Just This Night (25 page)

BETH

I
found Mac at the very end of the pier, sitting on a wooden bench. There were a few old fishermen, hanging out nearby, and a couple surfers below us, trying to catch the latest swell. One of them, I was pretty sure, was News 9's weatherman, Asher Anderson himself. Not surprising, seeing as from what people said the guy spent more time on the water than he ever did in the newsroom. But he could get away with it, because his mother owned the station and his dad was the legendary Stormy Anderson—celebrity weatherman extraordinaire.

Must be nice to have that kind of job security.

As I made my way down the pier, feeling like dead girl walking, seagulls seemed to scold me as they flew back and forth.

Stupid girl,
I imagined them saying.
Stupid, stupid girl.

“Hey,” I said as I approached. “Here I am.”

He looked up. His eyes were bloodshot. His face was pale. A cold chill spun down my spine. This was really not good. Really, really not good.

“Beth . . .” He rose to his feet and grabbed me, pulling me into a fierce hug. I squeaked a little, half-afraid he would accidentally crush me with the intensity of the embrace, and he loosened his grip—just barely—while keeping me tight against him. As if he wanted to literally crawl inside of me and never come out.

Finally, unable to bear it any longer, I managed to untangle myself from his arms. “What's going on, Mac?” I demanded, hating how scared my voice sounded. “Talk to me.”

He raked a hand through his hair, then walked to the edge of the pier, staring out into the sea, as if it could offer some kind of answers to the universe.

“Victoria apologized for everything that happened,” he said in a flat voice. “She says it was a mistake to leave us. And that she wants to be a family again.”

“Well, tough luck,” I cried, before I could stop myself. “That's not her call! She left you guys!” I watched as he flinched, fear pounding at my insides. “Mac, you can't just take her back! After what she did to you!”

He turned around. His eyes were dull and defeated. “What choice do I have?” he asked. “If I say no, she'll take Ashley away.”

“She can't do that,” I argued. “She abandoned her. You have custody, right? I mean, she could petition the courts, sure. But they're not going to just hand her over.”

“We never made a formal custody arrangement. She took off too quickly for that. And yeah, sure. I could drag Ashley through a custody battle now. But I have no assurances I'd win. The courts usually favor the mothers in this scenario. And my violent behavior back in Boston when I found out about her affair could be used against me. It'd be a gamble at the very least. And I refuse to gamble on the life of my baby girl.”

He closed his eyes and opened them again. “Besides, you should have seen Ashley's face when she walked out into the living room and saw her mother had come home. It was as if she'd finally woken from her living nightmare and her
dreams had all come true.” He shook his head. “I told you from the beginning, I'd made a promise. To always put her first. No matter what. How can I not at least try to make this work—for her sake?”

I found myself nodding, even as my heart shattered into a thousand pieces. “Oh, Mac. I'm so sorry.”

I could see him squeezing his hands into fists. “No, Beth. I'm the one who should be sorry. And I am—so goddamned sorry. The last thing in the world I wanted was to hurt you. Or drag you down into my fucked-up life. I knew it was a risk to let you in—to give us a chance to be happy together. But it had been so long . . . I'd convinced myself that it would be okay to move on. That she was gone for good. That she would stay away. That Ashley and I could have a real chance to start over.” He hung his head. “But now I know that'll never happen.”

He pulled back his fist, slamming it against the pier's railing. When he pulled his hand away, blood dripped from his knuckles. I grabbed him, pulling him to me, holding him tight. As he clung to me, his whole body trembled violently.

For a moment, we just stood there. Then, finally, he pulled away, finding my eyes with his own. “I want you to know—what I said last night? I meant every word. I love you. I love you so much. And in any other life in any other world—I would move heaven and earth to be with you.”

“I know,” I said quietly. “Believe me I know.”

I wanted to tell him that I loved him, too. That I loved him so much it was killing me inside. But I knew it would only make it harder to walk away in the end.

And I would have to walk away. This time, forever.

He swallowed hard. “Listen, I've got to go. If Victoria finds out I went and talked to you, she's going to freak. I have to get back before she realizes I'm gone. But I'll be at work tomorrow. And we can talk more. Or we don't have to talk at all. I wouldn't blame you if you never wanted to talk to me again.”

I gave him a sad smile. “Come on, Mac. How could I ever stop talking to you?”

He nodded slowly. Then he scooped me back into his arms and kissed me, hard and fierce. Kissed me like there was no tomorrow. And I guess, in this case, there wasn't.

