately straightened. “I’ll pull some strings. Hell, I’ll build you your own office.”

I knew there had to be a story there, especially when I noticed the way Olivia rolled her eyes.

The summer intern program had sort of slipped my mind in the chaos of everything else, but now I had something to look forward to.

Olivia seemed like someone I could really get along with—she was sharp, funny, and curious.

She might even make a good news anchor someday, if I could prove to her that journalism wasn’t “dorky.”

As Graham pulled up to my house, he slowed the car and glanced at me. “Is this it?”

“This is it,” I said, looking up at the Craftsman-style house sitting atop my sloped lawn.

It wasn’t anything fancy, just a modest home with a wide front porch and a single dormer window on the second floor—the detail that had made me fall in love with it on Zillow.

It might not have been much, but it was mine.

I bought it without a partner and without my parents’ help.

Unless you counted the free labor my dad put into refinishing the floors and sealing the windows.

My mind shifted to Xander for a second, wondering when he planned on telling me about his handyman skills. Would he and my dad get along?

And when would it be the right time to ask Xander to come to Tennessee to meet my family?

As I picked up my purse from the floorboard, I was distracted by a man in dark clothes walking a dog down the jagged sidewalk.

He stopped in front of my neighbor’s house, smoking a cigarette while the dog lifted its leg to pee on the shrubbery.

I bit my bottom lip. Being around unfamiliar men in the dark made me feel a little uneasy.

I turned to Graham, preparing to ask him if he wouldn’t mind walking me up to my house, but he was already unbuckling, eyeing the man on the sidewalk.

“Be right back,” he told Olivia.

“See you next week, maybe,” I said as I opened my door.

“Yeah, I hope so!”

“Thanks for walking me up to the house,” I said as Graham met me on the sidewalk with his hands in the pockets of his khaki pants. He nodded in response as we made our way up the steps, and I blurted, “Okay, who’s Richie?”

He answered with a sound that was a cross between a sigh and an elongated grunt. “Her boyfriend. He’s a little twerp.”

I giggled. “Hey, maybe they fought and broke up tonight? I hope whatever happened, she’s okay.”

“I think she’ll be okay. Hearing her cry on the phone, though… I think my heart stopped beating for a second.”

We reached the first landing on the sidewalk, where I’d meant to plant flowers in the spring but never got around to it. “It’s great that she trusts you enough to call you when she’s having a bad night. She’s how old?”

“Fifteen.”

“She’s fifteen and you’re still her hero. I think that’s awesome.”

He glanced over at me, his expression unreadable at first, but then the corners of his mouth tugged up in a subtle smile.

I couldn’t help but grin back at him, but that was only because the crinkles in the corners of his eyes were too cute to ignore.

“I’m her hero right now, but just wait. I’ll say the wrong thing tomorrow and ruin her life. ”

“Do you know how many times I told my dad he ruined my life when I was a teenager?” I asked as we made our way up the wide steps to my porch. “But he’s still my hero, in every sense of the word. A girl never stops needing her dad.”

“I’ll have to remember that the next time she slams her bedroom door in my face,” he said, furrowing his brows at my Edward Cullen welcome mat, a gift from Meghan with too many layers of inside jokes to even begin to explain. “What—?”

“Don’t ask.”

“Okay,” he said, taking a step backward now that he’d escorted me to my destination. But he stopped at the edge of the porch with a concerned scowl. “How’s your pain?”

That was a difficult question to answer. I always had some level of pain, but sometimes it was just easier to ignore. Knowing he didn’t want that whole explanation, I simply said, “A lot better now. Thank you for bringing me home, Graham.”

“Yeah, of course. And hey, thank you for sparking an interest in journalism in my kid. I’ve been trying for years.”

I titled my head with a smirk. “What can I say? I’m very influential.”

He shook his head at me. “But just remember, when she starts roasting you for not understanding her Gen Alpha slang, you’re the one who asked for this.”

“Maybe I’ll learn a few things.”

Graham let out a quiet chuckle, stepping onto the first stair. As he did, his twinkling blue eyes lifted to mine, and I caught the subtle bob of his Adam’s apple. “Goodnight,” he said in a strained voice. His lips parted again like he had more to say, but no words came out.

As his eyes held mine, I felt my stomach dip like something exciting was about to happen—the same way it would if I were anticipating a kiss at the end of a first date.

It took two or three seconds longer than it should have for me to remember how to speak.

“Goodnight,” I finally managed, hoping he couldn’t pick up on my sudden awkwardness.

I unlocked the door and hurried inside before I could make this any weirder.

“What the fuck was that?” I muttered aloud, speaking to no one but the half-dead fern by the front door.

Another gift from Meghan. I almost pulled out my phone to text her about the awkward moment I’d just shared with Graham and how he’d definitely been ogling my legs, but she’d make a big deal out of it. Or tell me to shut up.

So I texted Xander instead.

Jill: Made it home safely. Going to have a bath and then head to bed soon. Am I missing any fun shenanigans?

He didn’t answer. But if I knew Xander, his phone was probably abandoned on the patio table while he and Owen threw a variety of objects on the fire and called it “science.” We’d talk tomorrow.

I took a bath and changed into silk pajamas, checking my phone one last time before settling into bed. No response.

The pang of missing out hit harder than I expected. Not just because I wasn’t there, but because this was becoming a pattern. Tapping out early. Waking up exhausted. My body working against me no matter how much I tried to push through.

With a sigh, I turned off my lamp, knowing I needed to heed Meghan’s advice and talk to my doctor about this again.

But the truth was, as much as I feared they might make some scary healthy discovery, what I feared even more was that they wouldn't find anything at all and they’d just send me on my way again.

And that would almost be worse.