I stepped into the NewSpin offices the following morning feeling hesitant at best, and a nervous wreck at worst. Joel had reassured me over and over again that things were going to be just fine, that all I had to do was get up there and say my piece on camera, the same way I’d done hundreds of times before, and it would all be over. Then everything would go back to normal, or I’d find a new normal, whatever that might end up looking like.

There were still balloons hanging in the entryway of the office, though they’d deflated and some of them had been popped, no doubt after I’d stormed out of the office last night. There wasn’t much for anyone to celebrate after the show had aired—except for Lee, who was almost certainly celebrating his record-setting number of views on the site. I’d seen that on the news this morning while I got ready to go to the office, during a segment announcing the statement I was set to give. It was still odd to me that I was the subject of a morning news segment.

I laughed at that as I stepped through the office, heading toward the elevator, when someone called to me from the other side, their voice echoing throughout the empty space. It struck me then how strange it was that there wasn’t anyone there working on a Monday morning. Maybe they’d all been given the day off so that the company had time to recover from the bombshells of the night before.

“Hey! Kile! Over here!” the voice shouted, and I spotted a young kid with spiky hair making his way over to me. When he reached me, he stuck his hand out for me to shake.

“I’m Dylan. Dylan Morris. I’m a friend of Jeff Taylor’s. Er, I mean, we worked together. Wade’s waiting for us upstairs but he wanted me to accompany you,” the kid said.

“Nice to meet you,” I said, eyeing him carefully.

“Likewise. I’ve heard so many good things about you from Jeff. Honestly, you’re all he talks about anymore,” he said, still shaking my hand. I pulled it from his grip.

“Is he here?”

“No. He, well, he resigned. Last night,” Dylan said and despite myself, my heart sank a bit. I’d hoped to see Jeff, hoped to make things right in the place that had brought us together in the first place.

“Oh,” I said.

“But he knows about today and wanted me to tell you he wishes he could be here,” Dylan said.

“Then why isn’t he?”

“He thought it might be awkward for everyone if he was.”

“Good point.”

“Anyway, I’m not here to talk your ear off. Let’s head upstairs,” Dylan said and without another word he set off toward the elevator at a fast clip. I had to move to keep up with him. In the elevator, he pressed the button for the fifth floor, and it whirred to life as it started moving up.

“So, uh, sorry about all of this,” Dylan said. “I mean, not that it’s my place to apologize for it or anything, but it’s been tough for everyone. Especially Jeff.”

“Yeah, it hasn’t been easy for me, either,” I said, though what he said caught my ear. “How’s he doing?”

“Jeff, you mean?”

“Yeah.”

“Eh, he’s been better. Things are looking up now though thanks to Wade getting involved, so hopefully he’ll bounce back. I haven’t seen him since yesterday, and yesterday he was in a bit of a state,” Dylan said, shaking his head. “It’ll be OK in the end, though. He’s tough. So are you.”

“Thanks,” I said and the elevator dinged, its doors opening. The recording room looked much the same as it had last night, only this time there were only two chairs. To my surprise, Cameron was there.

“What’s he doing here?” I asked, sounding more put off than I’d meant to.

“He’s here to kind of smooth things over on our end. Cameron’s our most well-known guy, so it only makes sense that he appear with you,” Dylan said. Another tall man with dark brown hair stood with his back to us, chatting to someone I didn’t recognize.

As we approached, he turned around and I found myself face to face with a man with deep, soul-searching hazel eyes. He lit up at the sight of me and offered me a hand to shake.

“Kile Avery. So good to meet you. I only wish it were under different circumstances,” he said. “I’m Wade Barrett.”

“Nice to meet you too, and I agree about the circumstances,” I said, putting my hand in his and giving it a firm shake. He smiled at me.

“About that. Before we get started or do anything else, I’d like to apologize to you for all of this. What Lee did was absolutely unacceptable and not at all reflective of the culture we’re trying to establish here,” he said, releasing my hand.

“Thank you, though it’s really not necessary,” I said. He’d already apologized once before. “I know you didn’t have anything to do with it,” I said.

“Maybe not, but as the President of NewsAmp, it doesn’t exactly make me look very good,” he said.

“Fair enough. So, what’s this all about?” I asked, gesturing around the room. “I thought I was just going to be making a short little statement. What’s with all of the pomp and circumstance?”

“You’re not the only one who needs to right things. We want to set the record straight about all of this, make sure that there’s no blood on any hands here at NewSpin,” he said. “Cameron’s here to help with that.” Cameron waved at me from his chair. I waved back tepidly.

