That was the energy in my dressing room.
The air was charged—not with chaos, but with restraint. With proximity. With all the things none of us were saying—between me and Flint, me and Brewster, and the silent standoff between Flint and Brewster—crowding the space until it felt volatile and dangerous all at once.
I didn’t need to raise my voice. Arguing with either of them would have been indulgent, and indulgence was a weakness I couldn’t afford—not now, not with this much at stake. Emotion, left unchecked, dressed itself up as truth. And that kind of self-indulgence was how words slipped their leash—how people were misquoted, misread, or buried by what they couldn’t take back.
I needed to go on air. I needed to stay clean. I needed the story to hold when everything else was threatening to fracture.
Flint stood near the mirror, jacket discarded, sleeves rolled to his forearms, posture loose in that way that came from shared history and earned trust. He scrolled through the final language on his tablet, thumb moving with quiet precision, jaw set—not tense, just focused. When he spoke, it was low and economical. One word adjusted. A clause cut. A sentence sharpened until it could survive impact.
I was halfway out of my blouse, bra visible, fabric caught at my elbows, and neither of us acknowledged it. We never had. We’d worked like this before—compressed timelines, cramped spaces, truth prioritized over modesty. Journalism stripped down to function and nerve.
But this wasn’t thesame, because Brewster was there.
He hadn’t moved from the doorframe. Hadn’t spoken. He leaned back against it like he was holding the room together by force of will alone, phone in his hand, knuckles white enough to betray how tightly he had it gripped. His gaze cut to me and away again—too fast, too controlled. Every so often his jaw flexed, themuscle jumping like something trying to break free beneath the skin.
He was making calls. Quiet ones. Surgical ones. The kind meant to shut doors before anyone realized they were open. That was what gave his stillness its edge. It wasn’t calm. It was restraint sharpened to a blade.
The air wasn’t chaotic. It was compressed. Pressurized. Like the moment before ice gives way underfoot—silent, lethal, unforgiving.
Flint glanced up as I slipped fully out of the blouse and slacks, his eyes flicking over me only long enough to register the shift in tone. Not my body. The moment. The signal.
I pulled the dress my assistants kept ready for crisis days—pressed, untouched, black as ink. Structured. Clean lines. The kind of dress that made people listen before you opened your mouth.
The little black dress was perfect for television. Perfect for control. Perfect for hiding what you couldn’t afford to show.
The grief came anyway.
A hard, breath-stealing punch to the gut. I stilled myself around it, shoulders back, spine straight, because I’d learned a long time ago that feeling something didn’t mean you were allowed to stop functioning. Especially not now.
Black meant authority.
It also meant mourning.
And Colin had been my friend.
Flint didn’t say anything. He didn’t look away either.
He stood near the mirror, tablet lowered, watching me with that steady, infuriatingly perceptive calm of his—like he knew exactly what this cost and wasn’t going to cheapen it by naming it. His jaw tightened once. Just once. Not grief on display. Respect.
Brewster was across the room, half-shadowed near the door.
He hadn’t moved since I’d reached for the dress.
His gaze tracked me with surgical precision—not hunger, not softness. Something colder. Sharper. The kind of restraint that felt less like discipline and more like violence turned inward. Like every instinct he had was locked down under threat of detonation.
I felt it anyway.
The heat of it. The pressure. The way his attention wrapped tight without ever touching.
I stepped into the dress and Flint turned slightly, giving me space without turning away—muscle memory from years of working side by side in rooms like this. I zipped up, smoothed the fabric, grounded myself in the familiar ritual.
Brewster’s eyes flicked to the line of my throat. The cut of the dress. The fact that I was choosing to go on air like this.
Not fragile.
Not hidden.
Weaponized calm.
