Chapter 8 Chanel
“Oh, God. What time is it?” I groaned, rolling over in bed. My phone was ringing, and something else was buzzing.
I pulled my pillow over my head, praying that the noise would stop, but it didn’t.
The phone finally stopped, only for me to realize that the doorbell was buzzing.
The only people who had access to my floor without the concierge notifying me were my family, my PA, Evie, and my best friend, Sabrina.
I revoked Collier’s access once we broke up.
I hadn’t made plans with the girls to come over, and my family would have called first. I couldn’t imagine which one of them had popped up and why. The phone rang again, and I sat up and reached for it.
I knocked the phone off the nightstand and groaned.
“Damn.” I slid out of bed, grabbed my robe, and tossed it on before I picked up my phone.
When I unlocked it, I noticed I had several missed calls from Sabrina and an overwhelming number of social media notifications.
She was so dramatic, so it wasn’t surprising that she had been calling me repeatedly.
It was probably an issue with her latest boo, knowing Sabrina.
I decided to call her back after I checked to see who was at the door. My head hurt, and I just wanted to go back to sleep, not start my day with drama. My plane arrived around four this morning, and I caught an Uber home.
I had showered and fell asleep around six this morning. It was only eleven thirty now, and I needed at least seven hours of sleep to function properly. I peered out the peephole to see Sabrina, Evie, and Tommi at my door.
Pulling it open, I asked, “What the hell?”
“That’s what we want to know,” Sabrina stated, rudely pushing by me holding two bottles of wine.
“What calls for wine this early in the day?” I asked.
“We were hoping you would tell us,” Tommi declared, walking in with two boxes of pizza in her hands.
“This isn’t a girls’ night in. It’s too early, you guys,” I complained.
“I brought the chocolates, and if you weren’t all over social media, I would agree,” Evie chimed in.
“All over social media. What are you talking about?” I asked, closing and locking the door behind us.
“Check your phone,” Tommi stated, even as she shoved her phone in my face.
All I saw was a blurry image of myself and Ashton. I pushed the phone back and leaned my head back a little. I snatched her phone and read the caption on the popular blog Sunni Sippin’ Tea: Puma’s star shooting guard retiring not only his career, but his wife too?
I screamed and then I shouted, “What the hell?” I shoved Tommi’s phone back into her hand. I unlocked my phone and went straight to Sociogram. I scrolled through all the notifications, seeing a couple of pictures of Ashton and me at the bar, in the hotel lobby, and in front of the hotel last night.
I had seen someone taking his picture last night, but we both thought it was a fan. How had this gone to hell in a handbasket so fast?
“Are you gonna spill the tea, heffa?”
“Why did we have to find out about it this way?”
“Y’all make a cute couple.”
All three of them were talking at once, and I was overwhelmed by their chatter and their excited energy. I pressed my hands against the side of my head, ready to scream as their questions continued.
I glanced at Tommi, and she placed two fingers in her mouth and let out a piercing whistle that silenced everyone. She placed her hands on her hips and asked, “Girl, what’s going on?”
“I don’t know.”
“I mean, how did you get from an interview to a torrid affair?”
“Tommi, this ain’t that.”
“Well, that’s what Sunni is saying.”
“Keep in mind that Sunni is a gossip columnist after all, and she’s been known to stretch and bend the truth,” Evie interjected.
“Operative word being truth. There has to be some truth in this, right? Because the pictures show you and him walking out of that hotel, and the way you’re angling your head and keeping it down, you look like you’re hiding something,” Sabrina whined.
She sounded disappointed, as though I told Sunni a secret that I kept from her.
“I only dipped my head to look into my purse for some gum while Ashton and the driver placed my luggage in the trunk. My guess is that someone edited the photo to take my hands and purse out of the photo to make me look suspicious.”
“Well, you two do look awfully cozy at the bar and then again at the table,” Sabrina pointed out.
“We were chatting about some of the stuff that’s going into the story, and we didn’t want anyone eavesdropping on the conversation. That’s the only reason we sat so close together,” I lied.
UNKNOWN:
There’s no fun when the rabbit’s got the gun, is there?
“What’s wrong?” Evie asked as I frowned at the text message that had just come through on my phone. I held it up and showed it to them.
“It’s probably nothing,” Sabrina stated.
“Yeah, some jealous fan,” Evie added.
“Or the competition. Another reporter setting you up from the rip, if not another gossip column,” Tommi commented dryly.
I smiled, allowing their words to comfort and soothe me, but I didn’t believe that for one second. I dismissed it, though, because it was the least of my worries at the moment. My phone rang again, and this time, it was my parents.
“Ohhh, man.” I groaned.
“What?” Tommi asked.
“My parents.”
Tommi lifted an eyebrow. “Girl, you know they’re not going to stop until they get you, and if they can’t reach you, then my phone will be blowing up next.”
“Hello?”
“Hey, baby. What’s going on with you and Ashton Santoro? You told me you were interviewing him, not dating him. That man is married,” my father declared.
“Honestly, Daddy, I don’t know. I’m not dating Ashton. We were at the bar after the game yesterday. I was just doing some follow-up questions about the bigger article that I’m writing about him for the magazine. Someone has taken what was supposed to be and twisted it into something sordid.”
