[chapter three]
Disclaimer: If you've heard of them, I don't own them. Everything else is mine, so no stealing, pretty please. ;-) Warning: Contains "colourful" language.
**
"Jimmie, you have a minute?" Jeff asked, causing Kendall and Jimmie
to turn around as they walked back towards Jimmie's motorhome. Kendall smiled
at Jimmie's boss, who gave her a brief smile but otherwise didn't meet her
eyes. "I have a couple of things to go over with you. Kendall, you don't
mind, do you?"
Kendall shook her head and smiled. "Not a bit. I'll just go hunt up something for us to eat for dinner." Jimmie smiled at her and pressed his lips to her cheek as she turned to climb the steps into Jimmie's coach. Closing the door behind her, she hummed to herself as she opened cabinets and drawers in search of something for them to eat. She could hear Jimmie and Jeff's muted voices through the open window but didn't pay any attention until she heard her own name being spoken by Jeff.
"Listen, man, it's nothing personal, you know that. I like Kendall, but…" Jeff said. Kendall crept over to the window, unable to stop herself from eavesdropping on the two men.
She could hear Jimmie respond. "I'm not sure I understand what you're saying. I mean, I know the media and their perceptions are important, but…"
"Not the right image…"
"What can I do…"
"Needs to stop…"
"I'll do whatever I have to…"
"Think about your career…"
"I understand…"
Kendall strained to hear the conversation beyond the snippets she could hear as Jeff and Jimmie walked further and further away from her hiding place. Her cheeks flushed with anger and humiliation and confusion as she tried to make sense of what she had just heard.
Evidently, Jeff thought she was a bit too…in your face. Okay. Fine. She could understand that people might not 'get' her when they met her. Her clothes weren't typical, her hair wasn't typical, her music, her taste in movies, her laugh, her speech, her…well, everything. But Jimmie loved her that way - he always had.
Still, she vowed to herself right then to try harder for his sake - to not be so straightforward and honest.
So outspoken and opinioned.
So rebellious and different.
To not be so…
So like herself.
Even as she said it to herself, Kendall knew it would never fly. She wasn't about to change who she was for the sake of the media, or to make sure everyone on pit road thought she was all sugary sweet and prim and proper and perfect as all the other cookie-cutter girlfriends.
Uh-uh.
As long as Jimmie was happy, and they were happy together, she wasn't going to change a damn thing.
Screw Jeff Gordon if he didn't like her.
Fuck the media if they didn't either.
And that asshole reporter that twisted her words can just kiss her ass.
With a determined shake of her head, Kendall stood up and brushed off the front of her jeans and tugged on her cropped black tee shirt as she tossed her long black hair over her shoulder.
No one could change Kendall McPherson.
No one.