“Someone’s really trying to get you. Thing’s been making noise non-stop.” Roan? Roger? He couldn’t recall the name—Cherisse had too many cousins—but he unplugged the phone.

“Thanks.”

Numerous calls from his father, but it was the message sent a few minutes ago that felt like a kick to the throat.

Dad: Promo has gone live.

Shit! No, no, no.

He dialed his father’s number. Why the fuck had he ignored him?

“What the hell? I thought we were getting an advanced heads up about going live?” he shouted as soon as the call connected.

“Good of you to finally return my call. We couldn’t wait for you to decide to grace us with your time, so an executive decision was made.” His father sounded bored, but underneath that casual tone, he was pissed. “We’re already getting quite a bit of traction on social.”

“Fuck.” He couldn’t blame his father for any of this. Ignoring the man always had consequences, and God, he needed to talk to Cherisse now.

“Is there a problem?”

“Yeah. Nothing you’d care about.” He hung up and immediately noticed missed calls from Dale too, and a string of messages.

Dale: your dad called. we’re going live apparently! Did you know it was today?

Dale: guess it’s a surprise to everyone. I’m posting to our accounts.

Keiran needed to move, go talk to Cherisse, but he hadn’t seen the finished teaser. He needed to know how bad this would be. All they’d needed from him was the completed track. KKE was responsible for everything else. So, of course, the first thing he was hit with when he opened their DK Productions Instagram was a cut of his fight video with Sean as a sample of the track played over it. The caption talked about the collaboration between Sean and Sheila and DK Productions’ role in it all, with a link to the full track and story behind the song. There was even the option to swipe for a more behind-the-scenes look.

Keiran slowly made his way back to Cherisse. Maybe she hadn’t seen it yet. They followed each others’ personal accounts, and he followed her Sweethand account, but he didn’t know if she followed DK’s. And the chances of her following her father’s company on there was hopefully nil.

But the moment he saw her, the sinking feeling in his stomach escalated. She was with Remi, head bent over her phone.

Please, God.

“Cherisse.”

Her head popped up, and Keiran wanted to smooth away the frown, but touching her right now wouldn’t help anything.

“I was tagged in a post. I guess because people remember I was involved in the original video. So, mind explaining what the fuck is this shit?” She thrust her phone at him, but he didn’t look at the screen. “You don’t even have to look at it, do you? Because you already know what it is.”

“Yes, but it’s not what you think.”

“Yeah? So, you two didn’t set up this whole fight as some publicity stunt for your track? While clueless me acts a fool worried about your ass? Because that’s what I think. God, did you play me so I’d have sex with you that night?”