Page 12 of Making a Mountain Man

I could all but feel the temperature dip to sub zero as I walked into the seniors center. I was there to fix a leaky sink, but it seemed like I should check the air conditioning unit while I was there. Then my eyes landed on Agnes and I realized the chill was coming off of her. She was pacing while Franny, Bill and Henry watched from a nearby table.

“We need a plan. We can’t let this story get published.”

“What’s going–“

Henry grabbed my arm and steered me away from the table before I could complete my question. “I hate to break it to you, son, but you’re up shit creek without a paddle here. You know what I’m saying? You’re caught between the devil and the deep blue sea. You’re in a spot tighter than a–”

“I get what you’re saying Henry, thank you. But, what are youtalking about?”

“Agnes is all up in a tizzy over your article and is fixing to raise hell.”

My eyebrows dropped. My heart dropped even further. “What article?”

“That reporter woman, Jill something, was sniffing around for a story about you last week. Well, you better believe I shut that down. I told her what she could do with her questions. Talked to everyone I knew too about not telling her a thing. Told them you were a good egg and that if they said anything, they’d be dealing with me, by god.” Agnes sniffed. “When the Sunday paper came out with no mention of you, I thought it was all over. But, my grandson was at the newspaper office fixing the copier yesterday. You know my grandson, Kason? Terrible name, which I told his mother when he was born, but he’s a good kid. You know what he saw?”

I shrugged, trying to follow as she bounced between topics.

“A list of stories they were planning for the next edition includingMisogynistic Meme Guy Hiding out in Springwood.The list could be from the week before I suppose, but we can’t take that chance. Of all the nerve…”

She continued to grumble but I stopped listening. A numbness had spread out from my hands and was working its way through me. I realized I was clenching my fists but didn’t seem to be able to do anything about it. When Jill and I had been talking at my place, we hadn’t talked about work much. Mostly I had skirted the topic. I was pissed I’d had to sell my business, thanks to going viral. She had said in passing that she was a writer, but hadn’t stayed on the subject long. I thought she had sensed I didn’t want to talk about work and had changed the subject for me. Now I wasn’t so sure. My oldest friend wouldn’t have come to my house, flirted with me and implied she wanted more just to use me for a story.

She definitely wouldn’t fuck me for one.

Would she?

Chapter 11

Jill

“Thanks for passing on thesuck my cockguy article,” my coworker Anthony said, appearing over my shoulder as I poured myself a coffee.

I was still in a bit of an orgasm induced haze from my time with Wesley, so it took me a minute to catch up. “I didn’t pass on the article. I canceled it. No story to tell.”

He shrugged, leaning a hip against the counter as I spooned sugar into my cup. I knew I needed to talk to Wesley about his past. Tell him that I knew what had happened. That I had been tasked with writing his story. That I believed him when he said he didn’t see the graffiti and frankly even if he did, it was at worst a tasteless joke. Besides, the idea of watching every muscle in his core contract as I wrapped my lips around his dick wasn’t nearly as offensive as the world made it out to be.Suck my cock guy,indeed.

“Well, that wasn’t my understanding,” Anthony said, pullingme out of my head. “I told Heather I wanted to take a crack at the story and she approved it. I just wanted to see if you had any notes I could use as a starting off point? No reason to redo research you’ve already done. If there is enough there, I can put both our names on the article.”

I froze.

“What angle were you thinking for the story? It’s all been said.”

He shrugged again, his nonchalance about the idea of blowing someone’s life up pissing me off more than it had the right to. I mean, if it hadn’t been Wes, I would have written the story and not looked back. “What’s he been up to? Why is he here, maybe? Follow up a year later.”

My mind was racing. He can’t write the story. I needed a reason to give him besides the fact that I’d been naked in Wesley’s bed just a day before and he was too nice to be dragged into the public eye again. “Heather said the only way to get a new story out of it was to interview the guy. That’s a roadblock I don’t think you can get through.”

He smirked. “Maybe it was a roadblock you couldn’t get through.”

“What does that mean?” I thunked my coffee mug on the break room counter harder than necessary.

That fucking shrug again. “Maybe I have a few extra tricks up my sleeve. Won’t know until I at least try. This story will get a lot of reads for whoever pulls it off.”

Fuck, fuck,fuck.

My pulse raced as I skirted past my desk, thumping my thigh on the corner and not caring. I skidded into Heather’s office and stopped in front of her desk. “Thecock guystory, we killed it. Right?” I managed to say between huffs of breath.

“What?”

I held up a finger and put my hands on my knees fighting to catch my breath. Man, I needed to get back to doing cardio. Once I was relatively sure I wasn’t dying, I tried again. “I told you there was no story for thesuck my cock guy. Rumor mill has it Anthony is writing it.”

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