Page 60 of Smooth Talk

Reed may not have cheated on me, but he certainly didn’t love me enough to stay. Didn’t love me more than money or what it could buy him. Not enough to be honest with me. And even though I’m over him, that slap-in-the-face still stings. A person I gave myself to, loved more than anyone, thought I wasn’t enough. And I know that’s on him, not me. But it took a long time to get to a good place (a place where I can trust someone else). I have moments of weakness, but now that I’m here, I’m terrified. I need Gray to have the right words.

He answers earnestly, shaking his head, looking into my eyes so deeply. Resting his large palms on the sides of my face, his thumbs lightly caress my cheeks. “Only you Pop. I told you—just you and me. Sometimes I picture you barefoot, or in the pool or the lake or swinging; that tire swing out back has gotten some serious action in my daydreams lately.” That gets yet another giggle out of me, and I feel myself relax. “But I promise, since I met you, I haven’t even thought about another woman. You’re more than enough for me.” The intensity in his eyes penetrates my soul. And just as quickly as his seriousness appears, it disappears, and he lets his lighthearted side out to play again. “And you know how much I love Lorelai Gilmore.” That dimple pops; he’s teasing me again, but his sweet words have me on cloud nine. If I hadn’t just had his peen in my mouth, it would be the perfect time to confess my feelings for him. Spoiler alert: they exceed mere fondness.

He loops his arms around my back, pressing our chests together. “Poppy, I know we haven’t been together long, but I can see this going somewhere. Us going somewhere. I,” he doesn’t get to finish. There’s a loud banging on the front door that pulls our attention from each other.

“Grayson! Open up.” Another loud knock sounds, “I know you said not to bother you, but this is really important! I know you’re home! Your car’s in the driveway.”

Grayson sighs and looks down at me apologetically, “It’s Cann; I’m sorry. I’m really regretting giving him that car transmitter right now. Specifically, because I told him not to bother me all weekend,’ he huffs out a frustrated breath. ‘If I don’t open up, he’ll let himself in; he has a code.’ He looks at me apologetically again, waiting for me to grab my robe. I hear him grumble, ‘it better be life or death,” before stomping towards the door. I don’t want him to open it; I have a bad feeling about what he’s letting in. Me and unexpected knocks at the front door, well let’s just say, we have a history. And so far, it’s— Knocks: 1 | Poppy: 0. I felt like Gray and I were on the verge a very meaningful conversation, like he was about to confess something huge. And if it’s the same something I was thinking, I’d concur.

Cannon rushes into the room just as I’m tying my belt around my waist. I met him a few weeks ago, and he’s awesome. Funny, smart and genuine. However, I’d rather him not see me in my current state of undress, not that him seeing me in lace negligee would do anything for him, I just always feel more comfortable around people when they can’t see the color of my nipples. I look down to see them poking through the thin material. I guess my body hasn’t gotten the message that we’re no longer in sexy-times mode. Oh well, at least he can’t see that they’re pink.

“What’s the emergency? Is Sanders dropping out?” Grayson smirks at Cannon. Like he’d be so lucky. His good humor’s infectious, but I can’t shake the feeling that something has gone horribly awry. Cannon shoots him the stink eye while he catches his breath.

“Not yet. Besides, that’s text worthy. This is quite a delicate matter. And I’m glad I have both of you here,” he still sounds out of breath, like he ran all the way over here from Grayson’s office downtown, but I don’t miss the worry in his eyes or the guilt in his tone. “I take it neither of you have seen today’s edition of The Willow Weekly?” Grayson holds out his hand, silently asking for what Cannon’s holding behind his back. He lays the newspaper gently into Grayson’s hands; mine are wringing each other to death at my waist. My eyes don’t leave Gray’s face as he reads over the front page. He opens the paper roughly and I glance at Cannon, who mouths ‘sorry’ to me, as Gray flips pages. That’s right, pages. Whatever is front-page newsworthy, is more than a small blurb in our local paper.

“Fuck!” Grayson’s outburst makes me jump. “He can’t do this! They can’t print this. What the fuck!” I rush over to grab the paper out of his hand, but he raises it out of my reach. “Poppy, don’t. You don’t need to see this.” His eyes have lost all the playfulness they held just moments ago. They are now filled with anger and dread; it makes the butterflies in my stomach turn to lead. I swallow down the vomit that’s threatening to surface. He quickly refolds the paper, hiding the material from my eyes.

