“It’s Savannah again.” Cash held up his hands and backed away. “I’ve got an appointment with a hot shower. I'm suddenly holding a dangerous amount of tension in my body. Have fun with that.”
I glared at him and grabbed my phone off the kitchen counter. I answered and did my best to sound normal and not like a guilty little kid who’d been caught with his hand in the cookie jar. “What’s up, Sav?”
Her voice was tight and I could tell she was angry. “What the actual fuck is happening there, Hayes? I woke up this morning and there are suddenly eight hundred new pictures of my brothers gallivanting around with the girl who tried to ruin my relationship last year! Why are y’all letting her use you like this? She’s just trying to get under my skin. Or Cole’s.”
I put her on speaker so I could look at the pictures again. For the first time I wasn’t angry about someone taking photographs of us without our permission. I had the strangest urge to printthe pictures out and glue them into a scrapbook or something.Fuck. “Good to hear from you, too, Sav. How’s your day going?”
“I’m serious, Hayes! She was horrible to me. I’m your sister. Your only sister. You’re supposed to hate the people who hurt me. Not screw them!”
That wiped the smile from my face. “First of all, we aren’tscrewingher, Savannah. Not that it’s any of your business. Second of all, we have your back in everything. We love you and would do anything for you. You have no reason to question our loyalty.”
“You looksmittenin those pictures, Hayes! It’s disgusting.” She groaned. “I don’t trust her. You shouldn’t either.”
West walked in and froze when he heard Savannah’s voice. He held up his hands and backed out of the kitchen without saying a word.
I glared at the spot he’d vanished from. “Sav, you have your life there. There are definitely things about it that I don’t like. We have our life here. Alright?”
“No! Not alright! Are you falling for her bullshit?”
A rush of anger had me on my feet. “Maybe she’s not bullshitting us. Maybe she’s more complicated than what happened between the two of you.”
Savannah was quiet for a minute and then she sighed. “I’m going to have Cole call her. If you’re not going to protect yourself from her, I will.”
“Why the fuck would he call Cassidy?” I looked up as Weston appeared again, his face a mask of anger.
“To get to the bottom of this. She won’t lie to him. He’ll call her and maybe talk some sense into her, since you don’t want to see reason.”
“No.” West growled the singular word as he came closer. “He doesn’t call Cassidy. He doesn’t look at Cassidy. He doesn’t comewithin a hundred feet of her or I’ll knock his fucking head off, Sav.”
She swore and it felt like we were kids again, before we’d learned to not upset each other. “Do not threaten my boyfriend, Weston! And stop calling her Cassidy! What is wrong with y’all? Jesus. She got her hooks in deep, huh?”
I shoved West away and shook my head at him. Savannah was our sister and we weren’t going to war with her over anyone or anything. Even if I wanted to shake her. “Look, Sav. We love you. I love you. We’re doing our best to not judge your relationship with the men who nearly ended our careers. You should do the same.”
“So you’re in a relationship?”
I avoided West’s gaze. I didn’t fucking know what we were doing with Cassidy. I knew what it felt like and what I wanted it to be but the lines were so twisted that I wasn’t sure what was real and what wasn’t. I knew what everyone was supposed to believe for our careers to not be trashed, though. “Yes.”
“I thought the rumors were bullshit. I can’t believe y’all. This is crazy. I’m having Cole call her. Even if I hate the idea of her getting to talk to him, this can’t happen.”
“She won’t want to talk to him.” I wished I was as sure of it as I sounded.
“Idiot.” Savannah hung up but called right back. As soon as I answered she groaned. “I love you, too.”
I shook my head and put the phone down after she hung up again. Looking up at West I saw that he was scowling at the phone. “She knows Cassidy through a very specific view. We can’t blame her for hating Cassidy.”
“Maybe we should let her know what a piece of shit her boyfriend is.”
“What good would it do? I don’t want anything else to come between us. I fucking hate it but she loves those assholes. Nomatter what we say, that won’t change. It’ll just hurt the way she feels about us.” I sighed. “Not that she feels that great about us right now. She thinks we’re morons who are being played. Or assholes who don’t care that our girlfriend hurt her once.”
“Our girlfriend?” West stared at me like he was trying to see into my soul. I knew the look. He was trying to see where I stood on something that he wasn’t completely sure about yet.
Instead of admitting that my feelings for Cassidy weren’t strictly business-like, I just shrugged. “Best to stick to the story.”
Cash strolled in, still dry because he hadn’t gone to shower. The ass. “How do I print these pictures out? I want to cut you dicks out of them and hang them in my shower.”
I slapped the back of his head. “Asshole.”
34