“What are you going to do about it?” my mother asked from the background, making me realize that I was on speaker.
“I’m not sure, because I haven’t had time to think it through. I just found out about it. Maybe after I eat, I can formulate a plan; the girls are here with me.”
“All right. Let us know if you need anything, baby girl,” Daddy stated.
“I will. Love you guys.”
“Love you more,” Mama professed.
My phone immediately rang again. “I don’t believe this shit.”
“What?” Evie asked.
“It’s Darius.”
“Your ex-husband?” she asked.
“Ex-slime,” Sabrina declared.
“Ex-weasel,” Tommi added. “What the hell does he want?”
“I don’t know why he’s calling. Hello?” I answered my phone after replying to the girls.
“You really want to ruin someone else’s life like that?” Darius greeted off the rip.
“Hello to you, too, asshole. But why are you calling?”
“I think it’s messed up that you’d mess up someone’s marriage knowing that you’re not capable of fulfilling all that man’s needs.”
My belly clenched, and my head and neck instantly started hurting. Nausea rolled through my belly as anxiety and fear swirled within me as I recalled the reason for our divorce.
Ignoring the girls’ pointed looks and questions about what he wanted, I stomped upstairs to my bedroom for a little privacy. I closed and locked the door before I snapped on him.
“You sorry ass bastard. You had the nerve to run out on me when I needed you the most, making me feel like less than a woman, accused me of misleading you, and you have the nerve to call me up after not speaking to me for two years and saying some shit like that? Fuck you, Darius.”
“I’m just saying that you should tell that man the truth before you allow him to ruin his marriage over you. I’d hate for him to regret it in the end. Those people have been together for eighteen years. Don’t do that, Chanel.”
“I’m not ruining anything. You’re an idiot, and so are the gossip columns and the people who sold those pictures.
This is some twisted story, and your dumb ass would be quick to jump on it and believe it so that you can continue thinking the worst about me as always. Don’t call me again. Forget my number.”
I punched the red phone icon to end the call. When I had, I exhaled a long cry, slumped on my bed, and cried my eyes out.
My girls would give me grace and space to have the time that I needed. They all knew that a conversation with Darius would be emotionally exhausting.
When I finished bawling my eyes out, I was getting ready to get up and clean my face to join the ladies, but my phone rang again. My heart dropped when I looked at the screen and saw that it was Ashton. I wiped my face and cleared my throat before I answered.
“Hey, I was wondering when you would get around to calling.”
“I’ve been tied up with my sports agent, my attorney, my PA, my PR rep, and my wife. I don’t have time for the bullshit, Chanel. What the fuck is going on? Is this your way of pushing the narrative and getting the story out there somehow?”
“No. That’s not my plan.”
“What are you doing? Combating my bad reputation with her good one isn’t going to work. You trying to play us against each other? Amélie warned me about you,” he grumbled.
“What are you talking about? You think I did this? I would never sell my soul for a story or collude with a gossip column for rubbish like this, Ashton.”
“Unfortunately, I know the opposite to be true. My attorney and agent have both informed me that you are on the hook at the magazine. They’re about to drop you, and you have to come up with something major within six weeks, or you’ll lose your byline at Legendary Sports Magazine.
Did you sell me out to keep your byline so that you can keep those fancy clothes and shoes, Chanel? ”
I was so frustrated with everyone jumping to conclusions and not giving me the benefit of the doubt.
“You idiot. If you knew anything, you’d know that losing my byline at LSM will cost me nothing but my pride.
I don’t make any money there. The only reason I still write for them is because they gave me my start in this industry.
They don’t fund my lifestyle, and not that it’s any of your business, but Bolton Media does.
So you wanna try that again? All this shit is beneath me. ”
“This is my damn life we’re talking about here!” The bass in his voice thundered across the line and sent an odd thrill through me.
But I exhaled, pinched the bridge of my nose, and calmed down. “Ashton, I know that. I swear that I’m not behind this, and neither are my people. This does me no good. My reputation is on the line too.”
“What else am I supposed to believe?” His voice sounded desperate and frustrated.
“I don’t know, but I do know that I got a text today from someone that read, ‘it’s no fun when the rabbit’s got the gun.’ My only thought was that someone’s coming after me, but I can’t tell you why.”
“Gahdamn!” he shouted.
“Listen, we can meet to discuss this and come up with a plan of attack. I’m on your side, Ashton. I swear I am.”
“Why should I trust you? I didn’t have these problems until I agreed to talk to you.”
“Honey, you had problems long before me. You were just good at keeping it under wraps. Now do you want to meet with me and come up with a plan of attack or not?”
I could hear him exhale loudly before he agreed. “Fine. Shoot me your address. I can roll through in a couple of hours.”
“Okay. I’ll see you then.”
“Yeah. Bye.”
My heart thudded loudly in my chest before I hopped off the bed and returned to the living room.
I formulated an excuse to get rid of my girls before he arrived.
I wanted them gone at least an hour before he arrived to avoid him bumping into them or me trying to explain something to them that I couldn’t.