“What exactly are you expecting me to say?”

“The truth. Whatever that means to you. We don’t know what happened between you and Jeff and what role Lee played in all of this, not really, so it’s up to you to tell us and the rest of the world,” he said. “We’d also like to open things up for a Q&A session from social media, if that’s OK with you. People have a lot of questions they want answered,” he continued, and my heart fluttered in my chest. I rarely got nervous, but I didn’t really like the sound of baring my heart to the entire world. The only way out is through, I told myself. It’d always been one of my favorite sayings. I took a deep breath.

“Is that too much?” Wade asked. “It’s totally up to you, I don’t want to pressure you into doing anything you don’t want to do.”

“I can handle it. It won’t be easy, but I can do it,” I said, as much to assure him as myself.

“Alright. We’re all ready to go, but if you need a few minutes to prepare, take however much time you need,” he said.

“Thanks again, Wade. Really, I appreciate it,” I said and he smiled warmly at me before leaving me with Dylan and Cameron.

“I’m good to go,” I told Dylan and he nodded before stepping away to stand next to Wade off-camera. Cameron and I took our seats and he shook my hand.

“Thanks for being here, Kile. We all owe you a lot for agreeing to do this. I know it’s not going to be easy, but I’ll give you whatever space you need to say what you need to say. The floor is pretty much all yours,” Cameron said. I still didn’t quite understand why everyone here was thanking me; I stood to gain much more from this than they did.

“Yeah, I’m glad to be here. It’s going to be fine.”

“Good. You ready?” he asked.

“As ready as I can be,” I sighed and he smirked.

“Alright. We’re good to go,” Cameron called to Wade, giving him a thumbs up. Wade signaled to the rest of the crew to get into position and they did so quickly. Before I knew it, Cameron and I both were wired with a microphone; a camera wheeled up close to Cameron and me and I felt the heat coming off of the lights that burst to life overhead. Wade counted down before pointing to Cameron to signal we were live.

“Good morning, everyone, and thank you again for joining us. I’m Cameron Edwards, NewSpin correspondent, and I’m here with Kile Avery to talk about and clarify some of the things you saw last night during our premiere event introducing For the Record. Kile, thanks for being here,” Cameron said, turning to me.

“Thanks for having me again,” I said and he smiled at me.

“So, last night was a bit of a doozy for all of us, huh?” he asked and I laughed.

“Yeah, I think that’s putting it lightly.”

“So, let’s not waste any time. Talk us through things. I think the audience at home has a lot of questions about what exactly happened,” he said. I took a deep breath and searched for the right words.

“It’s tangled, to say the least. I guess I should start at the beginning. The confrontation that Jeff Taylor and I had on his show on GNN was very much real. I’m sure there’s been speculation about that since last night,” I said and Cameron nodded, encouraging me on.

“So, yeah… Coming into the filming of For the Record, Jeff and I were very much enemies. Like, couldn’t stand to look at each other, much less be in the same room to work together,” I said and Cameron laughed.

“Yeah, I think that was evident in some of the footage we saw in the episode last night,” he said.

“Right. And from there, as we worked together more, things just started to progress, and with every day I hated him less than I did the day before.”

“Isn’t it funny how that happens? How it’s often the people we can’t stand at first who later prove to be the ones we grow attached to?”

“Yeah, and that’s exactly what happened. I didn’t understand it at the time, and I still don’t, to be honest, but there was always something about Jeff that I couldn’t put my finger on, something that made me question my first impression of him,” I said, surprising myself with how honest I was being on camera. It scared me, but this is exactly what I’d come here to do.

“Interesting. Alright, so things progressed, as you said. What exactly did that look like?”

“Well, there was one day we were talking at my condo, it was just the two of us, no cameras. He was asking me some pretty tough questions about my past, things I’ve talked about during some of my speeches, and I clammed up. I mean, obviously, that stuff’s not something I like to talk about, especially to a journalist I didn’t particularly like who was also making a documentary about me. It’s not flattering,” I said and Cameron laughed.

“Right, of course not. So what happened?”

“Well, he gave up because I was throwing him curveballs and said he was calling the day off. He went to leave and then said he had one more question for me. And then he kissed me,” I said, my face tingling as it blushed. Cameron’s eyes went wide.

“Whoa, that’s unexpected,” he laughed.

“Yeah, you’re telling me, but it got even better. After that, he asked me to have dinner with him,” I said.

“Wow, who would’ve guessed that Jeff Taylor was such a romantic, huh?”

