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chapter twenty-seven

Graham

I couldn’t sleep.

Somewhere out there, a doctor was sleeping soundly after deciding Jill’s symptoms weren’t worth looking into. She had told me all about how he’d dismissed her concerns twice now, and it sounded to me like she needed a second opinion.

My anger stewed for a while until Jill unconsciously rolled over with her back against me.

I hated letting go of her, but it freed my arm to reach for my phone and start doing some research.

I googled her symptoms, scoured subreddits, and browsed WebMD until my eyes hurt from looking at the bright screen in the darkness.

Doing what her fucking doctor wouldn’t do for her.

And everything seemed to point toward one thing: fibromyalgia.

I wanted to kick myself for not thinking of it sooner.

My Aunt Claudia had the same chronic illness, and while I didn’t understand much about it, I knew her complaints had been similar to Jill’s.

Sore muscles. Radiating pain. Dull aches just under the surface that hurt more when you placed pressure on them.

That was Jill.

I was equal parts worried and gleeful. Fibromyalgia was no joke, and I was pretty sure it didn’t have a cure. But maybe if she had a diagnosis, she could get some goddamn treatment and start feeling better.

Jill stirred beside me, letting out a little groan as she rolled back over to face me. Her eyes blinked open, and her voice sounded hoarse when she asked, “Everything okay?”

I put my phone down on the nightstand and faced her. “Yeah. I’ve just been doing some research.”

“About what?”

I paused for half a second. “You.”

“Oh no,” she said, adjusting her head against the pillow.

“About your symptoms, I mean,” I said with a little chuckle. I reached toward her, resting a hand on her hip beneath the covers. “Thinking about the way your doctor keeps brushing you off was driving me crazy, so did some Googling. Everything you’ve described seems to point to fibromyalgia.”

She was quiet for a moment. “I’ve brought that up to Dr. Boyd, though, and he dismissed it.”

“I think he was wrong to dismiss it,” I said, staring across my pillow into her eyes. My thumb brushed her hip lightly through the fabric of her shirt. “I mean, I’m no expert, but from everything I just read, it fits. The pain. The fatigue. The way it flares up and knocks you down out of nowhere.”

She didn’t say anything for a long moment. I could see her doubt. I knew she was probably tired of going around in circles without getting answers.

“My aunt has fibro,” I went on. “I’m pretty sure she sees a specialist in Indy. If you want, I could text her tomorrow and get the name.”

“Graham, I appreciate that, but I’d never get in without a referral.”

“You will,” I said firmly. I didn’t know how, but I’d make sure this doctor saw her. Somehow. “We have to at least try.”

A faint, tired smile spread across her face.

“We,” she echoed, and for a moment, I was a little embarrassed about my aggressive insistence to take care of this for her.

Maybe I was overstepping. But Jill reached up to touch my face, dragging her thumb along my stubble.

“You should stop worrying about me and get some sleep. We’ve got a big day tomorrow. ”

She was right, I needed to rest up for Chase’s big debut as her co-anchor.

I pressed a kiss against her forehead, which made her smile as she closed her eyes.

And just when it seemed like she might be about to drift off to sleep, her hand still resting on my cheek, she quietly said, “Maybe one day I’ll get to be the one who gets to take care of you. ”

Her words made my breath catch in my throat as I lightly dragged my hand up the side of her waist. I swallowed, trying to ignore the nagging reminder in the back of my mind that this was only supposed to be temporary. We were only meant to fool around, not fall in—

My brain wouldn’t let me finish the thought.

**

On Chase’s first official day as Jill’s co-anchor, I stood between Meghan and Olivia near Camera One, chewing on my thumbnail as we watched the awkwardness unfold. It was an improvement from his performance last week, but he still missed a cue, and transitions were a little clumsy.

He looked stiff, especially next to Jill, who was so vibrantly animated you’d never guess she was dealing with chronic pain. But then, the two of them had a completely unscripted conversation about how miserable they both were at pickleball, which seemed to help him relax a little.

“He looks decent,” I said quietly, noting he was wearing a crisp, maroon button-up with a shiny black tie. “Who dressed him?”

