Page 37 of His Curvy Happiness
“Yeah.”
“Okay. Home on the bus today?”
“Yeah.” She grabbed her backpack.
“Bye. Have a good day.” I tugged her in for a forced hug.
“Bye.”
I closed the door behind her as her footsteps echoed down the stairs. I locked the door, then moved toward the window to watch her get on the bus.
Five minutes later, Mikayla was headed to school, and I was reading the article I didn’t write.
And seething.
The article made it seem as though Natalie had been flirting with Landon the entire time. Omar sounded like he wasn’t interested in anything that had to do with planning the wedding. They both came across as shallow and mean, coming just short of accusing them of not really wanting to get married and only doing so for publicity.
What the fucking hell?
I wanted to talk to Natalie face-to-face, but first, I needed to understand what in the world happened to the article I submitted. I hurried out of the apartment, hellbent on getting answers from Gretchen and not caring if she had an issue with it.
I stormed into the newsroom, my face hot. Mike saw me coming and grinned before he caught the look on my face. He turned and went the other way.
Gretchen’s door was closed, so I pounded on it before letting myself in without caring if she was busy or not. “Excuse you. I didn’t say you could enter.”
“And I didn’t say you could twist every word I wrote into something it was never intended to be.”
“I told you to bring me something with an angle. You brought me fluff that stank of hero worship.”
“It was a good article.”
“No, it wasn’t. It was a mediocre retelling of two people doing the world’s most boring thing. Who cares about the flowers they chose? No one.” She glared at me like a pest who needed to shoo.
“The people in this town aren’t looking for scandals. They don’t want to trash each other. There’s too much nastiness in the world, and if they can find a feel-good story about people they know and respect, they’re going to enjoy it. You made that article into something it wasn’t.”
Gretchen narrowed her eyes at me. She held my gaze for several minutes, no doubt waiting for me to back down.
I wasn’t going to.
“Fine. Tell me what I printed that wasn’t correct.” She opened the paper to the article on page two. She smoothed the pages back and started reading.
“Natalie Edwards, director of Mountain View Retreat, laughs at the teasing look in the eye of Landon Boyd. Landon, not Natalie’s future husband, knows everything there is to know about flowers. Landon owns Blossom & Grow, and the associated greenhouse and fields, and he can tell you the difference between a flower that’ll profess your undying love and one that’ll say we’re just friends.”
Gretchen looked up at me. I gritted my teeth.
“Anything incorrect so far?”
“No,” I seethed.
“Okay, the next paragraph? Where you talked about their interaction. About Natalie wanting things to be simple but not actually being simple. Was that wrong?”
I closed my eyes and sighed. “Technically, no. But?—”
“What about Omar wanting her to choose what she wanted? Did he have an opinion that you didn’t mention?”
“It’s not that.”
“Oh, it’s not? So the article was accurate. I thought you came in here with your ass on fire acting like there was some gross error included in print.”
