I tried to think back to my first national TV appearance, but I’d been too excited to be nervous. I thrived in front of an audience. Entertaining people was fundamental to who I was. That story wasn’t going to help since it was so different, but maybe I could make her laugh.

“See, now you’re framing it wrong.” I took her hand. It had been an instinctive move, but once I’d done it, I waited for her to pull away. Instead, she gripped my hand tighter. “We’re not going to replay your humiliation. We’re replaying my heroism. It’s not about you.”

She exhaled a laugh, and it wasn’t much, but she smiled up at me. “How do you deal with this all the time?”

“To be fair, I don’t really deal with this all the time. The kind of press I’ve been getting has changed since the lovely Lady Elena came into my life.”

“So what you’re saying is I’m serving my purpose?”

“I wouldn’t put it like that…”

Someone with a headset came to escort us backstage. Through the walls and backdrop of the set, I caught glimpses of the audience and the bright lights of the stage.

“It takes all this setup and equipment just to produce a talk show?” Elena whispered, looking around in awe.

“You should see the set of a big budget action flick.”

I could hear Zuri giving the intro setup for our segment.

“Please welcome Alex Chase and Lady Elena!”

Before Elena had time to overthink it, I tugged her out and we were striding towards the couch. She held my hand the entire way without argument and let me keep holding it once we’d settled on the guest couch. The audience cheered and screamed.

Over all the noise, we could hear a chorus of, “Step on me, Mistress! Please step on me!”

Zuri raised her eyebrows and pretended to look shocked. “Now that’s one we haven’t heard on the show before.”

The audience roared with laughter and Elena gave them a sly wink.

Zuri greeted us, then said, “All right, let’s address the elephant in the room. You two are an item. You were out at dinner and things got a little dicey with the paparazzi. The story going around is that Lady Elena was wasted and had to be carried out and Alex got unnecessarily aggressive with some photographers…but we’ve got some video here that paints a different picture.”

She showed the video on a giant screen behind us, and the audience gasped and booed when the photographers surrounded Elena and she fell. She was sitting rigid next to me on the couch, but she smiled sheepishly when the audience made it abundantly clear they had her back. Then, when I went on my little rampage, they cheered with delight. When I finally swept her into my arms and carried her to the car, the screams from the audience were deafening.

Zuri was fanning herself when the video ended. She said, “And once more with music…”