Page 99 of Cherry Beats

Fighting every instinct in my body, I spun back to Freddie and schooled my face. He looked up, expecting The Beast only to be faced with a calm, grungier version of Belle.

“Sure, Freddie,” I said sweetly, unfolding my arms and gesturing to the walls of my apartment. “You stay here while I’m out of town. You make this your home. What’s mine is yours, right?”

His smile faded, and his brows creased together as he watched me.

“I just hope you know that Molly has a key, too, and she… well, we all know what Molly can be like. Good luck with that. Good luck with it all.” I sighed and walked over to my bedroom, calling back over my shoulder. “Good luck with your miserable, pathetic, attention-seeking life.”

I slammed my bedroom door shut, pressing my back and hands against it, and closing my eyes.

“I don’t need any of you,” I whispered to myself. “I’ve never needed any of you.”

Chapter Thirty-One

My mood was sombre when I got in the car. Uncle Dex noticed it straight away. He only asked once if I was okay, and that was when he took my small suitcase and two shoulder bags from me and dropped them into the boot of his car.

We were driving through the main street of Hollings Hill when BB’s came into view. The neon lights were the central beacon of my home town, and I asked Dex to slow down as we crawled by. It was heaving, packed to the rafters like never before. I got a brief glimpse of Bourbon and Elle behind the bar before we rolled away.

I hadn’t realised how much I was leaning against the car door and pressing myself against the window until Dex cleared his throat, forcing me to blink and swallow down the nausea that was threatening to rise.

Blackmailed by my own family.

Imagine if Janey Dominic got a hold of that, what a headline it would be:

Presley West swaps Victoria’s Secret models for The Jeremy Kyle show contestants.

Is he or isn’t an idiot?

Results in after the break… up.

“Dex?” I spoke quietly.

“Anything you want, Tessa,” he answered without hesitation.

“You don’t even know what I’m asking.”

“As long as it takes that look out of your eyes before we get back to Presley, I don’t care.”

I smiled, despite my own emotions, and I reached for my phone in the pocket of my jeans. When I pulled it out, I saw it was dead. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d thought to put it on charge—I’d been so lost in Presley’s world, and Presley himself. Groaning, I shoved it back inside my jeans and rubbed my palms along my thighs.

“Do you think we could make a quick detour?”

He side-eyed me, jutting his chin out, waiting for me to go on.

“I just want to drive past my parents’ house quickly.”

“Now?”

I nodded and sniffed back my emotion. “Yeah,” I said, staring into his familiar kind eyes. “That okay?”

“Like I said. Anything you want.”

I was soon giving Dex directions on how to get to my parents’ house on an estate most of Hollings Hill would never have admitted to living on. It was rough—a council estate that had been ravaged by the youth of today and bone-idle people like my father who expected the world and all its animals to clean up after him.

When we turned up to Bourne Mount, I realised I was more nervous being there than I ever had been going to stand in front of Presley, even with the madness of his rock star life around him.

On the way over, I thought about getting out of the car, walking up my parents’ pathway, letting myself inside and demanding that they talk some sense into Freddie. I pondered the idea that they could have some compassion for me, and that if I told them what Janey Dominic and the media could be like, they’d side with their daughter.

Unfortunately, those thoughts went to shit the moment we pulled onto the street they lived on and saw the street party going on in front of us. Music boomed from huge speakers, filling the air like noise pollution wasn’t a consideration for any of them. I searched through the crowd of people, only to see that slap bang in the centre of the madness stood my own mother. She was dancing to Presley’s song with one arm in the air, the other hitching up her skirt—the centre of attention. Her hair had been curled, and her ruby red lips could be seen even from where we were sitting in the car.

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