AllFreeNovel
Share Us
The questions are nonending.
As I look at the paparazzi salivating over getting a media-worthy line from Leslie or me, I feel sad for them and anyone else who gets a thrill out of bringing chaos and commotion to unsuspecting people's lives. I reach for Leslie’s door and open it. I help her from the car and guide her to my truck.
“I’m so glad you came. I had my pepper spray in my hand and didn’t want to go to jail for using it on them.” Leslie sounds relieved.
I help her into my truck, holding the passenger door open until she’s inside. “Where is Jasmine?”
“Probably at Jeremiah’s. She’s late and not answering the phone.”
After I close the door and walk around to the driver’s side, preparing to leave, I hear, “So, are you going to get a prenup? Most marriages to groupies end in divorce.”
I shove the microphone close to my mouth away. “You people are the worst. If you had it your way, you would take something beautiful and make it scary and dangerous. You won’t do that to us, so leave us the hell alone!”
Hadn’t they already done enough damage to my family?
Chapter Nineteen
LESLIE
Ten Toes Down
No doubt about it. Wayne was right.
I don’t know if they followed or tracked me another way when I left home. All I know is when I pulled up to The Breakfast Spoon, I was swarmed by people wielding microphones. The way they looked at me and hounded me for answers to their questions, observers would have thought I’d committed a crime. As much as I try not to think about it, I can’t help feeling like the victim of an ambush.
I expected social media posts here and there and maybe a self-appointed social media “journalist” saying something malicious in their “reporting.” But I never imagined a mob of microphone wielders surrounding my car, trying to figure out if Wayne would make me sign a prenup. Of all things for them to worry about. If we agree to a prenup or not, it’s none of their damned business!
And they had been digging into my past, bringing up my old job at the sneaker store as if working for a living was a crime. The questions came at me so fast, I can’t be sure, but I could have sworn one of them mentioned my strained relationship with my parents.
The nerve of them. What’s wrong with these people?
Thankfully, Wayne showed up and got me out of there. We’re headed home in his car because I abandoned mine. We’ll have to go back to get it later.
I sit quietly beside him, not wanting him to know my first TMZ-like experience traumatized me to the point that my handsshake. After all, I told him I could handle this craziness, so I have to figure out how to do so.
“Yeah, ma. Okay, we’ll be there,” Wayne says to his mother. She called as we pulled out of the parking lot, reminding us of the party she had planned to celebrate Jasmine’s position on the cheer squad. Wayne thought she knew about the media mob that had just swarmed in on me, but she was none the wiser.
“Okay, see you this evening. Love you guys,” her voice fills the car with warmth.
“Love you too,” we say together.
Wayne gets off on our exit when the call ends and makes a left. “I guess we have a party to attend,” he says.
With all that’s happened, I forgot Louise mentioned having a get-together when we were at the game yesterday. Had the day been less eventful, I might have remembered.
“We don’t have to be there until six, so I want you to shower and relax for a while. This day has been stressful,” Wayne acknowledges. He reaches over, takes my hand into his, and then brings it to his lips for a kiss.
“Thanks, Wayne,” I say, my voice filled with gratitude and relief. “For not bringing up the media incident to your mother.”
He lets out a long sigh, the tension in his shoulders visibly easing. “I was glad she wasn’t calling about it. I don’t want to worry her if I don’t have to,” he says. “And you don’t have to thank me. Anything I can do to make the rest of your day better, just let me know. I’m sorry those pricks bothered you. You should be able to go eat without all of that drama.” I sense the tension growing in his tightening muscles as he holds my hand and his arm muscles flex.
In a moment of self-reflection and possibly a bit of guilt, I blurt out, “But you told me so— Go ahead and say it. You don’t have to soften the blow for me. Don’t hold in what you feel. Say‘I told you so’ if you think I’m wrong for forcing all this attention on us.”
“What? No. I wasn’t thinking that.” Wayne sounds perplexed.
I ease my hand out of his. “But you are. You warned me for years that this would happen, and I wouldn’t listen. And there I was, frozen and unable to handle it when the people I said I could handle came at me like a mini mob.”
“None of this is your fault, Les.”
