FanGirl Squeal (RockStars of Romance Book 1) (34 page)

“Savannah,” Cash swallowed the lump in his throat as he felt
all the blood leave his face. His mouth was a desert.

“Oh, now you want to talk?” Savannah sneered. “You didn’t
want to tell me about this what...” she looked down at the phone and returned
to Melrose’s site. “ Five months ago. You didn’t want to tell me about it then
so why talk now?”

“I didn’t know five months ago. And, we’re not getting back
together,” Cash replied, hoping that she could read the truth on his face and
in his eyes. But she wasn’t looking at either.

A sudden pain exploded in the middle of his chest. He
realized that Savannah had thrown her phone at him like she was trying out for
the Dodgers. He picked it up from the floor and checked for any damage.
Obviously, his chest wasn’t hard enough to crack an iPhone screen.

“I don’t care if you’re getting back together or not!”
Savannah yelled. “How long have you know about the baby?”

“Two months,” Cash sheepishly replied which only angered
Savannah more.

“And this is how you wanted me to find out? By seeing
pictures of you and your baby mama leaving the doctor’s office and having
lunch? You couldn’t sit me down during all those nights we’ve spent together
and tell me that you knocked up your ex? You thought it would be more fun to
make me look and feel like a complete fool on my birthday? Is that it?”

“No, Savannah, that’s not it. I just...” Cash stopped
mid-sentence.

He didn’t know what to say. Savannah was leaning against the
wall and not looking at him. He doubted she was listening to him anyway.

This was a complete disaster.

Cash walked over to his girl and stood in front of her. He
lifted her chin so that she could see his eyes.

“I’m sorry that I didn’t tell you as soon as Victoria told
me. I definitely didn’t want this to happen. I’m not asking you not to be
upset. I’m just asking that you don’t let it change things between us.”

Savannah turned her head and stepped away from Cash. He
reached for her but she pushed his hand away.

“This changes everything,” Savannah replied. Her voice was
soft and cold. “And right now, I just want you as far away from me as that
Rolls can take you. It’s my birthday weekend. My friends traveled a long way to
be here. You, your baby, and your ex are not going to ruin it. I need you to
leave.”

Cash took a deep breath. She was right. He’d done enough to
mess up her birthday and he wouldn’t do more, even if it mean leaving her in
Malibu without him for the weekend.

Cash leaned forward and kissed Savannah’s warm cheek. “I’m
so sorry, baby.”

“I don’t care about your apology, Cash.”

“I love you,” he said in one last desperate attempt for
forgiveness.

“Apparently not enough. I’ll see you when I get back to L.A.”

Savannah turned on her hot pink stiletto and sashayed away
from him. He briefly heard laughter coming from inside the private dining room
then the door shut and the hall was quiet again. On his way out, he gave the
maître d’ Savannah’s phone and asked that it be returned to her.

Cash sat in the driver’s seat of his Phantom for nearly an
hour replaying what had happened in his mind. No matter how many times he went
over the scenario, he couldn’t come up with any way to make it right.

Savannah was hurt and angry and had every right to be. He
just hoped that she’d spend some time with her family and friends and maybe
have some girl talk with her sister and girlfriends. By the time she returned
to L.A. on Monday, maybe she’s be open to hearing his side and they could move
forward.

That’s all he wanted. He didn’t think this was the ‘have
your cake and eat it too’ scenario that Donnie warned him about. He couldn’t
disregard his child, but he wasn’t willing to lose Savannah either.

“Savannah! Are you going to stay in bed all day?”

A hotel pillow flew across the room. I caught it and tucked
it under my head. “Go away, Cassie,” I groaned. “My head hurts.”

“So! We all have hangovers, but we’re in Malibu and I’ll be
damned if we spend the weekend in bed. Get your black ass out of bed and meet
us by the pool!” Joy yelled. “All you need is another margarita.”

I sat up and waved as my friends loudly left the room in
teeny tiny bikinis and flip-flops. I felt around the bed for my phone. Even
though I have no desire to talk to him, I put the phone on speaker and listened
to one of the three voicemails Cash had left me.