“Definitely not me,” I said and Cameron laughed, deep and hearty. Despite myself, I felt a smile form on my face at the memory. “It was bold, to say the least. But I liked it. It broke him out of the box that I’d put him in.”

“Yeah, understandably. So, did you have dinner with him?”

“I did, and that’s really where things all started to fall apart,” I said.

“I see. So, let me stop you there and ask you this… what Jeff said last night, when he denied the photos that almost everyone has seen of the two of you together as being indicative of there being a relationship between you… was that a lie?” he asked and though I’d expected the question, I still wasn’t prepared for it.

“It was,” I admitted and it felt as if all of the air had been sucked from the room in an instant.

“Wow,” Cameron said, his voice barely more than a whisper. “OK, well, that certainly changes things.”

“Yeah, look, it’s not something I’m proud of in retrospect. We should never have gotten involved with each other, I mean, for God’s sake, we were coworkers and it was obviously a huge conflict of interest, but I can’t go back and change that now,” I said and he nodded.

“Of course not,” he said. “Let’s talk about those photos, then. What exactly was going on there?”

“There were a lot of things going on. By the time those photos were out in the wild, we’d already agreed that we were going to do our best to keep things hush-hush, at least until filming was over and the show was out there. But the photos kind of screwed all of that up,” I laughed.

“Yeah, I assumed as much.”

“So that was kind of a breaking point for us. We knew we couldn’t keep seeing each other because we were obviously already being followed and it would only get worse once people caught wind of the photos. So we ended it,” I said. It still hurt to think about.

“That’s tough,” Cameron said, his eyes showing genuine sadness.

“Yeah, it was beyond tough. Things had moved quickly, but what Jeff and I had was real. It was real,” I said, trailing off.

“The photos definitely showed that, which made it so strange that you both denied them, and then what Jeff said on air last night only confused us all more,” he said.

“I know. It stunned me, too. I mean, I knew in my head we couldn’t be open about it, even if you or anyone else asked during the stream last night, but it still hurt to hear him deny it.”

“Yeah, I can imagine how hard that must’ve been for both of you. So, OK, we get to the end of the first episode last night and there’s a teaser for the next and before any of us really know what’s going on, you’re storming off set. The audience and I definitely want to know more about what happened there,” he said.

“Yeah, that’s where things get even more tangled,” I laughed. “Honestly, I thought that Jeff and Lee Noble, the editor-in-chief at NewSpin and guy who’d organized the whole documentary, were working together to throw me under the bus for their own mutual benefit,” I said.

“Whoa. What made you think that?”

“It’s complicated and I won’t go into a lot of the details, but there were things I’d seen and observed that pointed in that direction. I mean, Jeff was definitely down on his luck after what happened at GNN a few weeks ago, so it all just made sense in my head. And I’ll be honest, I’m a bit of a drama queen, so it was my natural way of thinking to jump to conclusions,” I said.

“I think anyone in your shoes would’ve thought the same thing.”

“I’m not sure about that,” I laughed. “So, to give my exit some context, Lee had approached me when the photos came out of Jeff and me together and asked to include our little romance in the documentary. There was no way in hell I was going to let that happen, and I told Lee as much. I thought we were on the same page after that, but as we all saw in the teaser trailer last night, that definitely wasn’t the case.”

“Oh my gosh,” Cameron said. I couldn’t tell if he was actually surprised or playing it up for the cameras, but it didn’t really matter either way. He paused for a few beats before turning to the cameras.

“I feel like this is as good a time as any to let the audience know that Lee Noble has since been dismissed from the company for his role in this. NewSpin launched an internal investigation after receiving a phone call from Jeff Taylor and concluded that Lee’s behavior was well out of line,” he said. After a few moments, he turned back to me, his eyes searching my face.

“So, what happens now? What would you like to say?” he asked, and the camera drew in on my face. I took a deep breath.

“There are a lot of things I’d like to say. First, I’d like to apologize to my fans and your viewers for misleading them. It was unprofessional and irresponsible, and I deeply regret how we handled things. That being said, and I don’t know if he’s watching, I’d also like to apologize to Jeff Taylor for believing that he’d ever have a part in what Lee did. He’s a good man and I should’ve known better,” I said, and Cameron nodded.

“Some of the comments that’ve come in since last night have been asking about your credibility, being as you built yourself up as a counter to the idea of love and relationships. Is there anything you’d like to say about that?”

“My career’s been a lie. All of it,” I said. Though my heart raced at the words, as they washed over Cameron I felt a huge sense of relief take over me. Cameron stared at me, blinking slowly.

