I take a photo of the signature page and send it to my lawyer, to Julia’s inbox, to Riley’s phone. Then I look at Nolan so there’s no misunderstanding. “If anyone misses a beat on this,” I say, quiet, “I sit.”
He studies me like he’s deciding whether my threat is a bluff. “You won’t need to,” he says finally, which is as close to a promise as a man like him knows how to make out loud.
Julia snaps the folder shut. “Good,” she says. “Then we all get what we came for.”
Somewhere beyond the studio wall, I can hear the murmur of the newsroom, a tide turning a few degrees. My phone starts a new buzz—different tempo: messages stacking, not alarms. I don’t check them yet. I look at Riley.
Her shoulders have dropped half an inch. It looks like an inch of air no one can take from her.
For the first time all day, I let myself believe we took something back—and nailed it to the wall with ink.
The studio breathes different when ink dries. Out in the bullpen, a tide of voices rolls softer. Phones hum in a friendlier key. Julia peels off to wrangle deliverables; Nolan and counsel disappear into a glass box to congratulate themselves in legal.Riley and I step into the hallway where the carpet still smells like dust and cable tape, and for once the air doesn’t feel like it’s trying to take something from us.
My phone lights like a scoreboard. Not rage—something warmer. A teammate from my first line:Proud of you. Tell Riley she’s the best I ever worked with.A veteran I grew up watching:About time someone said it on air. Protect your trainer.Screenshots stack—fans posting the hotline lower third, comments that sayblur itanddo betterandleave her alone. It’s not a miracle; it’s a degree shift. But whole games turn on a degree.
Riley reads over my shoulder and I feel her shoulders loosen the way ice gives under a clean edge. “It’s…less hostile,” she says, like she’s testing the words for balance.
“Still loud,” I say. “Just—aimed right for once.”
A camera op rolls past with a case. A stagehand coils cable, nodding at us with the small solidarity of people who carry things for a living. The world is still the world, but for the first time today it doesn’t look like a wall. It looks like a tunnel you can skate through if you keep your head up.
Riley tucks a stray curl behind her ear and looks up at me with that steady green that turned a press room into daylight. This is the part where a reasonable man leaves well enough alone.
I’ve never been great at reasonable.
The thing in my pocket has been burning a hole there since the minute I decided not to be a coward anymore. It’s not a grand piece—simple band, quiet stone—but it’s ours. I carry it like a talisman, a promise I wasn’t ready to say out loud until now.
I touch her elbow. The hallway narrows to a patch of carpet and a humming EXIT sign. Crew chatter fades to the kind of quiet that makes big choices sound like normal ones.
“Riley,” I say. My voice does that thing it does before a faceoff—low, certain. Her mouth tilts, curious. “I don’t want to wait for a moment that looks better on paper. Today was ugly. We still chose each other. I want that to be the rule, not the exception.”
Her eyes widen a fraction. The corner of her mouth lifts like she’s catching up to me and also two steps ahead. “Jason?—”
I’m already dropping.
One knee on the scuffed studio carpet. The box in my hand before I can overthink it into some flashy spectacle neither of us needs. Her breath catches; my heart finally stops trying to punch its way out and does its real job.
“Marry me,” I say. No speech. No arena. Just the truth that survived a week I wouldn’t wish on anyone. “Let’s build this loud, ordinary, stubborn life. I will choose you in rooms with lights and in rooms with none. I will not make you walk hallways alone again.”
A tech at the end of the corridor freezes with a coil of XLR in his hands. His eyes jump to the lav mic clipped to my jacket—the one the stage manager never reclaimed in the scramble. A soft red LED winks on the pack at my back like a heartbeat.
He whispers to the stage manager, eyes saucer-wide: “Uh—are we rolling?”
Riley’s hand flies to her mouth. The ring blinks up at her from the velvet like a star trying to be brave.
Somewhere, behind a half-closed door, I hear the faintest crackle of a control-room speaker waking up.
I look up at her and hold my breath
Chapter 29
Home Ice
Riley
The hallwaybehind Studio B is a maze—cables snaking like black vines, rolling cases parked at odd angles, a mirror studded with lightbulbs throwing back the last blush of TV shine. Jason is still on one knee, the little velvet box open like a secret that finally decided to be loud. My laugh breaks at the edges and turns into a wet hiccup. I’m crying and somehow that’s funny, which makes me cry harder, which makes it funnier. Perfect.
“Is that a yes?” he asks, eyes a dare and a prayer.