“Savannah, there’s really nothing I can do to fix this. I’m
so sorry that you found out like this. Please know that I didn’t intend to hurt
you. I love you, Savannah, like I’ve never loved anyone in my life. I’m sure we
can get through this.”

The message ended just as Ashley opened the door to the
adjoining room and walked in. She was wearing one of the hotel’s plush terry
cloth robes over her bathing suit. She didn’t look any better than I felt.

After dinner, everyone except our parents and grandparents
decided to extend our birthday celebration by club hopping in downtown Malibu. I
was thoroughly shocked when Counselor Ford bypassed spending the night reading
law briefs and Skyping with her husband and joined in on the festivities. It
was the first time that Ashley has ever partied with my friends and me since
she had the baby.

“You look like crap,” I laughed at my sister.

Ashley groaned and sat on the bed. “But I had fun. Maybe too
much fun.”

“The only way you could have had too much fun is if you brought
one of the strippers home. You didn’t, did you?”

“No!” Ashley gasped. “But, oh my God! That one with all the
tattoos…he was fine!”

“Yeah he was,” I agreed. “So, sister, how does twenty-eight
feel?”

“Like too many tequila shots.”

“Thanks for coming out here. We haven’t celebrated a
birthday together in ten years.”

“Yeah, and I wanted to meet your man…officially.”

Lazily, I leaned back on the mound of pillows and waited for
the tried and true judgmental Ashley to return.

“And what did you think of Cash?”

“Well, first off, thank you.”

“Thank you?” I repeated. “For what?”

“When I tell Mom and Dad that I left my job, they still won’t
be as mad at me as they are at you for dating Cash Myers. I could quit and get
a divorce and it still won’t be as bad,” Ashley joked.

I was still fixated on the fact that Ashley just said she
left her job. She loved being a lawyer and that firm more than she loved her
husband. What the hell is going on?

“Run that by me again. You did what?”

“They gave my partnership to one of the partner’s nephews. I’ve
given that firm its reputation and they just handed my partnership to someone
with less courtroom experience and far less billable hours. I’ve been thinking
about starting my own firm. I don’t know yet.”

“Wow, Ashley,” was all I could say.

This is huge news, much bigger than anything I’ve been
worried about. My parents are going to shit bricks. They certainly hadn’t
reacted well when I decided to leave my corporate job at USA Today to become a
freelance journalist despite the circumstances being very similar to Ashley’s. That
was four years ago and they still haven’t gotten over it.

“But,” Ashley grinned, “I’ll just throw in something about
you and Cash to divert their anger.”

“That’s wrong on so many levels. But there might not be
anything to mention by the time you get around to breaking your news to the
folks.”

“I knew something happened last night. What happened?”

“Don’t tell anyone,” I insisted. I can’t believe that I’m
about to share this devastating news with Ashley, but the damage’s been done. I
already said too much.

“I won’t tell anyone. What happened?”

“Cash’s ex is five months pregnant with his child and he
didn’t tell me.”

Ashley sucked in her breath. “Oh wow. And how long have you’ve
been dating him?”

“A little less than five months.”

“Oh, Banana, that’s not good.”

“Exactly. I’m so pissed, Ash. Like, I could scream. He
should have told me this the day he found out. I could have said ‘call me after
she has the kid if you’re still single’ and walked away. But no, he takes me on
trips, meets my family, tells me he loves me, and lets me find this out from a
damn gossip blogger that I don’t even like!”

“Oh no!” Ashley gasped. “Are you serious? That’s how you
found out?”

“Yes. One of my friends emailed the link to his post last
night during dinner.”

I felt like I was looking into a mirror as I took in the mortified
expression on Ashley’s face. Talking about it magnified the feelings that I
hadn’t expressed to Cash last night.

“Dang, Banana. You know the media is going to eat this up.”

“Exactly. They’re already talking shit. I’ve been called
everything but a child of God since we’ve been seen together. How in the hell
do I walk away from this without people thinking that I’m the reason he and Victoria
broke up in the first place?”

