9. Chapter Nine
Chapter Nine
Maggie
I ’d been staring at the newspaper Ruth had put on my desk with a fire in my belly, which flamed between disgust and desire. Hiran Paul, the editor of the Little Falls newspaper, had taken photos of the water disaster. Normally, I was in favor of informing the town of any and all events that stimulated interest in the news and in the town itself. However, the two photos he’d selected for the front page made me want to simultaneously blush and rage.
There, in the middle of the page, with the headline “Mayoral Race Heats Up , ” were two photos of me and Grady. Unfortunately, in the first photo the heat between us, even in the photo, was palpable. Our shoulders were touching, and the expression on both of our faces as we passed sandbags looked like wanting personified. And in the second photo, we were very clearly arguing outside my pharmacy as a geyser of water rose into the air between us. A bit on the nose, perhaps. What must people think?
At least Grady was fine and hadn’t been swept to his death when he’d slipped in the flood.
The memory made my heart skip. I placed my hand over my chest. Worry had leapt into my throat when he’d gone down.
“Knock, knock.” Lila poked her head in the office door without knocking. “Oh, good.” She wandered to the desk and pointed at the newspaper. “I was afraid I was going to have to tell you about that.”
I closed my eyes and sank into my chair. “Hiran is trying to make me look bad.”
“No, he’s trying to sell papers. That first photo? The two of you? Hawt! My God. I’m surprised all the water around you didn’t evaporate with the way you two were looking at one another.”
Given Lila was my best friend, I could admit we were exchanging sexual innuendos when the photo was taken, but it went against everything in me to admit the Grady pilot light still flickered. The only person who’d been close enough to hear our flirting was Kelvin. He’d spoken to the reporter about Grady’s epic rescue of Matthew Long’s son, Reese, and Callie Arbour, the baby he’d been babysitting on Saturday, and of course, the dog, Biscuits. The picture of the two of us locked in sexual tension was meant to stand on its own.
“If the paper had run the first photo only, then fine. But I look like a big ball of rage in the second one. What must people think?”
Lila pursed her lips and opened the paper, flipping to the next page. “So, I guess you didn’t make it very far?”
My stomach dipped at the headline on the next page. It was a photo spread of Grady helping the various businesses on the main street with sandbags. In the very last one, Burt Maynard, the owner of the indoor playground for kids, had his arm slung around a drenched Grady, who was outfitted in a Superman costume that they must use as cosplay for adults when they were bored with their kids. The headline? “The Savior of Little Falls.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me.” I wasn’t sure if I was referring to the butterflies in my stomach at how heroic Grady looked or at the headline itself.
Above the paper, Lila’s fingers twirled her sunglasses. “I’m sure it could be worse.”
I pressed my palms into the top of the desk and rose. “This is so infuriating.” He’d saved Callie and Reese and Biscuits. An accomplishment, sure. But he hadn’t saved the town .
“Yeah, it’s not good for your campaign.”
“I told him Little Falls didn’t need a savior.”
Lila stared at me, silent.
“I wanted to lose my mind when Sabrina Kim came running over crying Save Me, Grady. Save me. And then he flounced off after her.” Of course, then I’d watched him lose his footing trying to rescue Biscuits and tumble down into the current. I didn’t want to think about the panic that had flooded me, how I’d called every fire department in a thirty-mile radius to come assist us. An overreaction, surely, but no matter who had been caught up in the flood, I’d have done the same. Or at least, that’s what I kept telling myself.
“Her nail salon was flooding,” Lila reminded me.
“He’s not supposed to do good things. He’s supposed to be the screwup, the liar, the guy with stupid frat-boy tricks. He’s not supposed to save babies and children and dogs.”
“Ruth is a wise woman. She left that sitting there, didn’t she? Didn’t wait around to discuss it, didn’t seek you out to talk it through…”
“This is unbelievable.” I riffled through the pages. “No other pictures of me. I was running around putting out fires all day. Well, not fires because it was flooding, but you know what I mean. I’m sure no one even reads the paper anymore.” All of this would be replicated online, shared over social media, its reach far wider than any paper product. There was a grainy video of Grady on the roof of Callie’s house, looking tall and sure of himself while disaster raged around him. Two small children and a dog with him. Could his PR be any better?
“So wise, that Ruth.” Lila retreated from my desk. “Clearly more seasoned in irate Maggie than me.”
I refolded the paper, and when the creases wouldn’t fall into line, I crumpled it up. When Grady’s Superman photo somehow ended up on top, I groaned in frustration.
“Why? Why?” I gestured to the photo.
Lila slid a foot closer to the door. “He’s very photogenic.”
“You’re not helping.” I looked up from the mess of newsprint on my desk. “Where are you going?”
“Um, well.” Lila stumbled, her hand on the doorknob.
“Am I interrupting?” Emily’s strawberry-blond head appeared in the cracked open door.
“Nope. Nope. Not at all. I was leaving.” Lila patted Emily on the shoulder. “Good luck, soldier.”
Emily laughed.
My frown deepened.
As she approached my desk, Emily’s eyes strayed to the paper. “You’ve seen it.”
