I laugh darkly. “Yeah, well, how was I to know she’d turn out to be a PR nightmare.”
Roberto lets out a dramatic sigh that has me rolling my eyes. “Whatever. I’ll deal with it. Just keep yourself out of the press for a while until it dies down.”
“Got it.”
I hang up the phone and speed up my walk home. My thoughts are fragmented between worrying about what Sierra’s stunt will do to the band’s image and wondering if Emma has seen the photos. Fuck. What if she doesn’t realize the photos are old? What if she thinks I went straight from her and into the arms of Sierra fucking Sloan?
When I get to my apartment, I drop down on my couch and open my web browser. I’ve got a news alert set for my name courtesy of Roberto, so it’s right there, staring at me. Fuck. Those photos are worse than I remember. I look sloppy drunk, which I was, if I remember correctly, and I’m groping Sierra in a way that would make my mother slap me. I cringe, looking at them. Honestly, that night and my behavior is why I don’t drink much anymore.
I toss my phone down and lean back with a groan. What the hell do I do now? Do I text Emma and tell her it’s not what it looks like? Would she even care? No. Reaching out now after nothing for an entire month is insane. Her silence must mean she has moved on, and I’m the idiot who hasn’t. Time to grow a pair and let her go. There are bigger things to deal with than my nonexistent love life.
Chapter seven
Emma
A few days after we got home, Allie made me promise not to talk about or look at anything related to Nash for a month. I guess she could tell I was still hung up on him, our night together, and whether or not I had made the right decision about not reaching out to him. And even though she had no way of knowing if I stayed true to the promise or not, I did, just to see if cutting myself off cold turkey would help me move on. News flash, it didn’t. Not in the least. In fact, if anything, being toldnotto talk about Nash just made me think about him even more.
But now the month has passed, and I can satisfy my morbid curiosity about him without breaking my promise. Which brings me to this low moment in my adult life.
Sitting on my couch in pajama pants and an oversized T-shirt with no bra on, a large glass of wine in one hand and my phone in the other with the web browser open, I’m about to start a search for his name. I take a large sip of wine, and a very deep breath, and hit enter on google.
Country music singer Nash Parker caught in compromising position with Sierra Sloan.
Sierra Sloan and Nash Parker seen together. Is it love?
Nashville’s hottest star and newcomer to the music scene Sierra Sloan attend party together. Sources claim the couple is closer than ever.
What the actual fuck. Photographs accompany each headline; photographs of Nash with another country singer, one I didn’t care much for, even before seeing these pictures. In one, his hand is on her ass. In another, they’re dancing, and his face is dangerously close to her cleavage as she arches back. Together it paints a pretty clear picture. Nash didn’t waste any time finding someone else to hook up with.
Tears blur my vision and I swipe at them angrily. He doesn’t deserve that. He’s not worth crying over. Except, I thought he was. Or at least could be.
I open up my text messages with Allie and start typing furiously.
EMMA: I want to go out tonight. Let’s hit some bars. Get drunk, dance the night away. Anywhere that does NOT play country music.
ALLIE: You googled him.
EMMA: I googled him.
ALLIE: I’m on my way over.
Twenty minutes later, I hear a key in my door and Allie walks in wearing leggings and a hoodie and carrying a bottle of wine and a bag that smells delicious.
“You’re not dressed for the bar,” I say half-heartedly. Truth be told, getting drunk and eating takeout sounds way better.
“Neither are you, so shut up.” She dumps the bag and the bottle on my coffee table, then goes to the kitchen for plates, forks, and a second wine glass.
We eat spicy Chinese food in silence for a few minutes before my best friend since childhood, my sister from another mister, the woman I would die for, calls me out on my bullshit.
“You know, you’re the one who left — twice — if I recall correctly. Can you really blame him for moving on?”
“No,” I answer sullenly. “But he didn’t ask me to stay.”
“And you didn’t call him, and he didn’t text you, and you’re acting like a spoiled brat who had her favourite toy taken away.”
I don’t respond, because that is exactly how I feel. Except he was never mine. How could he be? Still…
“He said I was irresistible. He made me feel special, like we were meant to find each other again.” Out of nowhere, those goddamn tears start again.