“You can’t. This is just the type of tabloid fodder that
bloggers crave. At least you know you have a good lawyer. I’ve won every single
slander and libel suit I’ve taken to court. I’m not above suing the hell out of
your colleagues.”

“Thanks.”

“I know it’s soon, but what are you going to do about Cash?
You did just say that he loved you, right?”

Suddenly, the anger I felt was replaced by a sharp twinge of
hurt. My eyes filled up with tears. I tried not to cry over this last night,
but the floodgates were officially open for business.

“You love him too, don’t you?” Ashley whispered. “I could
tell by the way you looked at him last night. It’s so obvious.”

I wiped my tears. “It doesn’t matter. The fact that we love
each other didn’t prevent him from keeping this from me. Babies change people,
Ashley. Look at you and Kevin. You were ready to call it quits right before you
found out that you were pregnant. Now the two of you are happier than ever. It’s
not like Cash and Victoria broke up a while ago and trying to raise their child
together. They just broke up five months ago.”

I pulled up the post and showed Ashley the incriminating
pictures of Cash and Victoria sitting across from each other at an outdoor
café. They were smiling warmly at each other as Cash held what appeared to be a
sonogram picture. No one can look at the picture and argue that there isn’t
something still there; some shared feelings those five months apart hadn’t rid
them of.

“She was pregnant when they broke up,” I explained. “Look at
him. The way he’s looking at her. That’s three years of loving someone and
having a baby with that person written all over his face. I can’t compete with
that.”

“But…” Ashley raised her eyebrows as if there was something
I wasn’t saying.

“But I love him,” I wailed. “And this shit hurts so bad that
I can’t even breathe!”

“I don’t know what to say. Maybe your relationship doesn’t
have to end over this. Have you talked to him or are you too mad to talk?”

“I mean,” I sniffed. “I’m definitely mad at him. But I’m
really just mad at the situation. I should have known that being some dude’s
rebound chick was going to bite me in the ass.”

“Did he say he wants to get back with her?”

I thrust my phone back in Ashley’s face. “Is this the face
of a man who is not still in love with his ex? Of course, he wants to be with
her.”

“Well, I saw Cash’s face last night and he’s definitely in
love with you,” Ashley countered. “Look, don’t make any decisions before you
hear him out. A baby doesn’t mean the end of the world, Savannah.”

“You just want me to stay with him so Mom and Dad won’t be
so mad at you,” I grumbled.

“First of all, that was a joke. And I’m sure breaking up
with Cash will make our parents extremely happy, but this isn’t about that. Whether
you stay with him or not, he’s white. Grandma and Granddad will always call the
oppressor behind his back and you know it. Mom is always going to wish you
found some nice black boy to marry. Dad will shake his head with disappointment
every time you mention his name. None of that matters.”

“What matters is you,” Ashley continued. “You’re in love
with a man who is having a baby by his ex girlfriend. Do you have the heart to
weather this storm? Do you love Cash enough to accept that he’s having a baby
with someone he loved not too long ago? If so, stay and fight for your man. If
you don’t, walk away. Don’t try to make it about what anyone else thinks
because none of that even matters right now.”

As her words sunk in, I wiped my eyes with the tissues my
sisters kept handing me. Her advice is good, but I still don’t know how to
handle this. I lost my baby, but the two men I’ve loved in the last two years
both managed to have a kid on me. What part of fair is this?

“Can I ask you something?” Ashley asked after she took my
phone out of my hand and turned it off.

“What?”

“You know how we were raised. We’ve been traveling the
country with our entire family fighting injustices against black people since
we were little. You spent all that time in Florida covering the Trayvon Martin
and Marissa Alexander situations. Jenna 6, Kendrick Johnson...we’ve been there.
How can you sleep with Cash every night knowing what his people are capable of?”

I glared at my sister. Even with multiple degrees, people
like her can be so dense. That attitude is part of the reason progress is slow
amongst black people.

“We were also taught to examine the actions of individuals.
It’s detrimental to judge an entire race due to the actions of a few. Isn’t
that why we fight? Because the generalizations and stereotypes about
African-American people do nothing but hurt us. It works both way, Ashley. I
shouldn’t have to explain this to you.”