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chapter thirty-two

Jillian

W hen Meghan asked if I was okay on the way to the airport, I lied.

“I’m just tired” was the only explanation I offered, because I was too numb to talk about the situation.

It was still too fresh. But she was sleepy, too, so I followed Graham’s taillights all the way to the parking garage at the Indianapolis International Airport in silence.

Meghan teased Graham about his dad-like tendencies all the way to the security checkpoint, especially his insistence that we arrive so damn early.

And the way he triple-checked that we all had our mobile boarding passes ready.

Graham took it in stride, too rattled to argue with her.

“Well. Come along, children,” he joked without cracking a smile, shaking his head as he waved for all of us to go ahead of him in the security line, like we were a group of unruly kindergarteners. Xander rolled his eyes.

“You okay?” Graham quietly asked me, touching my arm when nobody was looking.

“Feel like I might be sick,” I muttered under my breath.

A TSA agent barked at us from up ahead. “SHOES OFF, BELTS OFF, LAPTOPS OUT!”

We inched forward, and I slipped out of my sandals as Graham unbuckled his belt. “Yeah,” his voice so low, I almost didn’t hear him. “Me too.”

“EVERYTHING OUT OF YOUR POCKETS!”

That wasn’t helping with my anxiety.

In fact, even after we’d made it through security and slumped into the chairs at our gate, my anxiety didn’t lessen one bit. Xander was brooding and sighing, sitting across from the rest of us, but I didn’t have the energy or mental bandwidth to wonder what was irking him so much.

I was still anxious when we sat on the plane, all of us along the same row. Our seats were assigned weeks ago, and I was in an aisle seat across from Meghan and beside Xander.

Meghan closed her eyes, resting her head against the back of her seat once we were settled. “Here’s hoping Isaiah doesn’t burn the newsroom down today.”

I just nodded, worrying about a different kind of disaster Isaiah could cause.

Xander cleared his throat on my right, speaking up for the first time since we’d arrived at the airport. “I gave Isaiah a list of menial tasks to do today. That should keep him busy.”

“Oh, smart,” Meghan said. “I should’ve thought of that.”

“I wonder if that kid ever tells his uncle how mean you guys are to him,” Chase mused, shaking his head. “Poor kid.”

“He can tell his uncle whatever he wants,” Xander said, tugging his black hood up over his head. “Noah Sherman doesn’t intimidate me.”

My heart dropped to my stomach and my eyes shot past Xander’s face to Graham, whose mouth was slightly agape. He’d heard it, too, and I could tell he was just as clueless as I was about the kid’s connections.

Noah Sherman could destroy us if he wanted. At the very least, he wasn’t above extortion. He knew our coverage of his campaign could affect public opinion, and his backroom deals with Silas proved he wasn’t above using his power to get what he wanted.

I slouched lower in my seat as Meghan and Xander talked across me.

They went on about him admitting this was his very first flight, and Meghan teased him about visiting the cockpit for a set of wings like he was a little kid.

I heard her laughter, and I even faked a chuckle myself, but I wasn’t really listening to the conversation. My mind was so far from here.

The plane jolted as it pulled away from the gate, and I sank deeper into my seat, wrapping my arms tight around my body like I could physically hold myself together.

Graham didn’t say a word. I watched him out of the corner of my eye as the plane took off, knowing exactly what was on his mind. He stared out the window, his jaw tight as he squeezed the armrest.

Unlike Xander, who tightened the strings of his hoodie so his eyes were completely covered, Graham wasn’t worried about the flight.

He was probably regretting whatever reckless, selfish part of himself led him to getting involved with me in the first place. Because if this got out, it wouldn’t just embarrass him. It would wreck his career.

Xander let out a sigh beside me, pulling his hood back to peek out the plane window.

He looked for a total of three seconds before hunching forward, tugging his hood down over his eyes again.

I only caught bits and pieces of what he muttered; something about this “metal tube in the sky” and “not natural.” It was all followed by a loud and clear, “I hate this.”

Me too , I thought, catching Graham’s eye over Xander’s back. He slowly shook his head, and I knew that had nothing to do with the person on the verge of a panic attack between us, and everything to do with the predicament we’d have to face when we got back to Woodvale.

“We’re fine,” I told them both.