“Is the article about you?” He nods. “Is it about me?” My voice is shaking, on the verge of tears. He nods. “Harper?” The last part comes out as a whisper.

He shakes his head no, “not directly.”

I hold my hand out to him, palm up, “I want to see.”

His eyes are pleading; “Please, baby.” I don’t want him begging; I want to see the dang paper. If I have to get dressed, go downtown, and buy my own stinking copy, I will. I don’t know if I said that aloud or if he’s just that good at reading me. He places the paper in my hand. “Poppy, we’ll get a retraction printed. Cannon’s already working on getting the online article pulled. Aren’t you?”

“I’ve been on the phone trying to get through for the past hour,’ Cannon says nodding. ‘Apparently, they’ve been inundated with calls.”

“This is going to be the last article Rusty Dobbs ever publishes.” His threatening words barely reach my ears as I scan over the words on the front-page spread.

It basically calls me a tease, a slut and a gold digger. Although I’m not sure how a woman can be the first two at the same time; they’re total opposites. There are quotes from a few of the recent men I’ve dated (aka: men my mother and her friends set me up with). I had no idea that would come back to bite me so hard. There’s even a claim that I was dating Sanders until I ‘sunk my claws into the wealthier mayoral candidate.’ We went on one date! What the heck is going on here?

Then it goes into my past relationship with a known criminal. How much money ‘we’ swindled from our friends. There’s even a theory about how I’m helping Reed evade investigators and avoid prison. It questions what kind of example I set for my impressionable young daughter (I’m only glad she isn’t named). It questions whether or not Grayson is a fit candidate. Based solely on his involvement with me. It calls into question my business practices, and how I’m using the Maxwell family to further my career. That’s not even the worst part. I turn to pages 2A, 3C and 4B (where the story continues) and my breath catches. Oh, holy pictures.

My eyes are blurry with tears, but I can still see the images swimming in front of me. There are several. The first one is a picture of me, Reed and Harper when she was a baby. It was a publicity shot for his firm. It’s the same one the local news stations used when Reed’s story had broken. They at least had the common decency to blur my child’s face. No such luck here.

The next ones are worse. Someone had to have been lurking in my neighbor’s bushes to get these shots. My limbs resemble tentacles wrapped around Grayson’s body while our mouths are suctioned together on my front porch. I was trying to hide my make-out sesh from my daughter; I wasn’t worried about the rest of the world seeing it.

“Dear God,” the words leave my mouth as a whisper. To be honest, I’m surprised my voice is still operational with the gigantic emotional lump residing in my throat. I keep trying to swallow it down, but it won’t budge. These are the worst yet. It looks like Grayson’s giving it to me from behind in a very public parking lot in broad daylight. The open car door covers our mid-sections and I’m wearing a strapless, knee-length dress (so I basically look naked— you can see my head, bare arms and legs). It doesn’t show that I dropped my keys and bent to pick them up while Gray was ensconced in an intense sneezing fit. This looks so bad. Oh my God. What am I going to do? I thought what happened with Reed was embarrassing. This is so much worse. Before it was accusations about my involvement in my husband’s scandal. Now the scandal is all mine. How many months of the press invading my privacy to clear my good name will it take this time around?

I can’t go through this again, defending my reputation to perfect strangers on the street. Well, to be fair, this is Willow Creek; there really aren’t many strangers here. Regardless, I won’t be able to show my face in town for at least a month. Not until the truth is literally front-page news, but even then, there will be rumors. You can’t survive a story like this without people thinking there’s some truth to it. You know, where there’s smoke, there’s fire and all that. Except in this case, some jerk has pulled the fire alarm as a stunt. I felt myself go from hurt, to angry, to numb in a matter of minutes. I vaguely hear Grayson talking, but all I can make out is ‘smear campaign,’ and ‘this is my fault.’ But I’m not listening intently. I can’t. My brain is hazy and moving at turtle speed. Memories are flooding back, and I feel panicked. I can’t breathe. I’ve got to get out of here. God. I’d just gotten my groove back too. Work’s amazing, Harper’s happy, and Grayson was perfect. I knew it all seemed too good to be true. I felt myself waiting for the other shoe to drop. Well, here it is. And it’s a flaming-crap-bag-stomping-boot. Lucky me.

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