I freeze, halfway to sitting down, and she bursts into laughter.
“Kidding. Relax, Senator.”
“I hate it when you call me that,” I mutter, opening the donut box.
She pauses for a beat longer than usual, then says, “Guess I’ll have to find a new nickname for you.”
She reaches for a cruller. “You get what you need from legal?” she asks, taking the glazed donut like it was custom made for her.
“I got something,” I say. “Whether it’s usable remains to be seen.”
Jess moves around the desk and walks straight into my space. She leans in beside me, with one hand on the back of my chair and the other resting on the desk near mine. Our fingers brush. Just briefly. Just enough.
Her perfume wraps around me, and it’s that light, subtle scent of florals. Her hair catches the sunlight streaming through the tall office windows, causing it to glow gold at the ends like she’s lit from the inside out. Her eyes skim the screen with laser precision, narrowed in concentration, and when she tilts her head to ask a question, her cheek is barely a breath from mine.
“You added the part about his charitable work with the pet shelter,” she says in a low voice. “That’s a good call.”
“Figured it softens the cat thing,” I manage. My voice comes out rougher than I expect. Too much awareness. Toomuch heat for a weekday morning. She doesn’t seem to notice. Or maybe she does, and she’s just better at hiding it.
She scrolls through the draft, her fingertips moving fast, but I can’t focus on a single line of text. Not when her arm keeps brushing mine. Not when I can feel the heat of her body so close that it’s messing with my brain.
God help me, I like working with her. I like this version of us. We’re sharp but aligned, collaborative without constantly trying to one-up each other. It took a few weeks—ok, two months—but we’ve found a rhythm. And I’m not entirely convinced it’s just because of the cameras.
“It does. And you cut the part where the studio ‘remains steadfast in its commitment to employee wellness.’”
“I couldn’t say it with a straight face.”
She laughs again. “Look at you. Evolving.”
I sigh and look up at her. “I need this episode to walk a fine line. We’re not spinning. We’re clarifying. Your podcast is already on the trades’ radar, and if your narrative contradicts ours, the media will eat us alive.”
“And if it aligns,” she says, “people will believe it. Because I’m not the studio. I’m the voice they trust.”
Exactly. She’s my best shot at getting the right tone into the public space, and she knows it.
“So, what’s the problem?” she asks.
I open my phone and show her the headline that just dropped: “LEVI PETERSON’S TEAM SAYS ‘COLD MEDS & FATIGUE’ TO BLAME FOR CRASH.”
Jess reads it twice and then closes her eyes. “Oh, come on.”
“His personal publicist gave a statement without clearingit through us. Now it sounds like we’re contradicting ourselves.”
“And if I run with the studio-approved version, I look like I’m helping you cover it up.”
I nod. “That’s why I want to do this together. We co-author the tone. You call it straight. I’ll stay in my lane.”
For a moment, she studies me like she’s deciding whether to believe that. Then she opens her laptop again and starts typing.
“Alright. Let’s fix it.”
We settle into our usual back-and-forth, refining talking points and fact-checking timelines. She records an intro blurb for her podcast while I check off calls to talent management and the studio’s insurance lead.
She asks for a statement to include in the bonus content, and I give her one I already know will run longer than we agreed to.
“I’m adding context,” I say when she gives me a look.
“You’re adding caveats.”
