When Harper wasn’t back after about an hour, Bella decided to distract herself by cleaning the apartment, something she had been itching to do since she arrived anyway. Harper was obviously busy with her work and concert-going, so she didn’t have time to make the place look homey.
Before too long, the whole place was sparkling,and there was still no sign of Harper. So Bella grabbed a book and curled up on the sofa to wait.
She woke up at some point later, with her cousin leaning over her, looking happy and worried at the same time.
“Harper?” Bella whispered, sitting up. “When did you get home?”
“Just now,” Harper said. “I did something… I’m not sure about.”
“Oh wow,” Bella said, reaching for her best friend in the world. “Come on, tell me about it.”
Harper allowed herself to be dragged to the couch.
“I guess Cash is kind of a player,” Harper murmured, snuggling into Bella’s side. “When I first got back there, he just grabbed me and pulled me into his dressing room. He said he’d been waiting forever for me to show up.”
“Whoa,” Bella said. “I guess he was looking at you a lot from onstage.”
“After that, there was a lot of chaos backstage with everyone coming and going and loading stuff in and out and asking him questions,” Harper said. “Before I knew it, we were getting in his car and going to this fancy hotel.”
“Oh,” Bella breathed, realizing where this story was going. “You went with him?”
“He kept talking about our connection,” Harper said. “He said it about half a dozen times. And you know, you saw him. He’s… magnetic.”
Bella figured any red-blooded woman would be hypnotized by the man himself, let alone if he started talking like that.
“Did you guys…?” Bella didn’t quite dare to ask.
“It all happened so fast,” Harper said softly. “And I guess Idrifted off after. When I woke up, he was looking down at me. And he told me that he wanted to write a song about me, but he wasn’t good enough yet. And then he just looked at me, like he expected me to say something. I mean, what does that even mean? We never laid eyes on each other before, why would he write a song about me, Bella? It made me feel sick inside when I realized he probably just spouts these lines to every girl he brings backstage. And when I didn’t say anything back, he got this look on his face, this look of like… regret, but worse, like he was almost horrified.”
Bella thought her heart would stop. Her mind raced as she looked right through her poor cousin.
“Yeah,” Harper said. “Yeah, it was just exactly like that. Do you think he might have a drug problem? Everyone says Cash Law is clean as a whistle, but the whole thing was just so weird. I took off immediately, obviously, and practically ran all the way back here…”
A knockon her office door dragged Bella’s mind back to the present.
“Bella,” Lois said sternly, opening the door and marching in without waiting for her to answer. “I need to talk to you.”
Lois Abraham was the sweetest lady. Bella had never seen this stern expression on her face, or heard her voice so steely.
“Oh, Lois,” Bella said. “I’m so sorry about the books and raising my voice like that.”
“Who cares about that stuff?” Lois saiddismissively. “I’m here about your boy. If that’s his father out there, then you have no right to send him away.”
“You… you know?” Bella asked, suddenly too surprised to hold onto her anger.
“It’s that video, sweetheart,” Lois said, a little more gently. “It spread like wildfire, and everyone’s saying that you can see he’s Cash’s boy the minute he starts playing. Are you telling me it’s not true?”
Bella was sorely tempted to lie, but she knew it would be wrong.
“No,” she whispered. “I’m not saying that.”
“Then things are going to change for Cody in a hurry,” Lois said, her voice a little softer now, with sympathy.
“Oh…” It was all Bella could say as the earlier events of the day rearranged themselves in her mind.
“I think it’s best if you set up a time for Cash to talk with Cody,” Lois said gently. “But you should be there too, of course.”
“That man out there has never been there for Cody,” Bella said, snapping out of her own amazement. “Not once. And he wasn’t there for Harper when she raised him all by herself either. I won’t let Cody get his heart trampled on by that reckless jerk. He’s already done enough damage.”