At least not for us.

BETH

T
hirty minutes on the treadmill, combined with an obscene amount of weight-lifting at the gym and yet I was still tense and miserable. Whoever said exercise was great stress relief should be hanged as a liar. Sure, maybe it helped with your run-of-the-mill tension headache, but the kind of pressure bottled up at this point was practically nuclear powered. And no amount of stepping, spinning, or weight-lifting was going to make it go away.

It'd been only a week since I'd met Mac on the pier. But it already felt like a lifetime. And while I'd tried everything I could think of to help exorcise the pain—from copious amounts of alcohol to retail therapy to even throwing myself back into work—it only seemed to be growing worse each and every day. I tried to tell myself it was just another failed relationship, not the end of the world. And not even a substantial one at that. Hell, I'd dated Ryan for years and had somehow managed to get over him. With Mac, we'd been official for less than twenty-four hours. Which meant I should have had no problem picking myself up, dusting myself off, and moving on.

But not so much.

Part of the problem, perhaps, lay in the fact that the object of my doomed affection was never more than an arm's distance away, thanks to our continued working situation. In the truck, on the way to shoots, the air became so thick with tension, sometimes it hurt to even breathe. And any casual conversation that might spark between us felt like knives stabbing me in the gut without mercy.

It would have been much easier if I could have hated him. For leading me on, then dumping me flat to get back with his ex. And sometimes I could almost talk myself into feeling like that. But then I'd catch sight of the pain in his eyes—pain that mirrored my own. And I knew he didn't want this arrangement any more than I did. That if he had his way I'd be in his arms and he would never let me go.

But that was impossible. The risk of losing his baby girl was too great. I understood this. I completely supported it, even. But all the support and understanding in the world could not stanch the open, bleeding wound in my heart.

After a quick shower I contemplated going back to my apartment, then decided against it. It would be empty, I was sure—Piper was always working these days. And I had no interest in collapsing in front of the TV, alone with my misery. I might as well head to work instead, to burn a little midnight oil and try to distract myself from everything. Because of some preemptive sports programming there was no eleven
P.M.
newscast tonight and so I knew the place would be deserted. A perfect chance to throw myself into work and forget the world for a few blissful hours.

Sure enough, the place was practically empty as I walked in, save for a glowing light under Richard's office door. Which wasn't a bad thing, I told myself. Maybe at some point he'd emerge and find me hard at work. That ought to earn me a few brownie points, right?

I sat down at my desk, going through my emails. I was deleting so fast I almost missed the one from Javier. I hadn't heard from him since he'd promised to try to track down Alvarez for me and had pretty much given up that it was
going to happen. But now, as I dug back into my trash folder to retrieve the email, I crossed my fingers I'd been wrong.

Heart pounding, I opened the email, scanning it quickly, my eyes widening as I digested its contents.

He'd talked to his
abuela
.

His
abuela
had talked to Alvarez's mom.

She'd told her son he needed to call me. He needed to tell his side of the story.

And Alvarez had evidently agreed.

“YES!” I cried, jumping from my seat, raising my hand in the air in triumph before sitting back down, a little sheepishly. Still, it was all I could do not to break out into cartwheels across the newsroom floor.

Suddenly my no good, very bad, terrible week was not so awful after all. I could get a new interview. I could have another chance. And this time there was no one to stand in my way.

My personal life might remain a disaster, but I'd be a superstar at work!

I had to tell Richard. He was going to be so excited!

I rose from my seat again, deciding there was no time like the present. But before I could reach out and knock on his door to announce myself and my good news, an angry voice on the other side caused me to pause.

“But why?”

I frowned. Was that Joy Justice? What was she doing here, on a night when there was no newscast to anchor?

“Come on, Joy. We have already discussed this ad nauseam,” Richard's voice broke in. “If you want to keep rehashing it, I suggest you make an appointment to see me tomorrow. Right now, it's late. And I, for one, would like to go home.”

Something uneasy prickled inside me. I was pretty sure I wasn't supposed to be hearing this. But what should I do? Go sit back at my desk? It wasn't like I wouldn't be able to hear them from there.

“Screw your appointments. I'm not leaving. Not until you give me a damn good explanation for why you're turning me out on the streets.”

Wait, what?

Okay, now I couldn't help but tune in. I'd never heard Joy sound so upset. She was always so poised, so polished, so above all the bullshit. At least that's what I had always assumed.

