"Now it's gone," I said.
"Now it's gone.And I need it back."He leaned forward, and for a moment the nervous energy stilled and the man who had survived decades of this business was looking at me with genuine concern."Jimmy, I don't know what you were doing differently, and frankly I don't need to know.But whatever it was, it was working.Nelson was the best I've seen him in years.Maybe ever.The audience could feel it.The affiliates could feel it.I had calls from two station managers last week telling me the show had found its gear."
Bruce loosened his collar, then tightened his tie.
"I'm asking you to find your way back to whatever you were doing.Because the show needs it.And between us, the upfronts are in six weeks and I cannot walk into that meeting with a declining trend line."
I sat in the chair across from his desk and felt the irony settle over me like a weighted blanket.Bruce was actually asking me — without remotely knowing it — to go back to producing Nelson with the voice that had put heat in his skin, desire in his body, and both of us on his couch with our clothes on the dressing room floor.
He was asking me to undo the only smart decision I'd made in weeks.
"I'll handle it," I muttered.
"Thank you.That's all I needed to hear."Bruce smiled — genuine, relieved — which somehow made everything worse."You're the best EP this network has had in years, Jimmy.I mean that.Whatever magic you've got, just — keep doing it."
I stood.Shook his hand.Walked out of his office, down the hallway, not stopping until I was in my own office with the door closed and my back against it.
Keep doing it.
I pressed my palms against my eyes and breathed.
This was what I was being paid for — an enormous, life-changing salary that had gotten me into top-shelf bourbon and weeks away from a real apartment with a bedroom that wasn't also the kitchen.I was here to produce the best show on cable news.Nelson was the center of that show.My voice in his ear was the instrument I used to produce him.That was the gig.
The fact that Nelson's earpiece had turned out to be the key to a lock I'd thought was rusted shut was not Bruce's problem.
It was mine.
* * *
I put my headset on at 6:50.
The control room was humming with the low-grade electricity that preceded every broadcast — monitors flickering, producers murmuring, Ray running through camera positions with his usual stoic efficiency.Through the glass wall, I could see the studio.The lights.The desk.Nelson, settling into his chair with the precise, practiced movements of a man who had done this a thousand times.
He was wearing a dark blue suit.Simple.Devastating.His posture was impeccable, and from this distance he looked exactly like what our viewers expected him to look like: untouchable.
I knew what his skin tasted like.
Stop it, Jimmy.
I pulled up the rundown.Lead package on a congressional budget showdown.Second block was a live interview with Dale Mercer, the CEO of Pinnacle Pharmaceuticals, about drug pricing — an interview I'd been trying to get for two weeks.Third block was a lighter feature on a museum renovation.Clean show.Solid structure.
The countdown started.Through the glass, Nelson straightened his script pages and touched his earpiece — a quick, unconscious push with his fingertips to seat it properly.He used to do the same thing with his earbuds in our apartment off Morningside, the same small push, and the memory was so specific it felt like a pin through the center of my chest.
"Stand by," I said into the headset."Sixty seconds."
Flat.Professional.The same nothing voice I'd been giving him for three nights.
Through the glass, Nelson settled into broadcast position.Spine straight.Chin level.Locked and loaded.
The red light blinked on.
Nelson delivered the opening with his usual precision — clean, authoritative, technically perfect.And technically dead.I could hear it.The audience might not be able to name it, but they could feel it, the way you felt a room go cold even when you couldn't see the thermostat.The warmth was gone because I'd taken it away, and the show was bleeding for it, slowly, two points at a time.
He transitioned to the budget story.I watched him through the glass — the set of his jaw, the way his fingers rested on the desk, the tiny tension in his shoulders that no camera would catch but I could read.
I leaned into the microphone.
"You've got room here, Nelson."