She throws down the cables with a huff. “Thank you!”
“What’s with all the extra cords?”
“The stage is bigger, so we needed, like, fifty more feet of cable and a whole extra light. But it’s hardly something to complain about with how much this place offered Carl to come out.”
“Yeah, I guess we’ll be seeing a lot of this with how in demand we now are.”
“And to think, that was mostly Samantha,” Vanessa says.
“She certainly knows her way around PR.”
“I’ve been meaning to say that I’m sorry it didn’t work out between you two.”
I cock a brow. “Are you?”
“I really am. Looking back, I realize now that I’d acted unbelievably immature.”
“It’s hardly your fault. Samantha is…an acquired taste.”
Vanessa chuckles. “I guess that’s one way to put it, but honestly, she didn’t deserve the way she was treated. Neither of you did.”
“Then maybe she shouldn’t have been stirring shit.”
“Ya know, I’ve been thinking a lot about that, and she really wasn’t.”
“You straight up told me the shit she pulled with Natasha at the bachelorette party.”
“Yeah, but that happened months before she came aboard.”
“What about how she painted Slay brown and blamed it on you?”
“Sure, she manipulated the hell out of the situation, but all she wanted was for Slay to quit acting like a jerk toward you, which I can’t hold against her. I really am sorry things didn’t work out between you two.”
“You and me both.”
A sympathetic expression washes over her face, and I have to look away.
I don’t deserve her pity. Not after what I’ve done.
Vanessa’s attention returns to the cords. “Thanks for helping, but I can take it from here.”
I walk back to the bus and see the guys hovering around Kilo’s phone.
Clint squints at the screen. “Why the hell would she settle for him?”
Armando chuckles. “You’re just jealous.”
“Of course, I’m jealous—it’s Cassie-freaking-Hoffman!” Clint huffs. “Now tell me what the hell she’s doing with Jacek.”
It takes me a moment to place the name, and when I do, I sink deeper into the pit of depression I’ve now come to live in.
I vaguely remember Samantha planning to hook him up with one of her clients, but I’d assumed that plan was scrapped when…when I left her at the goddamn police station.
Apparently, Carl’s opportunistic ass didn’t care to tell me they’re still working together, which pisses me right the hell off.
Molten fury pumps through my veins as I think about all the things I thought were mine that were taken from me. A life full of joy. A precious baby and their beautiful mother. A fucking family.
All gone.
