Page 39 of Hired By My Rich Baby Daddy 3

“Check your phone,” was all she said.

I pulled it from my ear and put her on speaker, then swiped over to my messages. She’d sent me a link to some kind of article. I clicked it open, and my mouth dropped as soon as the headline loaded.

There was Ginger’s face, all bruised up, which she deserved, but apparently, getting her face rearranged wasn’t enough to keep her mouth shut, ’cause she was still out here talking shit.

The blog said Ozy had a baby because he cheated on her, said Noree was the woman he’d been creeping with, and said Noree attacked her for no reason. Just lie after lie stacked on top of each other.

“Bitch, I know you lying,” I said, still scrolling, still not believing what I was reading.

“No, I wish. Nou Nou… I don’t even know what to do or think right now.”

“Where you at?”

“Home now. We stayed the night at Mama’s and then ate breakfast over there before heading back. The whole ride here, Ozy was on the phone with his manager trying to do some kind of damage control.” She paused. “I just don’t understand what her vendetta with me is. Like… that bitch is weird. And that wasn’t her business to tell for the second damn time.”

I stopped my pacing for a second and let a little snicker slip out. “Well, I ain’t gon’ lie. You definitely fucked her up. And she mad ’cause she could never be you, period, point-blank.” Then I got curious. “What did his manager say, though?”

“I only heard a little bit of it, but he said it’d be best if we went ahead and dropped our song and started doing promo for it, trying to flip this whole thing into a positive. But sis… how can this be flipped, though?” she added.

I couldn’t say I knew for sure, but I’d seen enough celebrity mess play out online to know how this game worked. “Honestly, the people on his team get paid top dollar just to fix scandals exactly like this. Trust me, if his manager already got it in motion, it’s gon’ be handled.”

There was another pause on her end. Then I said, “Anddd, are you telling me my big sis is about to be on the radio? Possibly billboards? Tours? Performances? Sis, this is what we’ve been waiting for.”

I could hear the smile creeping into her voice even though she was trying to play it cool. “Yes, but not like this. It’s exciting and nerve-racking at the same time, ’cause what if people think I’m a homewrecker, like I stole him right from under her nose or something? That’s not even the type of person I am. I was already on the fence about dealing with him back then ’cause him and her were under that stupid contract, but I didn’t do anything wrong. They weren’t even in a real relationship, but that’s not something they can just come out and say. The world thinks they were.”

“Yeah, you right. But people gon’ think what the fuck they wanna think regardless of what actually happened. You’re a bomb-ass singer and a bomb-ass mom, and we’re coming for that bomb-ass Grammy too. Fuck Ginger and her black-and-blue-ass face.”

She laughed a little, and I smiled hearing it, glad I could pull that out of her even with everything going on.

“Don’t get too much in your feelings,” I told her.

I headed for the kitchen, thirsty as hell. I grabbed a bottle of water and damn near downed it.

“I’ll try.”

“Oh! And before I forget… Bitch, why the fuck was PB over here last night? His baby mama showed up and tried to shoot him in my fucking apartment.”

“What? His baby mama tried to shoot him?” Her voice jumped about three octaves. “Sissy, are you okay? That’s more important than what the fuck I got going on. All of that can wait.”

“I’m good,” I told her, and I meant it. “I was a little shaken up then, but as of now, I’m good. But that’s not the only thing that happened.”

I went ahead and told her everything, the whole fight between PB and Carl, all of it. I couldn’t see her face since we weren’t on FaceTime, but I was almost certain her mouth was hanging open wide enough to let flies in by the time I finished.

“Shit. You had a complicated-ass day yesterday. I never took Carl to be the type to throw the first punch.”

“Me either. But he can kiss my ass after yesterday, for real. I was thinking about having another conversation with him until he showed up disrespecting me and PB both.”

“Damn,” Noree said. “I guess it was revenge of the exes yesterday.”

“Well, Paisley ain’t exactly PB’s ex, but I know what you mean.”

“Look at you being territorial over your man,” she teased.

I laughed. “That man is not my man. I was just saying because she was never anything more than just sex and just so happened to get a baby out of him.”

“Mhm,” she said, and I could hear the smirk in it. I was about to argue back when she stopped short. “Hold on, girl.”

I heard her shuffling around on her end, something moving in the background.