Page 37 of Breaking News

When I glanced up, Jill’s smile was gone. She was watching me with sadness in her eyes now, her eyebrows knitting together. “I don’t think I want kids, because I could never withstand that kind of heartbreak.”

“Ugh,” I groaned, staring down at the chocolate milk in my bowl. “It’s been the hardest, longest heartbreak of my life. It breaks a little more every time they don’t need me.”

She blinked a few times, biting her bottom lip. I hadn’t meant to bring the conversation to such a somber tone, but there she was, looking like she might cry. A subject change was in order.

“Okay, new topic,” I said, my spook clinking against the ceramic bowl as I stirred around what was left of my Cocoa Pebbles. “I noticed you have a Southern accent when you’re drunk. Explain yourself.”

Jill laughed. “I’m from Tennessee.”

“How the hell did you end up in Woodvale?”

“I moved to Indiana for a stupid boy, what else? And then I met Meghan at a conference in Indy, and we connected. When the position at WWTV opened up, she notified me about it. I went from being a fill-in anchor in Evansville to… what I’m doing now.”

She pushed her cereal bowl away and rested her elbows on the counter, and the conversation continued. She told me about life growing up in Tennessee, her barefoot summers and bonfires in the hills. We talked about Woodvale next, and I had to clutch my stomach and laugh when she expressed her admiration for this town—the town I’d spent my entire life in and hated.

The conversation shifted to my fears that my kids would leave for college and never return to Woodvale. And the next thing I knew, she was asking to see their baby pictures, and I was dragging out a couple of the hardbound printed photo albums I’d made of all our candid family pictures.

Jill flipped through the pages, laughing at a photo of four-year-old Olivia wearing my big shoes. She slowed down, squinting at a picture of me from at least ten years ago, with Caleb on my shoulders. I shifted uncomfortably in my stool when she lifted her eyes to look at me now, as if assessing how I’d aged.

“That was before the gray,” I said.

Jill smiled. “I like the gray.”

I swallowed. “You’ve… mentioned that.” My words came out rougher than I intended, and I focused my attention on tracing the foil lettering on the front of the closest photo album. Her gaze was still on me, and she was grinning like she hadn’t just said something that made my heart race.

I wished I didn’t want her so bad.

Hoping a quick subject change would distract her from my apparent nervousness, I asked her how she'd been feeling for the past couple of days. She talked about her chronic pain—about how it came and went, coupled with unexplained fatigue and brain fog. “The reason I’ve been putting off this doctor’s appointment is because they’re either going to throw some pain pills at me and send me on my way, or worse, they’re going to find something I don’t want to know about.”

“I get it,” I said, casually stacking up the photo albums. “But time will pass regardless, either with answers or with you still wondering. At least this way, there’s a chance you could feel better.”

Jill stared at her baby-blue fingernails and nodded. “Yeah. I guess I’m just afraid of both outcomes.”

We sat in silence for a couple of minutes, and she yawned, covering her mouth. I refused to acknowledge it, because that might prompt her to say she was ready to go to sleep and this conversation would be over. But I wasn’t ready.

“Graham,” she said, her voice cautiously soft. I blinked at her, giving her my full attention. It felt like she was staring into my soul, her fist resting beneath her chin. My heart picked up before she spoke again. “Why aren’t you seeing someone?”

I huffed out a quick laugh. “Wow, getting personal, are we?” She just gave me an unapologetic smile. “Believe it or not, dating as a divorced, graying, single dad isn’t that easy. A lot of women my age are already married, or they’ve just got… complicated situations going on with their own exes.”

My most recent girlfriend still lived with her ex, whom she technically wasn’t even divorced from yet.

Never again.

“I guess I don’t go out of my way to meet women,” I continued. “It takes a lot of energy to let someone new into your life. And when you’ve got kids, that just makes it even harder.”

“I bet.” Jill tucked her hair behind her ears. It was dry now—how long had we been sitting here talking? “Letting in someone new really can be draining, and when it doesn’t work out after all that effort, it’s just so disappointing. Like, did I really just do all of that for a man who loved someone else?”

She shook her head, and the puzzle pieces started falling into place. I thought I’d heard whispers of Xander’s affection for Abigail in my newsroom, and now I understood Jill’s refusal tosleep in the same room as them. “Is that what happened with Xander, then?” I asked, though I already knew the answer.

Jill sighed, but she started to smile. “Yes. Xander’s helplessly in love with this other woman—”

“Abigail, you mean.”

Her lips parted. “How the hell did you know that?”

“Uhh… call it a sixth sense, I guess.”

“Well,” she said, crossing her arms against her chest. She stared down at the surfboard design on her t-shirt. My t-shirt. “I hope they’re over there fucking in the Gardners’ recliner right now. And I mean that.”

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