“It has?”

“Yeah. I’ve spent the last five years telling the rest of the world how love is bullshit and that people can survive without it, that it’s an outdated concept, when really the truth is that the reason I said those things was because I didn’t have a clue what love was, not real love anyway,” I said.

“But you do now?”

“I do. As crazy as it is, Jeff Taylor was the first person to show me what that really looked like.”

“Aww,” Cameron said and I couldn’t help chuckling.

“So, yeah. I don’t know what this means for me, I don’t know what this means for my website The Flame and my career as a whole, but I had a good friend give me the rude awakening I needed. I realized I couldn’t go on telling people things like that when I didn’t believe them myself. It was making me miserable and the relationship I had with Jeff, though brief, changed me. Like, I don’t think I could ever go back to doing what I was doing before—and I doubt my fans would have me, anyway.”

“Forgive me the pun, but it sounds like the flame wasn’t there for you anymore,” he said and I laughed.

“Yeah, exactly. Plus, it just felt disingenuous. Like, that’s not who I am anymore, that’s not what I believe, and I’m clearly no expert on this stuff, despite how much I tried to position myself as one,” I said.

“I get that. If your heart’s not in it anymore, it makes it difficult to keep going. Alright, so that leads me to another question: is Jeff still in your orbit?”

“We haven’t spoken to each other in a while, other than the live stream last night. I don’t know where we’re at as a couple, especially after the last 24 hours.”

“Do you think there’s any chance you two might be able to reconcile?”

“I don’t know, but I hope so. We had something special, I’d love to give it another try,” I said, and I meant it. I hoped that Jeff was out there somewhere and listening, hoped he saw how much I wanted it to happen.

“That’s sweet. Jeff, if you’re listening, I hope you’re hearing this man out. I for one thought the idea of you two together was adorable, and plenty of people watching now thought the same thing,” Cameron said to the cameras before turning back to me. “Speaking of, if it’s alright with you, I’d like to move on and take some questions from some of our viewers.”

“Yeah, let’s do it. I’ve already been through the wringer, I can’t imagine they’ll have anything too bad to say,” I said and he laughed.

“Alright, we’ve got a laptop set up here to take questions. The first one comes in the form of a video call. For those of you watching at home, look down to your bottom right to see the video. You ready, Kile?”

“I’m ready,” I said and Cameron clicked the mouse to start the video call before turning the computer so I could see the screen. My heart stopped beating for a few moments when I saw Jeff’s face. His voice filled the recording room and it took everything I had not to start crying.

“Hi, Kile,” he said.

“What are you doing?” I laughed, my tears coming despite my efforts.

“What does it look like?” he asked. “I knew you wouldn’t want to see me in person, not at first anyway, so I thought this might be a little easier,” he said.

“You’re unbelievable,” I said.

“Hey, that’s my line,” he said and I laughed. “Look, all kidding aside, I wanted to apologize to you and to the viewers at home. All of this got so far out of our control, so beyond what it was ever meant to be. I could’ve and should’ve done better by you, I should’ve done something about Lee sooner,” he said. “So I’m sorry and I hope you can forgive me.”

“Of course,” I said, my voice barely decipherable through my sobbing. “And I’m sorry, too. I can’t believe I ever thought you’d do that.”

“No, it made sense. But it’s all fixed now. I made sure of that, and I wanted you to know and the rest of the world too,” he said.

“How amazing is this?” Cameron said, and he was tearing up too. “Thank you both for sharing this moment with us.” I didn’t have words, I couldn’t believe this was happening. It all felt like a dream, like something I’d see in a made-for-TV movie.

“But saying I’m sorry isn’t enough,” Jeff said and suddenly it looked like he was moving, walking through a hall of some sort. “I wanted to show it, not just say it,” he continued and then he rounded a corner and stood in front of me, his phone in one hand, a bouquet of white roses in the other. I burst out laughing.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I said, jumping up out of my chair. Jeff smiled, the crow’s feet at the corners of his eyes crinkling in the most adorably sexy way, and walked forward to meet me. I threw my arms around him, not caring in the slightest about the cameras that were watching and recording our every move. He kissed me, so deeply and passionately that it felt like the first time all over again.

“I’m so sorry,” I said through tears.

“I am too,” he said, nuzzling his nose against mine as he held me and stared into my eyes. Breathing was difficult, but thinking was even more so.

“Is this really happening?”

“It is,” he said, and then Cameron was there, his hand on each of our shoulders.