By the time the five of us piled into a taxi van outside the airport, the sun was high in the East Coast sky. It was still morning, technically, but it felt like a full day had passed since we’d pulled out of the parking lot back at the station.

Despite the turmoil in my head, the Manhattan skyline still managed to take my breath away. The last time I was in NYC, I was seventeen, and I’d spent the majority of my senior trip obsessing over a boy instead of opening my eyes and appreciating the city around me.

You’re about to do it again, Jill , I told myself, lifting my chin as I listened to Graham talk to the driver in the front seat.

“It’s a little town about an hour south of Indianapolis,” he was explaining, gripping the handle above his head like he didn’t quite trust the cab’s lurching movements.

I smiled down at my lap as the cab entered the Queens-Midtown Tunnel.

I didn’t want to lose him. I couldn’t.

“I don’t think we’re in Woodvale anymore,” Meghan said in a dreamy voice when we emerged from the tunnel a couple minutes later. Out of the five of us, only Graham and I had been to New York before, and it showed. The other three were craning their necks to take it all in.

“I think that’s where they filmed the final battle scene in the Avengers ,” Chase remarked, leaning forward in the backseat to get a better look down 42nd Street.

“Of course you would fuckin’ know that,” Xander muttered, trying to seem as unimpressed as possible, as if he wasn’t staring up at the skyscrapers all bright-eyed like the other two. The man had lived in Chicago for a few years, but New York was… well, it was New York.

The chaos inside the hotel hit us the second we stepped through the revolving doors—the lobby was packed with conference attendees.

All of us were forced to check our bags with the concierge because the rooms weren’t ready yet.

There wasn’t a chance to slow down. As soon as we all handed our luggage over, we crossed through a set of glass doors into the conference center attached to the hotel.

We signed in at a long table in front of a wall of arched windows overlooking the city, where a pair of frazzled volunteers handed out lanyards and swag bags.

Meghan and I managed to duck into a bathroom to freshen our lipstick and deodorant. After spending the morning in an airplane and a taxi, it was the best we could do.

As we stood shoulder-to-shoulder under the fluorescent lights, I sighed as I watched her pull a little plastic canister of mints from her purse.

“Graham and I got caught,” I finally said aloud.

Meghan froze, holding a mint between her fingers an inch from her lips. “Caught?” She lowered her hand. “By who?”

“Your intern.”

Meghan’s eyes widened with terror. “Isaiah? Oh my God.”

“Yeah, my thoughts exactly,” I said, turning around to lean on my hands against the bathroom counter. There was a woman down at the other end washing her hands, but I didn’t care if she overheard. “I don’t expect him to keep it a secret.”

She flipped her dark hair over her shoulder, popped the mint in her mouth, and fiddled with her lanyard. “Isaiah could tell Xander. Fuck, he could tell his uncle . You know, his uncle is—”

“Noah Sherman. I heard,” I said, crossing my arms. I pulled some of my hair away from my eyes.

“What does Isaiah like? Video games? Fireball Whisky? Maybe I could bribe him.” I forced a laugh to show I wasn't serious, but even joking about using alcohol to bribe a teenage boy to keep his mouth shut felt wrong. “What the fuck’s the matter with me?”

“Calm down, Silas Brown,” Meghan teased. She put her hands on my shoulders. “Okay, look. I’m not going to lie, this might blow up.”

I let out a low, shaky breath, feeling like that bathroom floor was about to drop out from beneath my feet.

“But don’t forget how much the people of Woodvale love you,” Meghan continued. “If it gets leaked, it’s not going to ruin you or anything. You’re Jillian Fucking Taylor, remember?”

“What about Graham?”

“Oh, he’s toast.” Meghan picked a piece of lint off my shoulder and pulled away as another group of chattering women walked into the bathroom. She gave me a little smile to let me know she wasn’t serious. “He’ll probably have to step down. And then…” She hesitated.

“What?”

Meghan looked down at her feet before straightening herself and shrugging. “He’ll probably get his old editor job back.”

Her job. The editor position at the Woodvale Times wasn’t officially hers yet—it was still tied to whether Graham stayed on as CEO. And now, that wasn’t looking likely.

My friend was losing out on her dream job, and it was half my fault.

“Meghan. I am so sorry.”

Another shrug to hide her disappointment. “Don’t even sweat it. Come on, the boys are probably wondering what’s taking us so long.”