Chapter 24
ROXY
Angel was hiding something.
He’d morphed into this short-tempered stranger, glued to his phone at every hour of the day.
The texts he got seemed to drive him up the wall, and he’d cooled on me, on us.
Three weeks after Cannes, our marriage was back to polite civility.
I returned to sleeping in the guest suite.
I don’t think Angel noticed, so wrapped was he in whatever the hell he was dealing with.
We traded ‘good mornings’ across the granite island, then later, ‘what’s for dinner?’ in the evening, and cold ‘good nights’ as we headed to our separate rooms.
All our playful banter, our intimacy and lovemaking in Cannes and Capri vanished into thin air.
Still, his phone kept vibrating and pinging at all odd hours, and it drove me batty.
To escape, one night I met up with three of my closest college friends, Mimi, Chloe, and Elena.
We booked a corner booth at a lush new cocktail lounge downtown, ordering tapas and flatbreads to share.
The moment the waiter poured Elena’s Pinot Noir, a wave of intense nausea hit my throat. I squeezed my eyes shut, almost gagging from the bouquet.
I brushed it off as a simple stomach bug.
When I walked through the front door at home after my night out, exhaustion hit.
I tumbled straight into bed and crashed for ten hours, a rare occurrence for me.
As I slept, I had wild, vivid dreams.
The next morning, I woke up with a tightness under my ribs.
I felt bloated as I stared at my reflection and tugged at my waistband.
Awesome, I was packing on extra pounds from all this stress.
In the evening, after work, I arrived at my local gym for a core conditioning class.
It took every single ounce of my remaining stamina to finish the warm-up.
My routine consisted of a full hour of high-intensity cardio, but today my lungs burned after scarcely fifteen minutes.
When I stopped to grab dinner after the session, my usual preferences betrayed me.
I was repulsed by the organic green salads I ate twice a day.
My body demanded grease, so I marched into Chipotle and devoured a massive steak burrito.
Back home, in the kitchen, I opened a fresh blackberry pie from the farmer’s market.
When the blade sliced the crust, an odor hit my nose that turned my tummy.
The baker must have used lard, a detail I never detected before.
I slapped a scoop of vanilla bean ice cream onto the plate regardless, stuffing my face to quiet my ravenous hunger.
A sudden, terrifying thought struck my brain.
Was I pregnant?
No way.
Then my breasts began to ache with a deep, throbbing soreness.
I blamed the pain on an old, stretched sports bra I wore during my core class.
By the next afternoon, the shooting ache grew so intense that I marched into a department store lingerie aisle.
I stood near the racks, holding my chest and gasping out loud from the sheer discomfort.
Even then, I resisted the truth.
Still, I forced my shaking hands to pick up a test at the pharmacy, then rushed back home.
Angel’s truck was missing from the garage; he was likely working late again at the city studio.
I ran up the stairs and locked myself in the bathroom.
I tore the foil packaging with my teeth and peed on the stick.
When the distinct blue lines popped up on the digital screen, my breath hitched.
I stared at the plastic stick for five solid minutes, my pulse racing in a chaotic blend of terror and fierce, protective joy.
I was carrying Angel’s child.
Needing a second opinion, I booked an urgent morning appointment with my general practitioner.
Two days later, I walked out of Dr. Laurence’s clinic in a daze.
The blood work and the doctor confirmed the truth; I was pregnant, four weeks along.
My body was still not showing, but it was sending the signals loud and clear about my pregnancy.
I burned out, shattered by 3 p.m. every day.
I couldn’t keep my head up, and I needed at least one nap to get through the day, plus 9 to 10 hours of sleep.
The exhaustion was non-stop.
I took sick days off, feeling like I was coming down with a huge flu.
One day, I was so fatigued while putting away the dishes that I almost burst into tears because I was too weak to stack the plates.
When I saw my doctor again, she said, ‘The massive uptick in hormones and blood volume takes a toll. So take it easy, eat well, rest. Don’t push yourself too hard.’
I wanted to share the news with Angel, but I sensed the growing distance in my marriage.
He was pulling away from me, locking down his heart.
The joy in my chest curdled into doubt, and I decided to keep the baby a secret for now.
My suspicions about him grew claws over the few days.
Angel kept leaving the house for mysterious midnight disappearances, whispering into his receiver during suspicious phone calls.
My mind spun dark, agonizing scenarios, convinced he was cheating on me.
At the thought, my soul splintered into jagged pieces.
I loved him so much it was killing me, and the idea that he might be betraying me was too excruciating to dwell on.
I hid my desperate desire to share our news, as well as my craving for his touch and for his love.
Still, I maintained a mask of composure, half hoping he’d come clean about what was bothering him, yet secretly thinking I was halfway out the door.
There was no way I’d put up with this shit for much longer.
Angel seemed oblivious to the roiling storm in me, caught up in whatever situation he was managing that kept him away and busy, on top of his band requirements.
We passed each other like ships in the night, that’s if he was ever home.
In fact, the only time we were slated to see one another for a chunk of time in the coming weeks was at the Civic Gala ceremony we were both attending.
Maybe I’d tell him then, when we were more relaxed and out of our daily routine.
ANGEL
One afternoon, I sat in a high-stakes meeting with the label, right in the midst of reworking our Six Sinners’ contracts with our overlords at Knights Music.
The Knights’ executive board and leadership were close friends, given the fact that signing us years ago had led to their very well-lined pockets.
An army of entertainment lawyers, senior record label executives, our management team, and all my brothers filled the massive boardroom when an unidentified number flashed on my screen.
Unknown number: This is Maurice Jones. You seen Evangeline? I need to speak with her. She ran back to you, so you need to give her up.
My blood boiled.
I excused myself from the table with a quick mutter, stood up, and prowled outside the room.
Once I reached the empty marble lobby, my fingers pounded the glass display, setting the boundary hard.
Angel: I’ve nothing to share. Lose this number.
This was the final straw.
With a curse, I dialed Evangeline.
‘Angel?’ she answered, sounding elated.
‘I’m letting you stay in my downtown townhouse for another two weeks max,’ I bit out. ‘After that, you’re on your own.’
‘Angel, please, you can’t -.’
‘Listen to me,’ I cut her off. ‘You jilted me. I married Roxy, and now I care for her. Now your ex is hitting me up to try and get back in touch with you, and I want nothing to do with it. Leave me out of whatever boyfriend drama you’re involved in.’
I severed the connection before she could launch into another manipulative crying jag.
The afternoon crawled by, the humid Nashville sun baking the pavement outside the studio windows.
Around four o’clock, the anonymous caller buzzed again.
Unknown number: She owes me, and if you can’t tell me where she is, you’ll owe me instead.
A red haze flooded my brain.
I just about lost my cool then, my thumbs flying across the keyboard as I let him have it.
Angel: You’ve got the wrong man. Evangeline walked out on me months ago. She jilted me at the altar. She’s not living with me, and I want nothing to do with her.
Unknown number: If I find you lied to me, you’re dead, rockstar.
I almost threw my phone through the lobby’s plate-glass windows in sheer frustration, desperate for a quiet life, without Evangeline ever in it again.
Gathering my composure, I screen-shotted the threat and flicked it to Brian, our lawyer, with a note to look into whoeverthefuck Maurice was.
If he were as dirty as Evangeline claimed, perhaps the Waring Partners team would dig enough dirt to get him off my back for good.