“Did you know about this?” I asked him and he nodded, wearing a bright smile.

“You know, a simple phone call would’ve sufficed,” I said to Jeff and he laughed.

“Maybe, but it didn’t seem to fit your larger-than-life persona,” he said. I lost myself in his eyes again.

“I love you, Jeff Taylor,” I said, and I meant it. It didn’t feel odd in the slightest to say. I’d known it all along, known it from the very first time our lips had locked in my living room.

“I love you too, Kile Avery,” he said and kissed me again. Everything seemed to melt away in that moment: my guilt, my concerns about my career, everything except for the feeling of Jeff’s lips against mine, our bodies saying everything our words couldn’t. The crew, including Cameron, applauded as the kiss went on and on, until Cameron interrupted.

“Alright, everyone. I think that just about covers everything. Looks like we need to give these two lovebirds some time to themselves. Thank you all for joining us, and thank you both for being here and allowing us to share this special moment,” he said, and then the lights went down and the cameras switched off.

“I take it that means we’re back on?” Jeff asked and I laughed.

“Of course it does. What else would it mean?”

“Just making sure. You know, we’ve had some ups and downs, in case you’ve forgotten.”

“I haven’t forgotten. But no more lies, no more sneaking around. This is how it should’ve always been. We should never have tried to cover it up,” I said.

“I agree, but remember how I said last night that hindsight is twenty-twenty?” he asked and I laughed. “We couldn’t have known that things would turn out this way. It’s weird, but in a lot of ways, we have Lee to thank for this.”

“What happened to him?”

“No one’s seen or heard from him. Wade called to personally tell him he’d been let go. Honestly, I hope I never see the bastard again, and he’d better hope the same thing for his own sake,” he said.

“How the hell did you cook all of this up in such a short amount of time, anyway?” I asked.

“I had some help from some good friends, like Dylan and Wade. Wade in particular was pretty eager to help when I told them both about everything with Lee. He asked how he could make it up to me, and I said that this would be the best way to make it up to both of us.”

“I can’t believe this,” I laughed, resting my head on his shoulder.

“Then you’re really not going to believe what else I have to tell you,” he said. I looked up and found his eyes twinkling.

“What? What is it?”

“You’re looking at the new editor-in-chief of NewSpin’s cable TV division,” he said and I laughed.

“Very funny,” I said. Like he’d ever accept that position, even if it had been offered to him and even if it existed.

“I’m serious. Wade promoted me after he fired Lee. They’d been looking to expand into TV for a while and I guess Wade thought I’d be their perfect guy to blaze the trail,” he said and my thoughts came to a halt.

“Holy shit,” I said and he laughed.

“Holy shit, indeed. More than that, though, Wade has an opportunity he wants us both to consider.”

“And what’s that?”

“Our own show,” he said and again I let out a howl of laughter.

“You’re joking.”

“No, yet again. Not joking. You can ask Wade yourself,” he said, nodding over my shoulder to Wade, who was standing talking to Cameron and Dylan.

“What kind of show?”

“A talk show, on love and relationships,” he said. I was speechless. Jeff Taylor and Kile Avery, both disasters with love, were going to host their own show and give advice to others on how to handle it.

“What the hell does that have to do with the news?” I asked.

“Literally nothing, but hey, I’m not going to say no if they want to give me my own show,” he said and I chuckled. “Somehow I doubt you’ll say no, either.”

“This is all a weird dream, isn’t it? It has to be,” I said. He kissed me again, stroking one of my cheeks softly, before pulling back.

“Is it a dream?” he asked.

“No,” I answered, my entire body on fire. If we weren’t surrounded by people, I would’ve let him take me right then and there.

“Alright, then. What do you say to the show?”

“If it’s with you, I’ll do anything,” I said and he smiled.

“Then let’s go tell Wade the good news,” he said and led me by the hand. I listened to the two of them talk, said a few things here and there, but couldn’t really focus on the conversation.

I was with Jeff and though my nerves raced about what came next and how we’d navigate things, being there with him, my hand locked in his, reassured me that no matter what came our way, everything was going to be just fine.

“We’ll call it Clickbait,” I said, interrupting whatever they’d been talking about.

“What?” Jeff laughed.

“The show. We’ll call it Clickbait. That’s what people have wanted from us all along, so let’s give it to them.”

“It’s perfect,” Jeff said, his smile warming me from the inside out. “You’re perfect.”

“I love you,” I said again. I didn’t have a reason to say it, I just needed to say it.

“I love you, too,” he said, and nothing had ever sounded as good.