“Relax, drama queen. It's not as if you're suddenly some homeless waif. The severance package the station's offering you should be more than enough to keep you in the lifestyle you're accustomed to.”

My jaw dropped. Severance package? That meant . . . Oh my God.

They were firing Joy Justice?

Joy had worked at News 9 for decades. She'd started as a lowly production assistant, like Piper, and had worked her way up to main anchor. She was practically an institution in this place. Newsroom royalty. I couldn't imagine the newscast without her leading it.

But then I remembered Richard, after she'd turned down the Alvarez piece. He'd called her dead weight. He'd said the powers that be weren't happy.

“I'll sue you. I'll tell the world you let me go because of age discrimination.”

“Go right ahead. It'll never hold up in court. I've got stacks of documentation showing your habitual lateness, your on-air errors, your fights with the staff. I have viewer surveys showing they don't like anything about you.” He sighed. “Look, Joy. You were the only decent fish in my pond for many years. But now we've got a lot of talent coming through the ranks and I'm not going to apologize for that. My job is to put on the best damn newscast I can every night. And that's it. So I'm sorry. We've decided to go a different direction and that's final. Your last newscast is Friday.”

Joy burst from the office without warning. I tried to duck, but there was no time and the anchor's fiery eyes zeroed in on my own. I opened my mouth to say something—anything—but found I couldn't utter even a single intelligible word. Not that it mattered; Joy was already halfway across the newsroom, taking great strides to reach her office in record time.

I watched her go, pity worming through my stomach. What must she be feeling like right now? To have her career suddenly stripped away without warning. Sure, to some, a job was just a job, but to Joy—it was her whole life. She'd been on TV for thirty-something years. She'd never gotten married and had raised her only daughter on her own. In short, her viewers were her family. Her station was her home.

And now she was being dumped like so much garbage.

It wasn't surprising, I supposed. All over the country, experienced journalists, who were older and drew more expensive salaries, were being replaced by younger, hipper—and cheaper—counterparts. But the fact that her experience was not unique didn't make it any less devastating.

Forcing myself to my feet, I headed down the newsroom, until I reached the anchor's office. I stood in the doorway, clearing my throat uneasily. Joy looked up, her eyes red and blotchy. Tears had streaked her makeup, giving her the look of a rabid raccoon.

“What do you want?” she demanded, her face twisting in ugly rage.

I bit my lower lip, shuffling from foot to foot. “Look, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to overhear. I won't say anything to anyone, I promise.”

“What does it matter?” Joy asked, waving me off. “Everyone's going to know soon enough anyway.”

“I guess.” I drew in a breath. “But for the record? I think they're insane to let you go. You're so amazing and talented. Ever since I got here, I've looked up to you. I've wanted to be you.”

“Yeah, well, congratulations. Looks like you'll soon get your chance.”

I winced at the pain I heard in her voice. “Sorry. I didn't mean it like that. I just wanted you to know that I think you're great. An inspiration, even.” I paused, then added, “I promise you now, if I ever do get the honor of trying to fill your shoes, I will do my best to live up to the standards you've set.”

I'd meant it as a compliment. I really did admire her—and had since I'd first started at News 9. Her dedication to
her craft, her commitment to ethical journalism, her empathy for those in need—I respected the hell out of this woman's career. So I was quite taken aback when Joy narrowed her eyes on me, giving me a death look.

“You little shit,” she growled. “You dare come into my office and try to patronize me?”

I took a step back, startled. “That wasn't what I meant—”

“You girls all think you're such superstars. But you're nothing. You're no one. Just the bimbo of the week. Utterly replaceable.” She shook her head. “You'll be out of here before you know it, just like your little friend Stephanie. And in a few months—no one will even remember your name.”

I swallowed hard, feeling the tears sting at the corners of my eyes. “I'm sorry. I'll leave you alone,” I stammered, backing out of the office. “I didn't mean to . . . I'm sorry.”

I turned to flee the newsroom, I couldn't stay there anymore. I'd have to tell Richard my good news about Alvarez another day. Good news that suddenly didn't seem quite as exciting and important as it had moments before.

After all, at the end of the day, it was just another news story. Even if it did allow me to rise to fame and recognition—what would it matter in the end?

Joy had once risen, too. And now she'd crashed back down to earth. And every story she'd covered, every interview she'd done, all her life's work—did it really mean anything in the end?

You'll be out of here before you know it. And no one will even remember your name.