It was like she’d fallen off a cliff, and I’d been stuck in this bed, unable to search for her. That ended now.
Steve told me my mother was on her way to see me. I stared at him for a long moment, then shook my head.
“I don’t want to see her.”
“She’s worried—”
“Then she should have been around the last couple of years,” I snapped.
Steve clenched his jaw .
“I’m serious. I don’t want to see her.”
“I’ll let her know,” he muttered before stepping out of the room.
I looked up as Cam and Chuck stepped in, followed by Mama Grace. She scooted around the men and fluffed my pillows, fussing over me. I smiled at her, but my eyes darted back to the door, looking for Aya.
“She’s not here,” Cam said. He frowned, his brows tugging low over his nose. “She came yesterday, but she fell apart at the ICU doors.”
I clenched my fist. “Because of her mom.”
Cam nodded, eyes sad. “She told me her mother died.”
Mama Grace gasped. “That sweet girl lost her mother?”
I nodded. “Yeah. She’s got to be so broken up. They were close. Really close.” I clenched my fists, despising my inability to leave, to go to her. “I don’t know anything else. I can’t get a hold of her.”
“About that,” Chuck rumbled. “I took her home, and she got a text on the way. It said, ‘He’s mine now.’ And there were pictures of you with some tall blonde.”
“Nash!” Mama Grace’s hand fluttered to her mouth.
“Lindsay,” I croaked. “It had to be. She doesn’t like Aya.”
My head and muscles ached. All of them. I felt like I’d been beaten with a plumber’s wrench.
“She’s the one who drugged you,” Steve said, stepping out of the corner.
I glared at him, but he held my stare.
“Aya wasn’t in a good headspace when she got out of the car,” Chuck said.
“Nash doesn’t need this stress now,” Steve said. “He needs to rest. To heal.”
“I need to make sure Aya’s okay,” I said. “Give me my phone so I can call her.”
Steve handed it over, but only because the others watched. His tight expression proved he wanted to deny me.
“Can I get a minute?” I asked.
Mama Grace kissed my forehead. “See you soon, honey.”
Cam and Chuck eased Steve from the room.
I dialed Aya’s number.
I frowned as the phone rang and rang.
Finally, she answered. “Nash?”
“Ay. Yeah, it’s me. How are you?”
“Why are you calling?”
I frowned. Her tone was distant, unlike her normal warmth.
“I wanted to talk to you. To see how you’re doing—Ay, I’m so damn sorry about your mom.”
“Why?”
I shifted on the bed. “What do you mean why? And you don’t care that I almost died?”
“I did. I do.”
Her tone softened. That sounded like my girl. I leaned back, closed my eyes, and basked in her love.
She cleared her throat. “I saw the pictures and comments of you and Lindsay.”
My eyes flashed open. “You have to know that’s all bullshit.”
“I asked you, Nash. I asked you if you loved me.” Her breath broke. “I guess I should have realized, but I still can’t believe you did that.”
“What are you talking about?” I asked.
“Can’t you just stop? You humiliated me in front of everyone,” she hissed. “And now—what? You want to be friends?”
“I don’t want to be friends. You’re my girlfriend.”
But Aya had hung up. She hung up on me. I stared at my phone, my mouth gaping.
I still stared at it when Cam and Chuck reentered the room.
I looked up at them. “She hung up on me. She said I humiliated her.”
Chuck’s face turned pensive. “The pictures were bad.”
“But…”
Cam worked his jaw. “You gotta stay in front of these stories. Now that you’re a known name, you’re going to get news.”
“But Aya didn’t believe me.”
Cam pulled up a site and pressed play. I watched me, clearly wasted, screaming, “I don’t want you.”
Lindsay’s triumphant smile preceded her arms wrapping around me. She repeated the words to Aya. The camera panned to Aya’s devastation. The video cut out.
“It’s on YouTube,” Chuck said. “It’s already got tens of thousands of views.”
I licked my dry lips and shook my head. “She has to know I’d never hurt her.”
“Does she? Cuz from this angle, that’s exactly what it looks like,” Cam said.
I met his gaze, feeling desperate. “What do I do?”
He sighed. “Get better. Get a lid on this, best you can. That’s what Asher’s label’s PR team is for.”
“But Aya…” I closed my eyes. “I’ll have to do those things to get her to listen to reason.”
“Pressing charges against the mean girl would go a long way,” Chuck added.
When Cam shot him a look, Chuck shrugged. “I hate bullies. You know that.”
“I already filed for Nash,” Steve said, stepping back into the room. “In fact, there’s a detective here who wants to talk to you.”
For the next two days, I had to work through lawyers and all sorts of other BS just to get Lindsay charged with the drugging. Luckily, everyone at the party had a phone—and had used it to film me—so the case against Lindsay might just stick. Except that her parents had shipped her back to England as soon as they’d learned about the incident, no doubt hoping to avoid extradition.
But as much as I wanted Lindsay to pay, I was more worried about Aya. She hadn’t taken another one of my calls or answered my texts.
And I had to deal with my mother’s tear-filled messages, but I held firm, refusing to see her. Steve looked more and more pissed each time he returned to my room, no doubt frustrated with my mother’s drama.
Well, that made two of us.
When I couldn’t stand it anymore, I called and begged Hugh to go to Aya’s house and check on her. I was still stuck in the damn hospital bed, unable to leave, thanks to my heartbeat, which still popped up irregular from time to time. My medical team refused to let me go until my EKG was normal.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Steve asked as I ended the call.
I’d risen from the bed, and he hovered nearby. He’d become an autocratic asshole since Brad had spilled my mother’s secrets, and I couldn’t stand his self-importance, or his supposed—and fake—interest in me.
“To the bathroom,” I said. My insides felt like they’d been dipped in acid.
He grunted. “You still not talking to me?”
“Did you manage to talk to Aya?”
“No.”
“Are you still the asshole who banged my mom and lied to me about taking a job so you could be near her, not your possible kid?”
He sighed. “Nash—”