“Yes. All of it. Two photos on the front. Both of them make Grady look like some sort of sex god, and I look like an enraged lunatic. And then, you know, all the other stuff circulating because of his daring rescue.” Although my tone was mocking, nothing was a lie or false. His genuine desire to help people, to do the right thing, shook me to the core.
“It’s not quite that bad.”
“It’s that bad. You heard Lila use the soldier word, so you know it’s bad.”
Emily chuckled and slid into one of the chairs across from me. “You should probably sit down and do some deep breathing exercises.”
“It won’t help.”
“It will. It works all the time with Amir.”
“Your son is four.”
“Exactly.”
In a huff, I eased down into my chair and leaned back. It wasn’t so much the photos. The bigger issue was how the photos made me feel, how seeing Grady racing off to Sabrina’s rescue had made me feel, how seeing him being carried away made my heart squeeze so painfully in my chest that I almost couldn’t breathe. After the third deep breath, I nodded at Emily.
A small smile spread across her face. “We need to chat, and you’re not going to like it.”
“This morning already feels like a dumpster fire. Let’s add more fuel to it.”
“I think you should call Trent and invite him to help Grady.”
“No.” I pressed my hands into the desk and rose again, my heart rate climbing once more. “No.”
“The last few days have been golden for Grady. He could literally take a shit in the middle of Main Street right now and people would covet it. That’s how golden he is. People will believe he’s shitting gold bars.”
The imagery was disgusting and priceless. “That’s ridiculous.”
“Tell me it’s not true.”
“You know I can’t. I mean, I’ve heard the buzz around town. He’s in a frigging Superman costume in the weekly paper.”
“His kryptonite is his convict brother.”
“ Don’t say that.”
“A few people’s kids went down in the bust with Trent. Voters have long memories.”
“And some of those voters probably think I had something to do with what happened. Just because people don’t say anything to my face doesn’t mean they haven’t thought it or talked about it.”
“Anyone who knows you doesn’t think anything of the sort, but everyone believes Grady is the town savior. We need to humanize him.”
“I can’t use Trent like that.”
“So, you’re saying you think Trent and Grady becoming closer is a bad thing?”
“Emily.”
“I’m only asking.” Emily held up her hands. “Strategy, Maggie. Do you want to win? ’Cause right now, you’re losing.”
“Elections favor the long game. Even if I was okay with using Trent, which I’m not, but if I was, it’s too early to use him.” My jaw felt tight with annoyance.
Calling in Trent was good strategy, but it made me a shitty friend. Trent and I had never been what people believed—even my family didn’t know all the details of what happened between me, Trent, and Grady—but what had come out of our situation had made Trent and me loyal to each other in a way I had with few people. “If I ask Trent to come here, I tell him the truth about why I need him.”
Emily looked at me for a long moment before bracing her hands on the arms of the chair. “What if he tells Grady? Wouldn’t his loyalty lie with Grady?”
I eased into my chair. “I doubt it.” I met Emily’s eyes. “They’ve hardly spoken since Trent got out of jail.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. I’m not sure Trent knows.”
“What do you think?”
“The only thing that makes sense to me is Grady’s ashamed of his brother.”
Emily seemed to mull over my answer and pursed her lips. “Being honest with Trent is risky. But the two of you have always had a relationship none of us understood. So, as your campaign manager, I’ll defer to you. But you need to come up with something to sway people back in your direction. Donate some money. Push through an initiative people have been begging to get. Start a GoFundMe for all the businesses and houses suffering from water damage and don’t have enough insurance. Something. And yell it from the rooftops, okay?”
I didn’t look at Emily but gave her a half-hearted thumbs-up. “Got it.” With a sigh, I said, “I know the drill. We change the narrative.”
“You bet.” Emily held up her hands. “When people are focused over here”—she waggled her left hand—“you say, ‘oh, look, shiny thing’ and bam . New narrative.”
“Sometimes I think you should be the one sitting here.”
“No way.” Emily rose and headed for the door. “I hate getting my hair wet. You look like a drowned rat in those photos.”
I followed Emily to the door. “Gee, thanks.”
“Hey, if your sister can’t be honest with you, who can?” Emily grabbed the door handle and then turned back. “On that note.” She took a deep breath. “You need to mute that sexual chemistry with Grady.”
“What?” I reared back.
“It jumps off the page. Jumps out everywhere. People are talking.” She pushed the door tight. “It’s the sad truth of politics, of any job, and I know you know. Men can look at women like he looked at you in those photos and they’re better off. Doesn’t work that way for us.”
Although I wasn’t admitting it to Emily, I’d said something similar to Lila already.
“Shut it down.”
“I know.” And I did. But I also knew if Trent was Grady’s kryptonite, then Grady was mine. Try as I might, the connection I felt to him was magnetic. I’d hoped time and distance would have weakened it. As we’d passed sandbags back and forth the other day, I’d been faced with the hard truth.
I might not like Grady, but the idea of sleeping with him wasn’t nearly as repulsive as it should be. “I won’t let anything get out of control.”