FanGirl Squeal (RockStars of Romance Book 1) (44 page)

“And with you,” Brittany contend, getting a louder and a
little more aggressive with her tone. “He doesn’t feel like his A-list status
is suffocating him. He’s more of himself with you. Cash never came to my
competitions because he assumed people would lose their shit and he didn’t want
to be a distraction for me. Now, he comes to my meets because when you and him
came to that one together, you showed him that sometimes all eyes aren’t on him
and that he can be normal whenever he wants to. I mean, he spent so much time
on ‘the scene’ per se because he didn’t know anything else. Plus he was dating
a girl who was always ‘on’. Therefore, it can’t be about you and him living
different lives. Not when he wants as normal life as he can get with you. It
can’t be.”

“Listen to your sixteen year old ass droppin’ knowledge and
truth bombs on me.”

I tried to be as nonchalant as possible but Brittany’s
speech had me bawling on the inside. It never occurred to me that Cash felt so
out of touch with the real world. He never came off as a person who lived in a
fame bubble.

I thought he hadn’t gone into a grocery store in years
because he hated grocery shopping like most men. Maybe all of that would have
been revealed eventually in the relationship if we had stuck it out, but we
were only together for five months. Learning a person’s entire personality in
five months is impossible to do. We were too busy falling for each other to even
get that far.

“Shit!” Brittany hissed. “I swear to God! She ruins
everything!”

“What? What’s wrong?” I asked anxiously, giving Brittany all
of my attention again.

“Vic’s finally in labor. Apparently, I need to get my ass to
the hospital right now, per Cash.”

She showed me the text on her phone and that’s exactly what
he said. My heart sank to my stomach. This was it. This was real.

“Well, let’s go,” I told her. “We’ll finish getting our feet
done another day.”

“Damnit,” Brittany muttered. “I was so close.”

I paid our bill and we hastily threw on our shoes. I agreed
with Brittany. She almost got me. I almost forgot about Cash’s big secret, my
tainted reputation, and the fact I’m just not cut out to be with someone
famous. I almost forgot that I’m better off loving him from a distance.

In my Camaro, Brittany plugged the name of the hospital into
my GPS and we headed in the direction the woman told us to go.

“You know,” Brittany’s grin was sneaky as hell. “I’ve been
thinking about starting a blog, one that’s not on tumblr. I think you should reactivate
FangirlSqueal and let me run it. This could be my first story. Imagine how many
hits we’d get if I posted about Baby Cash’s arrival. I can get exclusive pics
and all that. We’ll scoop every single blogger that talked about you. Whaddya
say?”

I shook my head as a resounding NO! echoed through the car.
“I promised your brother I would never write about him without his permission
and he’s not giving me permission to write about his child being born. Forget
about it.”

“But you won’t be writing it. I will. And Cash isn’t going
to say no to me. Come on, Savannah. Let’s do this. I want to write and this is
a great place to start.”

Scooping the entire industry on something so huge would be
the perfect payback. FangirlSqueal.com retaking her spot in the blogosphere
will piss so many people off. It’s something Troy would definitely think was a
good idea. He would say something like,

“Channel your inner Beyoncé and slay those bitches like
‘SURPRISE! We’re back! Get your life! You’d snatch Aubrey’s wig so hard, she’d
be coming to see me about her edges!”

“Alright,” I relented. “Let’s do it. I’ll reactivate the
site after I drop you off…and only if Cash says it’s okay.”

Brittany’s smile lit up the entire car. “He will. He
definitely will.”

“Oh my God, Cash! I hate you so much right now!”

Cash stepped away from Victoria’s flailing arms. His
laughter was masked by her eardrum shattering screams. After driving him nuts
for six months, Cash didn’t feel sorry for her at all.

Tucked away in a private room on a relatively empty floor of
St. John’s Memorial Hospital, no one except Cash and Victoria’s mom could hear
her guttural cries as contractions ripped through her body. Cash thought the
ordeal should have been over by now since her water broke six hours ago. He was
beyond anxious to see his daughter and hold her in his arms. All the in-between
stuff was tedious and giving him a headache.

“You could stand to be a little more sympathetic,” Vickie,
Victoria’s mom, scolded him with a roll of her eyes.

