[[ON HOLD UNTIL AFTER ONC]]Grace finally has it all together. Her smoothie bar is running and generating profit, she's got a second store in the works, and no one is around to break her heart. Not this time.
When her coworkers decide she needs a vac...
Grace threw the stack of bills and payment plans to the side. She was deluding herself into thinking the answer would magically appear. No debt collector was writing hidden escape routes in invisible ink. They'd be more likely to hide ways to screw her out of more money, if anything.
"She's in the office. Careful, she's grumpy," Carla warned. A blender drowned out whatever she said next. It was probably for the best.
The door to the office opened fully and Reid shut it behind him quickly. "Hey there, angel face. Oh, or should I call you long face?" His tone shifted like a professional Nascar driver shifting gears. "What's wrong, Grace?"
She gestured to the official looking letters scattered across her desk as if they'd jump to life and explain everything. "Just money, as always."
Reid turned her to face him, wheeling her chair closer at the same time. "It's going to be okay. I promised you I would help you figure this out and I will." His hands were warm on her shoulders and she leaned into the touch. "Let's start by getting you out of this office and into some actual sunlight. What do you say?" He held his hand out to her, wiggling his fingers invitingly.
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A barrage of notifications greeted Grace in the morning. The screen swam in her vision. It rocked side to side in time with the boomerang pinging around the inside of her skull. Crying into the night had in fact been one of the worst choices she could have made. Grace shoved her phone aside and climbed out of the crumb filled covers. There was nothing that couldn't wait until she'd taken a shower.
She was wrong about that.
Grace pulled the bathrobe on tighter and rescued her phone from the cookie remnants. It was more than just missed texts from her parents and friends that she had to scroll through. It looked like everyone she knew had decided to send her a message. Nearly every bubble, both blue and green, had a link for her to click. They were all a bit different but the articles they led to were all the same.
Headlines were plastered at the top of each web page.
Reid Bennet and Mystery Woman
Time for a New Pair of Dancing Shoes
Hollywood Dancer Makes a Big Splash in Hawaii
Further down the pages were plenty of photos of Reid and some truly terrible photos of Grace bent over to empty her stomach. She was used to news moving fast, especially when it came to the stars. When she and Reid had been working on their videos together she'd stopped underestimating how easily strangers could dig up dirt on her life. There was no way actual tabloid writers wouldn't have been able to find her in Hawaii.
The better writers had her name and were hinting at a deeper history between her and the star. That she could at least keep private. No one had been around to watch their entire relationship dissolve into an apocalyptic battlefield. On top of that they'd both deleted every photo of each other they'd posted online. Grace had checked his accounts more than once while trying to get in touch with him.
