Page 49 of The Breaking Point

Which, normally, wouldn’t be a negative. But there was a narrative going around that Brady was unhinged and had punched Riley just because he could.

Every day, I wanted to tell the world that Brady had been defending me. But I also knew Brady wouldn’t thank me for speaking up.

Not that I’ve even talked to Brady since Vegas. He was avoiding me. Why, I didn’t know.

So much for his promises about not playing hot and cold anymore.

“Do we know why Brady punched Riley?” Garrett, my fellow PR intern, asked.

Julia shook her head. “No, but at this point, I’m not sure it’d matter. The narrative that Brady was the aggressor is out there. It’s harder to undo something than get ahead of the narrative. Which I blame myself for.”

“You had a bunch of other stuff going on then,” Sara, Julia’s assistant, pointed out sagely.

“So? That’s not an excuse.”

It hadn’t helped that Julia had so many other projects, not to mention that the two other PR folks had been out on vacation. So it’d just been me and Garrett. As interns, we just followed directions.

And Julia had told us to bury the story instead of trying to fight it.

“We need to push new stories about Brady,” said Julia, sighing. “What charities is he involved in? Make-A-Wish? The ASPCA? We need photo ops, interviews, whatever it takes. We need to show the world that he’s a decent guy, even if it’s a lie.”

I bristled at that assertion. Brady was decent. He was kind and thoughtful, and although he could be impulsive, he meant well.

But I had to bite my tongue because I knew I’d reveal too much if I started defending Brady out of the blue. The last thing I needed was for my coworkers to think there was a conflict of interest with me being an intern.

“There’s a new dance trend that we could have the guys do,” offered Garrett. He pulled out his phone and began showing us examples.

Julia looked over at me. “Do you have anything, Grace?”

I knew that Julia wasn’t a huge fan of allowing the coach’s daughter to be an intern here. Since I’d joined the team, even temporarily, Julia hadn’t given me much in the way ofassignments. The few that I had done had been my idea to show that I was serious about this job.

But now, put on the spot, my brain stuttered to a halt.

“Uh, let me brainstorm,” I said.

Julia looked annoyed. “Nothing? Okay, then.”

Right then, I remembered a new trend I’d seen online just this morning.

“It’s basically famous people doing those interviews with puppies or kittens. We could do that with Brady and maybe another teammate. Give them a bunch of cute baby animals that they can play with on camera,” I said.

Julia thought for a moment. “Hmm, that might work. But we’d also have to find somebody to get us puppies.”

“Or kittens,” I added.

“Contact somebody at the humane society,” Julia said to Garrett. “And we’ll go from there.”

Garrett shot me a wry look. Julia loved to pile on tasks for Garrett while ignoring me. At least this time, she seemed to like my idea.

After that, Julia created a master plan and gave us our individual tasks, even including me in some.

Fortunately—or unfortunately—I wasn’t given anything that involved Brady.

As we got up to leave, Garrett leaned down to whisper in my ear, “I need to talk to you.”

I blinked in surprise but nodded. We found an empty office. When Garrett kept looking around like he was afraid someone was listening, I felt a frisson of unease.

“I got a text today from a source about Brady,” said Garrett. “Apparently he’s going to the same sex club as Mac was caught going to.”

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