“She can’t hate me for this,” Cash replied. “Not that you
need to know the details of how she got pregnant, but if it happened when I
think it happened, I wasn’t the one who didn’t want me to wear a condom.”

“Get out, Cash!” Victoria screeched. “Find a nurse! Find a
doctor! Find someone and tell them I want the epidural and Pitocin now!”

“Calm down, sweetie,” Vickie calmly spoke to her daughter.
She brushed away strands of sweaty hair that were sticking to Victoria’s
forehead. “It will get easier if you calm down.”

“And it’s too late to get either of those,” Cash not so
gently added. “You should have taken it when they offered.
No drugs
,” he
mimicked Victoria’s earlier sentiments. “
I want to do it naturally
. I
told you that was a bad idea.”

“Mom!” Victoria hollered.

“Cash, just leave for a minute,” Vickie ordered.

Cash smiled as he casually strolled out of the room. He’d
been wanting to get out of there for hours. He couldn’t leave without his own
mother forcing him back in the room.

“The birth of your child is a miracle!” Jennifer kept
yelling. “You’re not going to be in the waiting room drinking beer with Donnie
when it happens!”

Getting kicked out was different. She couldn’t make him go
back if Victoria didn’t want him in there.

It wasn’t that he wanted to actually sit in the waiting room
and drink beer with Donnie while Victoria was delivering their child. He was
just too nervous and too aware of the situation to be of any real help to her.

His daughter was on the way. Soon, she wouldn’t be just a
sonogram picture on his fridge or the kicking bump in Victoria’s belly. She was
going to be here for him to touch.

He was going to be a father…a father without a clue of what
being a father actually meant. Even though Victoria’s pregnancy seemed to be
never ending, everything felt like it was happening too soon. He wasn’t ready.

“Has the demon spawn arrived?” Donnie teased when Cash
walked into the waiting room.

“Shut up, dick! She’s not having your kid, Satan,” Cash
replied. He sat next to his mother. “She’s seven centimeters and the
contractions are like eight minutes apart.”

“Shouldn’t be too much longer then.” Jennifer was
practically giddy. “Why are you out here?”

“She’s in the
I hate you, Cash
stage of delivery so
she kicked me out. I don’t mind, Mom. I mean, how bad is not wanting to
actually see her push a big ass baby out of her…” Cash shuddered a little.
“There used to be a time when the father wasn’t allowed in the delivery room.
We could pretend it’s that time again.”

Jennifer raised her eyes to the sky and crossed herself with
the Sign of the Cross. “Mon Dios, forgive him for being so stupid. I didn’t
raise him like that.”

“Cash, did you ask Vic about FangirlSqueal?” Brittany asked
from across the room.

“Why does Savannah want a sixteen year old with no
experience running her site?” Cash asked with a hint of frustration.

He didn’t care about her website. He was hoping that she
would have stuck around instead of dropping Brittany off, but she didn’t. She
hauled ass out of the hospital after offering up a terse ‘Congratulations’ and
handing him a gift shop pink teddy bear.

“Because, she’s gonna be my mentor. I want to do what she
does,” Brittany answered.

“Since when? You wanted to be a makeup artist at Troy’s just
a few weeks ago.”

“I want to do this, Cash,” Brittany whined. “Can I please
have this? Please?”

Yes,” he answered quickly because he could see that Brittany
was preparing to go into her spiel about how great it would be for Savannah’s
site to make a comeback.

He’d heard the spiel three times already. Neither Savannah’s
nor Brittany’s reason really mattered after he gave it some thought. He’d
rather give Savannah the exclusive that was promised to her before they even
met than let Victoria sell it to People Magazine. He owed her that much.

“Yay!” Brittany squealed. She jumped off the floor where
she’s been huddled over her laptop by the only power outlet in the room. She threw
her arms around Cash’s next. “You’re the best. Seriously. I love you!”

“Is she going to pay you?” Donnie asked.

Brittany rolled her eyes. “Doesn’t matter. And mind your
business.”

“Well, you already spend your life on tumblr. Might as well
make some money from it.”

Cash tuned his family out and tried to focus on something
else other than becoming a dad. He was sitting completely still and stiff as a
board but his heart was racing. He could hear the rush of blood through his
veins.

