Free I Heard A Rumor by Cheris Hodges

about getting you into bed. I want you on the sand.”
    â€œHuh?”
    â€œI want to see you in a sexy two piece on the beach, while we drink.”
    Smiling, she said, “Just so you know, indecent exposure in South Carolina can put you in prison for up to three years.”
    â€œAll right, good to know. I’ll make sure I’m really discreet when I untie your top,” he said with a wink.

Chapter 6
    Meanwhile, in Charlotte, Robert and his campaign staff huddled around a television watching an Erica Bryant report on the race for Charlotte’s next mayor. Dominic Hall paced back and forth as the face of former Mecklenburg County Commissioner David Clemmons filled the screen.
    â€œThat lame duck. He was voted off the board of county commissioners. Why does he think people want him to be mayor?” he muttered.
    â€œCalm down, Nic,” Robert said, trying to hear what Clemmons had to say. Clemmons had lost his seat on the board of county commissioners after his affair with the former head of the Department of Social Services became public. But for as many people who wanted his head, there were just as many who cheered his comeback.
    Robert knew he didn’t have the long history that Clemmons did in Charlotte politics, but surely he still had supporters. And being that Charlotte claimed to be a family-oriented city, if he could get Chante on board, then he’d be able to mend those fences that Liza had brought down. That bitch, he thought. All she had to do was mind her business. That senate seat was mine. Now I have to work my way up from the bottom as though I haven’t been preparing to lead for my whole life.
    â€œYou’re up,” Gabrielle Tanks, a young staffer on Robert’s campaign said as she grabbed the remote and turned the volume up.
    â€œRobert Montgomery seems like an unlikely candidate for mayor,” Erica Bryant began as she walked in front of a picture of Robert on a big screen. “In the race for the North Carolina senate seat for District Forty-five, Montgomery was humiliated when it was revealed he’d had a relationship with a woman whom he paid to have sex with him. At the time, he was engaged to Charlotte attorney Chante Britt.”
    A picture of the smiling couple flashed on the screen. Robert had hoped to talk Chante into making amends for her role in sabotaging his senate bid. She owed him a chance to restart his political career. Had she not participated in Liza’s smear campaign, then he might have been in Raleigh as the first senator from District Forty-five—not that blunt instrument Jackson Franklin.
    â€œBut,” Erica Bryant said, “it was his former fiancée’s forgiveness that inspired Montgomery to return to the public eye.”
    The camera cut to a pre-recorded interview of Robert and Erica.
    â€œRobert, after what you went through last year, most people would think your political career would be over,” Erica said. “What made you decided to run for mayor?”
    â€œCharlotte needs a new voice. One that isn’t afraid to stand up to policies in Raleigh that hurt our city. And Charlotte is a city that looks past rumors and lies, as did the love of my life.”
    â€œSo there is no truth to you and Dayshea Brown having a sexual relationship that you paid for?”
    â€œNone at all. I was the victim of a smear campaign. Chante didn’t believe it, and the people of Charlotte should follow her lead.”
    Robert smiled as he watched the interview replay, then saw Dayshea appear on the screen. He and Nic expelled more curse words than an Eddie Murphy stand-up routine.
    â€œWe didn’t agree to this!” Robert exclaimed.
    Dayshea had lost the glamor she’d had the last time she’d been on the news. She looked like a plain around-the-way girl.
    â€œI only met Robert once, then his fiancée and her friend came to me. I told them when I was about that life that I had one