38. Itll be Alright

thirty-eight

Jack

Liz comes flying into my office in a wave of wild curls and nervous energy.

“Hey, gorgeous,” I greet. “What’s going—”

“I’m sorry,” she blurts.

“For?”

“You haven’t seen it yet?”

I walk in front of my desk, leaning against it and holding her hands in mine. “Haven’t seen what? You’re freaking me out. What’s going on?”

She pulls out her phone and hands it to me. I spend the next couple of minutes reading over the article, which clearly is a giant crock of shit.

But in all honesty, it’s nothing that I haven’t read before.

Well, the Liz part is new.

When I’m finished, I hand the phone back to her and run my hand over my beard. “Well, I guess the cat’s out of the bag, huh?”

“What?” She looks confused. “You aren’t mad?”

“Am I mad that someone wrote a bullshit article about me? I guess. But honestly, if I got mad every time someone wrote something bad about me, I’d spend all my time being angry.”

“But…but,” she stammers. “You came here to get away from that life, and now, you start dating me, and they write this.”

Suddenly, I realize that she’s upset because she thinks I’m going to be mad at her or at the relationship that we have.

“Liz, did you think I was going to be upset with you?”

“It just seems like your life was going great, and then, I came along, and here you are. Back in the tabloids.”

“Baby, come here.” I take her hand and lead her around behind the desk. I sit in the oversized chair and type my name into the search bar.

Within a fraction of a second, a slew of results come up.

I scroll through, starting to read some of the headlines out loud. “Jackson Barnett checks himself into rehab. Jackson Barnett moves to Belize. Jackson Barnett expecting secret love child with porn star, Sophie Swinney.”

I look up at Liz who is staring at the screen. “And you see the dates of all of these? All of the ones I just read were written within the past six months. They will write about me no matter what. At least with you, they got part of the story right.”

“How do you deal with it?” She asks.

I shrug my shoulders. “You just have to get really tough skin. I remember when I read the first article about me, and I threatened to sue the magazine. I wasted so much time and energy trying to fight it, and it got me absolutely nowhere. Finally, I took all of that anger and put it toward my career. That’s how I became such a good fighter.”

“So, you’re not mad at me?” She asks.

I pull her into my lap. “Not even a little bit.”

She leans forward pressing her forehead against mine. “I just don’t get how you’re so calm all the time. Nothing seems to rattle you. Well, nothing besides me. I seemed to make you pretty mad in the beginning.”

I smile. “I guess I only let the important things rattle me.”

“So, I guess we are a tabloid couple now, huh?” She asks.

“I guess so. The good thing is that none of those photos were taken here at home. Maybe they haven’t quite tracked us here yet.”

She leans forward to kiss me. “So, that means we can still kiss and not worry about anyone taking our picture?”

“Princess, I don’t care who the fuck is taking our picture. I’m not about to stop kissing you.”

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