Eden’s heart had been hammering before, but now it felt like it was moving through molasses. She felt like Alden had created a flash flood and then just walked away like nothing had happened. But then, he was a man. He was a man who had clearly never been touched by the issue, and he delivered the message with total coldness and disinterest. He’d showed more passion talking about the fucking gym, for shit’s sake.
Eden remembered exactly what Jos had said to her when she’d asked her to tell her something no one else knew. She knew Jos had had a miscarriage, and that it hadn’t been very long ago, and Alden had treated her like it hadn’t happened at all.
Eden was scared to look at Jos, and she found her standing very still. Her breathing was shallow, concentrated, the kind of thin
g people did when they were holding themselves together by a thread and they didn’t want anyone else to know.
“Are you okay?” That was probably tone deaf too, but Eden didn’t know what else to say. There were people around. People who might not already know what Jos had gone through. People who she wouldn’t want knowing if she hadn’t told them already.
Jos gave Eden a confused look, and then shifted back into her neutral façade. She even graced her with a smile that was so fake it put Eden’s teeth on edge. “Of course. Why wouldn’t I be?” Her voice was more fake sugar and it made Eden feel like someone was drilling a hole through her skull.
Her chest ached. Her heart hurt. It hurt for Jos. It hurt because their boss was a total dickweed who thought he could do and say whatever he wanted and that it didn’t hurt people. Eden had worried about being on set with Jos. She’d been so scared that after sharing crazy passion together and being booted from her house the next morning so unceremoniously, it might be awkward as hell to work together. Now, she was faced with this, and it made her concerns from that morning seem trite.
“Well, we had better get our microphones on and get up there,” Jos said. “They’ll want to fiddle around with lighting and whatever else since we haven’t had two hosts for a very long time.”
“Oh, they—we did a run through already.” Eden pointed at the set.
If it was possible, the room seemed to freeze over. Jos gave her an icy look, but it was gone in an instant, buried under the pretty veneer she was so used to scraping together. “Right. Great. Well, we should still get up there. Make everyone else’s jobs that much easier.”
“Alright.”
Eden followed her. She sat down in one of the hard, modern black chairs that was so square it actually bit into the backs of her legs and tuned out what was going on around her. They were sitting side by side, but Eden felt like they were worlds away from each other. Not only that, but there were also crazy walls between them. Walls around Jos. She’d walled herself in and walled everyone else out. She was walking out with a double impenetrable fortress wrapped around herself.
Eden didn’t have to look at Jos to be hyperaware of her presence. It was hard not to be aware of someone who thought the most intimate moments they’d shared were a mistake. Jos had done a magnificent job of making it clear that nothing would ever happen between them again. She’d killed any longing that Eden had. Or, at least, Eden thought she’d had. She’d been grouchy and hurt until Alden dropped that news about the interviews they were doing on Jos, and she’d gone so still.
She was hurting. It was so obvious, but she would never acknowledge that hurt or show a second of weakness. Eden had been filled with all the desire she thought she’d spent days squashing as soon as she saw Jos again and now, she was filled up with so much compassion that it took all her strength not to launch herself out of her chair and hug Jos.
She would react badly, Eden was sure of that.
The minutes ticked down fast and before Eden knew it, they were live. She was doing her first real TV thing in years, and even then, her internship hardly counted. She was aware that so many people would kill to be in her spot, and she was probably going to be roundly hated by most journalists out there for getting this hand up, something she most certainly didn’t work for or earn or deserve, at least in their opinion. She didn’t like that people were going to be jealous of her and not like her over this. She didn’t like it one bit.
She was thinking about all of that the whole time she was reading the teleprompter and asking questions. She barely managed to hold it together through the two interviews they did. Her nerves were a mess, and her emotions were riding too close to the surface. And Jos? She was stone. Cold. Hard. All while somehow being warm and personable and a great host.
God, Eden had a lot to learn.
If she hadn’t been watching Jos so closely, she might have missed the way her face drained of color beneath her makeup several times during the hour. An hour that must have been torture for her. She grabbed the arm of her chair several times, as if to steady herself, and held it in a white-knuckle grip, but it was the hand facing away from the camera, blocked by Eden sitting there. If Eden hadn’t been watching, she wouldn’t have seen that either. But she was watching.
Jos was not okay. She was not okay, and she lived alone. Did she have any friends? Eden didn’t know. Would she confide in anyone? No. Eden did know that.
After their first show was over, she dodged the praises being heaped at her like she’d done something to deserve it and scuttled off to her dressing room. She changed quickly, hoping to beat Jos out of there, but she heard fast steps clicking past her door and knew they belonged to Jos. How, she wasn’t sure. It was like an extra sense she had. A gut instinct. The same one she used to make a good story happen.
She grabbed her purse with her keys in it and raced out of the room, leaving it a mess, but she would deal with that tomorrow. She figured no one would say anything anyway, and she hated herself for that thought. She burst through a door at the end of the hallway and ended up outside in the parking lot. The sun had sunk down hours ago and the night was black, big double posted lights illuminating the parking lot behind the studio.
For one panicked moment, Eden thought Jos had already left, but then she spotted her on the other side of the parking lot, walking to a car that was hard to miss, even in a lot with other expensive vehicles parked all around. Shoulders rigid, back ramrod straight, blonde bob perfect, it was definitely Jos.
“Jos, wait!” Eden yelled. She took off running, her flats scraping over the parking lot’s dark pavement, shadows chasing her as she went.
The shadows of the night were probably nothing compared to what Jos was going through. Probably not even close.
Chapter 10
Eden
Jos reeled around from the door as soon as she heard Eden approaching. She was not at all approachable, but Eden ignored the lump of fear that settled in her stomach when she saw the open hostility on Jos’ face. It was even more shocking for not being the neutral studio expression Jos was so careful with.
“Are you okay?” Eden asked again. It was a stupid question. A bad one. As a journalist, she should do better.
“They’re trying to force me out,” Jos hissed, shocking Eden by being truthful. Her lips curled into a sneer. “This is what they want. They want to do this to me. Stick pins in me until I can’t fucking breathe. Until I don’t want to breathe.”