“I did,” Meghan answered with a proud grin before turning to me. “And I’m turning in those receipts for reimbursement, by the way.”

“Figured,” I said, watching Chase fumble with the notes in front of him. All he had to do now was introduce Bernard’s weather forecast, but the silence stretched on so uncomfortably long, all I could think about was the inevitable blooper compilation.

Made entirely of clips from today’s show.

“He could be doing worse,” Olivia whispered once Chase finally got it, giving me a hopeful smile.

I turned to look at her, and for the first time in what felt like forever, it seemed like she was no longer clinging to that gray cloud that liked to follow her around.

There was a calmness to her that hadn’t been there last week, before she came clean about her pregnancy.

Maybe telling the truth eased some of the worry.

“Don’t say that until the show’s over,” I teased. “You’ll jinx us.”

Olivia shook her head with a smile, still watching Chase and Jillian, who were waiting on the weather report to wrap up.

And when their cue came, Jill looked into the camera with her usual megawatt smile and said, “Thank you, Bernard! I guess those temperatures mean everyone’s air conditioners are going to continue to struggle for the rest of the week, right?

” she asked with a laugh, turning to Chase, who was absentmindedly staring down at the notes.

He shifted a couple of papers, completely oblivious to Jill’s question.

She cleared her throat to capture his attention, and he glanced up at her before his eyes darted to the blinking red light on Camera One, his expression frozen in horror.

And then it happened.

“Shit,” he muttered, and all the blood in my body ran hot.

Olivia’s head snapped toward me so fast I thought she might give herself whiplash. “Can he say that?” she whispered with wide eyes.

“No. No, he cannot,” I said, covering my face with one hand as I bowed my head.

Chase fumbled through his next story, and Jill jumped in to help, overcompensating with a little too much cheerfulness in her voice. By the time they made it to commercial, it felt like we’d all aged five years.

I barely had time to exhale before I heard a loud clunk in control room—which came from Marco, who’d just thrown down his headset. My jaw clenched as he marched straight toward me, his face red with fury.

“We should never have jumped into this,” he spat out. “It’s a fucking disaster.”

“I’ll admit that that was… not great. But—”

“Not great?” He scoffed, stepping closer. “Do you have any idea how much the FCC fines for that? I doubt it, because you have no fucking clue how things operate around here.”

Humiliation washed over me, knowing everyone in that room, including my daughter, was watching.

However, it was quickly drowned out by the anger taking over every cell of my body.

“No, I’ve seen how things operate around here.

You’ve had an anchor who’s been doing the work of two people for almost a year now, and I’m the first one to step in and do something about it. ”

“Jill was handling it fine.”

I could have exploded. “Jill was handling it fine ?” I repeated, my voice louder than I intended. “You think that woman breaking down on live television was fine? You think her holding it together by a damn thread was fine?”

Marco’s mouth opened, but I didn’t give him the chance to respond.

“We all knew this transition was going to be a little rough. But I’m not pulling the plug on this after just one day, and I’m damn sure not going to sit back and watch us burn out the one person who’s been keeping the whole morning broadcast from collapsing this entire time.”

I stopped to catch my breath, and the room went still.

“Uh, fifteen seconds,” one of the production assistants called out, breaking the silence.

Marco’s nostrils flared before he got one last jab in. “If this crashes and burns, it’s on you,” he muttered before returning to the control room.

I left the studio the opposite way, ignoring the eyes that followed me all the way to the studio’s double doors.

I pushed through them and kept walking until I reached the front doors of the building, but I didn’t step outside.

I just stood there, pressing both hands against my head, already second-guessing the words I’d just spewed aloud for all to hear.

I prayed like hell I hadn’t just humiliated Jillian.

The sound of footsteps approaching from behind startled me. My heart was beating so loud in my ears, I hadn’t even heard Meghan following me out.

“Graham,” she said, stopping a few feet away. I couldn’t quite read her expression. It was a little too soft for Meghan, who wasn’t exactly known for her sweetness. She tilted her head to the side. “You really care about her, don’t you?”

I let out a slow exhale. “More than you know,” I said, running a hand through my hair. And with that, I turned and headed toward my office without another word.