A long, blown-out exhale. “Actually, kiddo, I gotta ask you to come in and drop off your credentials.”
My world hits pause, and my stomach drops through the floor. He’s… firing me? Sex with sources is frowned upon but rarely results in termination anymore. “What?”
Billy’s voice comes out thinner. “We’ll do a quick exit interview. I promise to keep it painless.”
I stare at the wall in shock. Painless? Is he for real? I didn’t think it would be possible, but this conversation with Billy is more painful than the last one we had. He sounds so defeated, telling me I’m out of a job. I’ve seen my boss excitedly foulmouthed, angrily foulmouthed, and joyfully foulmouthed. But I’ve never heard him sound resigned before. He isn’t even going to fight for me?
“Billy.” My voice comes out wavy with heat. I’m past devastated now and am sliding into angry. “You’re firing me for sleeping with Alec? Are you serious? This is exactly why I didn’t include his account in the story!”
“You know this isn’t coming from me,” he says.
I don’t know what to say to that. It is absolutely him—Billy has been at the Times for twenty years; he has pull there. The Netflix and BBC spokespeople have already come out and stated unequivocally that Alec is not in any way involved in the alleged crimes that happened at Jupiter. Billy and the Times could come out with the same; they could keep me if they wanted.
“Unbelievable,” I say, pacing. “You know I tried to do the right thing here.”
“I hate being told what to do,” he says, “but in this case, I agree the optics aren’t good.”
I lift a shaking hand and smother back an agitated, disbelieving laugh. It was Eden who, only an hour ago, in a brief moment of hysterical levity, suggested we revise our drinking game with some truly macabre rules:
Take a drink every time we come across a fresh, absurd headline; the recent favorite is “Feeding Him Doughnuts While She Feeds Fellow Women to the Wolves.”
Take a drink every time a new meme is created by Alec’s fangirls trashing my body in the beach photos.
Take a drink anytime a news article says, “The optics aren’t good.”
“Billy,” I say, with as much control as I can manage, “these tweets accusing me of helping a criminal make zero sense! I’m the one who exposed the Jupiter crimes! Firing me is absolute bullshit.”
“I get it, George.”
“I mean it. I was researching this story before I ran into Alec in Seattle.”
“I know.”
“And you know he didn’t even do this!”
Billy sighs. “I know.”
I make a mental note to add a rule to the game: take a drink every time Billy gives me a resigned “I know” and still does not go to bat for me.
“I’m sorry it didn’t work out better, George. I don’t know what else to tell you.”
“I’ll drop off my credentials in the lobby,” I say, and hang up.
Eden understands that there is no way in hell I can sleep in my own bed tonight, not when I haven’t yet washed my sheets since Alec slept here, not with his swim trunks slung over my shower door and his toothbrush in the cup next to mine, and not with him ignoring all my calls and texts. Once I’m home from dropping off my LA Times office keys and credentials, I give up trying to get ahold of him and toss the cursed Batphone onto my bed, focusing instead on packing a small weekend bag. My plan: head to my parents’ place, crawl into my old bed, sleep for a week.
My best friend watches silently. We’re now out of words. Our last exchange was a simple “This fucking sucks,” repeated a few times with increasing emphasis until we fell quiet again. But as I’m zipping up my bag, Eden bolts upright when the Batphone starts to vibrate on the bed, tossing it to me.
I let out a scream, fumbling it like a hot potato.
“Alec!” I yell, answering. “Holy shit! This day! Where are—?”
“I’m headed back,” he cuts in calmly, and wind whips through the line.
“Back?” I repeat, pausing my pacing between my bed and closet. “Back to the hotel?”
“To London.”
Just hearing his voice triggers relief and it floods me with warmth. “Okay. That makes sense. Oh my God it’s so good to hear your v—”