I turn, running toward my bathroom. I barely make it in before I’m throwing up the pizza Brian brought over to my place when he got off work tonight. We hang out most nights. I am still the only one that knows Brian’s secret. I’d bet his parents know too but are waiting for him to tell them. But I don’t push him. He’ll do it when he’s ready.
“Cherry.” Brian grabs a rag for me. I take it from his hand, wiping my mouth.
“He’s trying to break up with me, isn't he? He wants me to break it off so he doesn’t have to.” It was all in the way he worded the text. I love you but if you want to move on... More tears slip down my face. “They were supposed to be my family.” Brian sits down on the floor with me, pulling me in for a hug.
What hurts is I know Nick and Benjy are with him. Are they not telling him he’s crazy? How do I move on from him? From them? They’re all I’ve ever known. They were the ones who loved me when no one else did. Turns out that love isn’t convenient for them anymore.
“Cherry, girl. You’re killing me here.” I sniffle, looking up at Brian. My whole world feels like it’s falling apart. If he thinks I’m cheating on him, will he then think our baby isn't his? It hurts that he would think any of these things. How the hell am I going to tell him about the baby now?
“Am I hard to love? Did I do something wrong? I don’t understand.” My tears break free. I thought I’d been doing the right thing helping the boys follow their dreams. Getting myself and my life in order so that if things don’t work out with the music thing that we’d still have a future.
“Cherry, you are not hard to love. I can promise you that.”
“I’m having his baby.”
“You’re having your baby and I’m going to be here with you. I’m going to be a killer uncle.” I smile at that. He will be. And even though my entire world seems like it’s falling apart, I take comfort in knowing that I have someone here by my side.
“I don’t understand.”
“People change. We’ve all heard how fame and money can go to people's heads.” I want to refuse to believe that this is happening. Could they have changed so much in such a short time? My heart refuses to believe that it’s true. Linc and I have been together for so long that this can’t be the way it ends.
“Give me my phone.” I reach out my hand. Brian looks as though he doesn’t want to but eventually hands my phone to me. “I’m going to call him. That’s the only way this is going to get resolved. I want to hear him say it.”
“I’ll be right here if you need me.” I hug him before I pick up the phone and press the button to call Linc. Nerves threaten to make me sick again, but I know that I need to do this. It rings a bunch of times before his voicemail picks up. I drop the phone from my ear.
“Guess it’s loud in strip clubs.” I can’t keep the anger out of my voice. I’ve gone from sad to mad. My emotions are all over the place. I drop my phone down on the counter to wash my hands. Brian stands there watching me.
“Movie?” he asks. “We can log into my Netflix.”
“Yeah.” I leave my phone on the counter. If he wants to talk to me he’ll figure it out. For tonight I am done. I don’t think I can take much more.
Chapter Twenty-One
Linc
“I’ve been holding her back,” I explain to the stripper as I shove a handful of popcorn into my mouth.
She hands me a napkin. “How so?”
I wipe my mouth and take a drink before answering. I need to collect my thoughts so I can fully explain to Miss Diana how amazing Cherry is and the shitty circumstances of her life. “She’s eighteen, right? But she’s been taking care of herself since she was at least twelve, if not earlier. Her parents are deadbeats. They don’t have much money, but that’s not anything out of the ordinary. No one in Shindale has money. The thing is that as soon as they get a dime, they are spending it on vacations and other worthless crap. They forget to pay the bills so sometimes Cherry has to come to my house to shower because her hot water has been turned off or she has to do her homework at the library because the electricity is gone. Sometimes her parents remember her and give her a paycheck that she carefully budgets to get her through until the next time her worthless ‘rents come to their senses.”
“That’s abuse,” Miss Diana exclaims as she fills my glass to the rim.
“I know.” I down half the drink. It’s some hard liquor mix with some sweetness. I never drink. Miss D calls it a Cherry Bomb because the sweetness doesn’t hit you until the end. I wanted to text Cherry and tell her that I found the perfect drink named after her, but my phone’s dead.
I’ll have to get Miss D to tell me how to make it, although maybe Cherry wouldn’t mind coming here. It is a strip club, but it’s a nice one. I was surprised. It doesn’t have that seedy quality that you see in movies. Instead, it was like a library with low lights and little stages and private rooms. Nick and Benjy are in some booth being entertained by a woman and by that I mean if she’s shy of thirty, I’ll be shocked. Miss Diana found me sitting on the floor near the bathroom, staring at my phone.
I might’ve had tears in my eyes. I don’t know. But she felt sorry for me and brought me into this private room to feed me snacks and booze. With my tongue loosened by several Cherry Bombs, my sorry story tumbled out—about how Cherry and I are high school sweethearts, how my band got discovered by Treats, how we moved out here to LA about two months ago and I’ve only been able to see Cherry once, how I think she’s cheating on me but I don’t care because I deserve it.
“So I thought, I’ll work hard and get this album done and then Cherry can come out here, but it’s dumb to think I can save her. She’s the smart one. I’m only”—I hold up my hands—“good with the guitar. Half of me,” I confess, “wants to fly back, kidnap Cherry, and bring her back to LA, but I think I need more money for that plan.”
Miss D’s eyebrows go up, but she says nothing, only refills my drink.
“I’m just saying that Cherry deserves a good prison. A really luxe one. Treats put us up in this massive suite on the top floor of a hotel down on Rodeo Drive. That’s the type of prison I’m going to make for Cherry.” I hold a finger up to my lips. “Don’t tell anyone.”
Miss D zips a finger across her lips. I hiccup and drain the glass. “She deserves the best.”
“You’ll give it to her.”
“Yeah, I will.” My eyelids are feeling heavy. “I think I’m going to pass out, Miss D.”
“Go ahead. I’ll call Treats and let him know you’re going to sleep here.”
“You know Treats?”
The stripper smiles. “How do you think you ended up here? Treats thought you needed to unwind, although I don’t think he had this in mind when he called.”
She gets to her feet, not tottering even once on heels that are higher than my amp. I let my eyelids fall shut and let myself be transported into dreamland.
Cherry’s waiting for me with a bright smile across her face. She runs toward me. I pick her up and swing her around because even though it’s cheesy and cliché, it’s still fun as fuck. She throws her head back and laughs. The sound of her happiness makes my dick swell. Oh, who am I kidding, just hearing her name makes me hard. “Cherry, baby, I missed you.” She slides down until her sex comes in contact with my hard-on. It’s my dream so no one’s around and suddenly our clothes are gone. I lay her down on the soft grass and take one ripe tit into my mouth. Her nipple hardens on my tongue. I reach between her legs and slide my fingers into her ripe, juicy pussy. “Wet for me, are you?” I mouth around her breast.