Calm the hell down. You’re not going to be that father
who faints in the goddamn waiting room.

The click of Brittany’s camera shutter knocked the reality
back into him.

“Why are you taking my picture?” he snapped.

“I have to document this for our Baby Cash scrapbook and for
the website. Duh. Besides, you look completely freaked out,” Brittany laughed.
“Are you okay?”

Cash jumped out of his chair. “I’m going to check on Vic,”
he said as he walked out of the room.

“Take a few pics of Victoria with your phone!” Brittany
called after him. “For the website, not the scrapbook!”

Cash hurried past the nurses’ station where two nurses sat
reading books. The entire floor of St. John’s Memorial had been cleared out a
week ago in preparation for Baby Cash’s arrival. Only Dr. Margolis and two of
her nurses had access to the floor where the most anticipated birth of a baby
since Blue Ivy was taking place. It was like a creepy ghost town.

Victoria’s door was still closed, but at least she wasn’t
screaming anymore. Cash leaned against the wall and pulled out his cell phone.

Please answer
, he silently pleaded.

“Hello?” Savannah answered cautiously. “What’s wrong? Did
something happen? Oh God, Cash, say something!”

“Savannah, man, I’m losing it,” he said in such a low tone
that she frantically asked him to repeat himself.

“Seriously, I’m not ready for this,” Cash said.

He slowly slid down the wall and took off his Sox cap. “We
had twelve weeks of parenting classes and I didn’t pay attention in any of
them. I should have been taking notes or something. Vic gave me all those damn
books to read and they’re still in my trunk,” Cash rambled on. “I really
dropped the ball, Savannah. The kid isn’t even halfway down the birth canal and
I’ve already failed as a father. It only gets worse from here, right?”

On the other end of Cash’s rambling, Savannah burst out
laughing. And didn’t stop for at least a full sixty seconds.

“You’re trippin’,” she finally managed to choke out. “I
thought something horrible had happened and all it sounds like is you’re the
one who needs the delivery coach. Calm down, Cash. You can’t coach Victoria
through delivery if you’re freaking the hell out.”

“But I’m serious, Savannah. I don’t know shit about being a
dad. I just realized that Bryan is the oldest man in my life and he’s certainly
no one’s father figure. I don’t even have any friends with kids! Sure, I had my
coaches but they taught me how to play sports. I’m having a girl! How useful is
that shit gonna be when she’s asking me about boys? What the hell, Savannah? I
can’t do this! I can’t-”

“Cash!” Savannah interrupted his hysterical outburst. “I
need you to calm down. Are you listening to me, Cash? Take big deep breaths and
exhale through your mouth. Can you do that for me?”

Cash followed her advice until his heart began to beat at a
normal pace.

“See,” Savannah spoke soothingly in his ear. “It’s going to
be fine. You got this. Just breathe. You’re going to be a great dad. Trust me.”

“But-”

“No buts. Just breathe. Do you trust me, Cash?”

Cash inhaled loudly through his nose and exhaled through his
mouth before answering. “Yeah.”

“Then you know I wouldn’t lie to you. You are going to be a great
father. Look at the awesome job you’ve done with Brittany. She’s a good student
and a fantastic athlete. She’s funny and kindhearted, and hey,” Savannah
chuckled, “no one’s inviting her to be on
Teen Mom
. Your daughter is the
luckiest girl in the world to have dad like you.”

Cash leaned his head against the wall. He began to feel a
little calmer and not like he was in the middle of a pressure cooker.

“Thanks, Savannah. I know we haven’t talked in forever, but
I didn’t know who else to call. I guess I just needed to hear your voice.”

“Glad I could help. See you around, Cash.”

“Wait! Before you hang up, I just want to let you know that
night of the party; it wasn’t just the liquor talking. I meant every single
word I said.”

“We’ll talk later,” Savannah replied. “Go have a baby,
Cash.”

The line went silent then the called ended beeps in his ear
indicated that Savannah had hung up. He knew he hadn’t made a mistake by
calling her. He wanted her to know the even on the precipice of a monumental
change in his life, he was still thinking about and loving her.

A text from Vickie quickly wiped the smile off his face.

She’s about to start pushing. Get your ass in here!