Page 88 of Coming Up Roses

Cash

The soundof someone pounding on the shop door wakes me. And goddamn if this isn’t déjà vu. Only instead of an angry Kayla on the other side of the door, I find an even angrier Simon.

Disoriented from a night of restless sleep, I’m in no shape to deal with this shit. I attempt to shut the door, not caring one bit that I’m being rude, but Simon isn’t having it. With the force of ten linemen, Simon knocks me back with his shoulder to my chest.

“You sorry motherfucker,” he yells as we tumble to the ground. On the floor, he easily pins me. “I. Fucking. Told. You,” he clips out, reinforcing each word with jarring shakes, slamming my upper body into the concrete floor.

“The hell are you mad at me for?” I demand, shoving him off me. Jumping to my feet, I put my workbench between us. “Your girl’s the one you should be talking to.”

“My girl? Thought she was yours? Thought you loved her? Thought you were good for her. What a goddamn joke.” His fists are clenched, knuckles white from the sheer force of holding himself back.

“How are you coming at me with this? No. This is on Myla Rose.”

“The fuck you say?” Simon advances, working his way around the bench.

“Seems to me she wanted to string me along as Plan B if shit didn’t bounce back with Taylor,” I tell him, my hurt coating each word like a poison.

“Are you that dumb? You can’t seriously be that—”

“You bust into my goddamn workshop and have the balls to call me ignorant? Get out. The facts speak louder than whatever lies you’re here to tell. Just get the fuck out, and tell Myla I’ll drop her shit off later.”

“Guess you are that dumb. Just know you’re pissing away the best thing you’ve ever had over shit you don’t understand.” This whole time, I’ve been waiting for him to deck me like I know he wants to. And deep down, maybe I’m looking for a fight too. So I’m more than a little let down when Simon turns to leave without so much as a backward glance.

As my fight leaves my body, exhaustion crashes down hard. I stagger back to the couch and drop down onto it before falling back into the same restless slumber.

* * *

When I cometo God knows how many hours later, I realize I never turned my phone back on. Patting around the couch and my pockets, it’s nowhere to be found. The truck—it’s in the truck.

Scrambling up from the couch, I rush out and plug my phone into the car charger before powering it back up. Mad and hurt or not, I want to know she’s okay.

My phone takes what feels like forever to power up, and when it does, I’m bombarded with texts and missed call alerts from damn near everyone I know.

Sixteen missed calls from Myla Rose.

Four missed calls from Southern Roots.

Two missed calls from Drake.

One missed call from Simon.

Three from an unknown number.

Two from my brother and one from my mom—I really hope those are unrelated.

Swiping away the missed calls, I toggle over to my voicemail app, skipping the text messages altogether. Thirteen new voicemails, eight from Myla. Pressing play on the first one from her, I sink back into the seat, trying my hardest to safeguard my heart.

“C–Cash.” The break in her voice just about kills me, “P–please call m–me. I–it’s not wh–what you think.” Being the glutton for punishment I am, I listen to the rest of her messages, each one less coherent than the one before it, with the final one being nothing more than the sound of her tears.

My heart is shattered, and the pain in her voice is digging splinters right into my chest. I throw my phone down to the passenger floorboard without checking the other voicemails or texts because this shit is messing with my head. What right does she have to be upset? This is her fault. She’s nothing more than a fucking cheater, just like Kayla, and it’ll serve me well to remember that.

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