Page 91 of The Grump I Got Stuck With

“You know, boss. Maybe you want to check out some of the responses online to the situation with Jessica. I think you’ll find that the media coverage is a little…different from the last time around. Especially when the reporters talk to locals in Braeburn.”

“I don’t think it’s a good idea,” I said. I’d been on a social media blackout, knowing it wouldn’t be good for me to ruminate over all the bullshit and lies. I already had a dark hole in my chest from missing Madison and from stressing over the way I’d left things with Weston and Locke. I didn’t need to be gutting myself further by subjecting myself to the toxic media drivel.

“I’m going to send you something,” Alfie said. “Just…trust me. When you’re feeling up to it, give the video a watch.”

“Aye, no promises,” I said.

“Right. Night, boss. Talk tomorrow.” Alfie ended the call. A moment later, a link arrived in our chat. I hovered the mouse over it, uncertain. Did I really want to see anything the media had to say? But Alfie had asked me to trust him—and I did. So I clicked on the link.

The video started playing, and I gritted my teeth in anticipation. It was a compilation of all the bloggers and podcasters and journalists that had flooded Braeburn recently. They chattered in their videos, their questions leaving my insides twisting uneasily.

“Who is Alistair Shaw really?”

“Did you know what he was caught up in when he moved to town?”

“How do you feel about the fact he’s living next door?”

“What do you think about his relationship with Jessica?”

It was clip after clip of wannabe media hounds attempting to get the residents to go on the record spilling dirt about me and Jessica and⁠—

“What can you tell us about Madison’s relationship with Alistair?”

“Is she really just the nanny?”

“Did she know who he was when she met him?”

But where I expected all the locals to start dishing up everything they knew—or whatever salacious bits they felt like making up—instead I heard…

“Piss off! Or I’ll shove that mic where the sun doesn’t shine.”

That came from Jo, the fiery old busybody who ran the local paper—and just about everything else she set her mind to. There wasn’t a single thing that happened in Braeburn Jo didn’t know about, and watching her scowl at the camera stirred something hopeful in my chest.

The video cut to Cat, slapping a sign on the front of her café door. NO CAMERAS. There was a drawing of a scowling kitten beside it. “You’re a bunch of arseholes!” she called, pointing at whoever was holding the camera. “You should be ashamed of yourselves.”

The video cut again to a familiar lobby. The Deerhound. Isla stepped into view.

“Do you see this?” she snapped, pointing at her very pregnant belly. “Unless you want to be known as the jackass who got body-checked by a pregnant woman, get the hell out of my inn!”

Locke appeared behind her, arms crossed, wearing a menacing scowl, and the video cut abruptly.

It opened again on Lesley, walking into the front of her shop. “I’ve got nothing to say to you, lads,” she said. There was the harsh click of a lock. A moment later, the door swung back open. “And you lot leave Madison alone. She has nothing to say either, and this town won’t tolerate you pestering her.”

My chest clenched at the way the town had come together, refusing to cooperate with the media, instead heaping criticism on the vultures trying to swoop in and make bank off my misfortune. The community in Braeburn had become the walls I’d imagined erecting around Dunhope, standing between me, Kenna, and the rest of the world.

Most notably was Madison. There were a lot of clips of her. Now that she was living at the inn, it was pretty easy for people to pounce on her the moment she walked out the door for any reason.

“No comment,” she said in response to a question about my conversation with Jessica at the police station. Cameras flashed. The video cut to a new day.

“Screw off,” she said when someone asked her about Kenna.

The following day, she flashed them the finger. “You’re a bunch of evil little cockroaches, you know that?” she snapped in the next clip. “Going after a man who’s just trying to take care of his child.” She sneered at them. “Why don’t you go get real jobs?”

She slammed the door of her van so hard she almost crunched a mic that was shoved in her direction, hoping for a follow-up comment. It must have been incredibly draining to be hounded every time she left the inn, but she never once wavered. Never once said anything negative about me despite how she must have been hurting after the way I’d behaved. Never once brought all the harassment to my attention. I could’ve arranged for a car to bring her to and from Dunhope, with security to keep the paparazzi from getting close, but she never asked.

I guess that means we’re back to keeping things strictly business between us from now on.

I swallowed hard at the reminder of her words as I stared at one final image of her. My throat tightened. I’d said yes at the time, but it hadn’t been what I’d wanted. Not really.