A handsome—veryhandsome—dark-haired man had his elbows propped on the desk as he leaned forward, grinning at something Carl the camera operator was saying. Carl gestured with his hands, and the handsome brunet laughed, tossed his head back, and turned a million-watt smile on Carl. If Nate didn’t know better, he’d think the guy was flirting with their straight, married, sixtysomething grandfather of three. Whatever. The guy was in Nate’s chair, and Nate needed to politely inform him of the fact and give him the opportunity to move… and maybe to introduce himself, since no one else was going to tell Nate who he was. Where did they get him from? Nate squinted as he approached. The guy looked vaguely familiar. Local news? A weatherman maybe?
“Nate!” Carl intercepted him before he could make his case to the usurping newcomer. “Glad you made it! I thought I was going to have to join Aubrey up in front of the cameras tonight,” he joked.
“Uh, yeah.” Nate pasted on a smile, more confused than ever. He tamped down on a surge of change-induced panic. “You kn—”
“And Emmy would’ve loved that,” Carl continued, still chuckling.
“Well, I’ll make sure she gets that autographed picture,” the guy—Aubrey—said. “Always happy to hear about a fan. Give her my love, Carl.”
There was more batting of eyelashes until Carl ambled back to his station.
“Hi.”
And now the guy was making eyes at Nate. Nate, who’d just spent twelve hours in travel with a dead phone. Nate, who hadn’t been able to wrangle a straight answer out of his producer all day. Nate, who hadno fucking ideawhat was going on and needed to be on the air inminutes.
Right now Nate didn’t care if Aubrey was the only other gay man on the planet. He wasn’t going to flirt with him. Definitely not at work, andespeciallynot while he was sitting in Nate’s chair. “You’re in my seat,” Nate said.
The eyelashes stopped fluttering and instead narrowed around clear gray eyes. “My apologies,” he said smoothly, and all the warmth of his initial greeting faded. “Ms. Chapel told me to sit here.”
Why would she do that?Nate knew ratings had suffered with John. Had Jess decided to go in a totally different direction? Would she call him to set just to fire him?
The guy in Nate’s chair leaned back, eyes still narrowed in assessment. The movement drew Nate’s eye to his suit—cut very close, expensive too, and Nate knew expensive suits. This one had a silver line of stitching around the lapels. Flashy, but with class. John would’ve hated it.
“I’m Aubrey Chase, by the way,” the guy said, holding out a hand, and oh. That was why Nate recognized him.
“The figure skater.” It came out sounding a little more cringeworthy than Nate intended. He had nothing against figure skaters. He knew what kind of tremendous athleticism the sport demanded. But this was a hockey show. “Uh, nice to meet you,” he offered belatedly and shook the guy’s hand. “Nate Overton.”
“My pleasure.” Aubrey’s smile was polite, if not warm, as if he could read Nate’s thoughts. “You’re the senior now, so I guess that’s why you get John’s old spot. Kind of surprised it looks just like a normal chair, you know? It’s not like it’s velvet or ermine-lined or anything.”
Nate adjusted his earpiece since he couldn’t manage to adjust the nagging sensation of disorientation.
“Two minutes,” Gina’s voice said in his ear.
Nate glanced over the paper in front of him. To his right he noticed Aubrey smoothing his own sheet and shrugging and shaking out his shoulders a bit as if he were about to step into a spotlight on the ice. He was getting ready for his audience, obviously. Just Nate’s luck that after all the times he’d dreamed of getting rid of an overbearing bigoted buffoon like John, the replacement would be a different sort of diva.
“I see we’re hashing out Kazakov’s new contract.”
“That’s what it says,” Nate replied. He hated that he felt he’d gotten off on the wrong foot, but somehow blaming Aubrey for his own lack of grace made him feel better.
“Five and a half by five. That’s going to be a squeeze with Dallas’s cap issues,” Aubrey offered.
“Well, it’s not like top-four defenseman grow on trees, and Popov’s not getting any younger.” Nate probably sounded more definite than he felt about the issue, but it had been a long day.
“Dallas wouldn’t know if they did grow on trees, unless they were trees in Russia. They can’t seem to draft one from anywhere else.” Aubrey clicked his pen for emphasis.
Nate swiveled on his chair to glare at the handsome but misinformed face. “They traded for Svensson at the last deadline!”
“Trading for a thirty-four-year-old isn’t the same as developing or draft—” Aubrey insisted, but Gina’s voice interrupted.
“Forty-five seconds.”
Nate felt like his nose was going to hit the desk in forty-five seconds. He should have chugged an energy drink or three, and now a figure skater was trying to debate him on the finer points of building a blueline.
Worse, he wasn’t entirely off base. At the very least he was competent, which was better than John, and unlikely to spout some of the more offensive bile that seemed to fall like flowers from John’s mouth. Nate needed to focus on that and on staying awake and alert, and then he could apologize to his new cohost and try to start over.
“I really need a coffee,” he grumbled, and Gina piped in over his earpiece.
“I’ll get you one for commercial break.”
