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  Better Than Your Ex

  Book Two in the Cassidy and Cahir Series

  Jimi Gaillard-Jefferson

  Copyright © 2020 by Jimi Gaillard-Jefferson

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  To your health. To your happiness.

  Get to know Guy

  Spend more time with the most beloved character in the New Money Girls universe- Guy. It was love at first sight when he saw O’Shea. She…felt a little different.

  This is a FREE novel. The link is in the back of the book. Happy reading!

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Also by Jimi Gaillard-Jefferson

  Chapter One

  Cassidy

  I stood in that elevator with Cahir and heard two words run in a loop in my mind over and over again.

  Zion’s pregnant.

  Of course she was. Of course. Their great fated love couldn’t end with something as simple as him walking away. Oh, no. It couldn’t fall away and make way for his hand in mine. For walks in the farmer’s market and eyes screwed shut while his mouth admitted a future with her was not the best possible option. It couldn’t be nights that spread me wide and made me loose for him, wild for him. It couldn’t be smiles and suspended breath in the morning until we each brushed our teeth. It couldn’t be lunches cooked together or dinners where we laughed and laughed until we fell silent because it was just too good, too comfortable, too easy, too right. Too much like what the best kind of forever looked like.

  It couldn’t be secrets. The embarrassing ones. It couldn’t be the bone deep knowledge that we could tell each other anything and it would be okay because there would be so much between us but there would never be judgment. It couldn’t be private jets and hotel rooms that made you catch your breath and relax. It couldn’t be finding that what we shared was the same no matter what city we took it to. It couldn’t be a shared glance that had us both rushing back to the hotel and smiling when we failed and made it to a cabana instead.

  It couldn’t be understanding and trust and intimacy and openness. It couldn’t be love and sex and friendship. It couldn’t be honesty.

  Zion was fucking pregnant.

  There was a ringing in my ears. The silver of the elevator doors blurred but there were no tears. Thank the ancestors. I put my pride to the side for Cahir once. I for damn sure didn’t want to do it again.

  Fuck, Zion was pregnant.

  I softened my knees. I focused on that. On using my meditation breathing. On unclenching my hands. On not grinding my teeth. On hearing something besides the high pitched sound in my ears.

  The elevator opened and dry air whooshed into the space, over my face. The ringing dissipated. And I heard Cahir.

  Had he been talking that entire time? What was there for him to say? Explanations, probably. Men always had something reasonable to say about their shitty behavior after they got caught. Reasons why it wasn’t their fault. Reasons why you should keep fucking them. Keep smiling. Keep showing up. Hadn’t Kevin taught me that?

  Hadn’t I learned? After everything, hadn’t I learned to protect myself, to stay safe, to understand that sometimes fear had its place and should be followed?

  Love. The great thing we were all supposed to chase. The thing that was supposed to make life worth living. The thing that was supposed to elevate a woman and truly make her a member of society. Oh I knew how different it was for me at work when I said I had a boyfriend, when I dropped Cahir’s name. I knew how much more my clients respected me, saw me as their equal. I knew how strangers viewed me when I showed up on Cahir’s arm and- fuck it all.

  I almost walked right up to his car. I almost went to the passenger door and waited for him to open it for me.

  I laughed. The sound was shrill and enough to shut Cahir the fuck up. Praise.

  “Cash-”

  “Shut up.” I was proud of how steady my voice was. How it carried even though it was so deep. “Shut up, Cahir. You’ve said enough-gotten me to say enough today, haven’t you?”

  Color bloomed over his cheeks. His eyes stopped boring into mine and focused instead on his shoes.

  “I’m going home. You aren’t going to follow.” I heard the breath shudder out of him. It would have meant something, his hurt, even ten minutes ago. But I was sure that the part of me that wanted to protect him was dead. “And since space seemed to be exactly what you needed to help you embark on this new chapter in your life-”

  I couldn’t help it. I laughed again. It sounded more hysterical than the first laugh. I cut it short because there was something besides laughter building in my chest.

  “Stay the fuck away from me. When I’m ready to talk to you again, see you again, if I ever am, I’ll call you. Don’t-” I threw open my car door and flung myself inside. “Stay away from me.”

  I peeled out of the lot. He didn’t move. And when I looked into my rearview mirror his eyes were right there to meet mine.

  Chapter Two

  Cassidy

  “I’m not gonna say you’re wrong.” Junie walked into my office with a bounce in her step that I didn’t understand until I looked down.

  “Cute shoes.”

  “They are. I didn’t know you guys would have anything in the showroom in my size.”

  I didn’t mean to but for the first time since the elevator I laughed. A misused, broken sound. One that spoke of rust, disuse. Neglect.

  I scoffed. “It’s only been twenty-four hours.”

  “Twenty-seven.” Junie slid her phone back into her back pocket and sank down into the couch.

  The boots she wore were cute. That’s why I bought a pair for her. I wasn’t surprised that she found them. Only that it took so long and that the long skirt with its higher slit paired so well with them. If Junie weren’t my best friend I would have been jealous. I could never make a torn NWA concert tee look that good.

  “Twenty-seven?”

  “Yeah. You texted me ‘fuck men’ exactly twenty-seven hours ago.”

  “And you didn’t back me up.” I sat down next to her and sighed. “It’s been twenty-seven hours, and I am miserable.”

  “So go back to him.”

  My mouth might have fallen open. “Just-You think I should just go back.”

  “If you’re happier with him.” Junie shrugged. “I don’t even know why you left him though. So maybe if you tell me a little bit more of your business I’ll be better equipped to say what you want to hear.”

  I laughed again. And I told her.

  “Fucking shit. What in the goddamn fuck? Are you fucking kidding me? He did the fuck what?”

  I nodded. “Yes. All of that.”

  “Can I tell you the part that pisses me off the most?”

  “God, yes.” I rubbed my hands together. “Finally.”

  “That he knew. He knew and then thought getting you to say you loved him would somehow make it all magically okay.”

  “Yes!” I jumped to my feet. “You�
�re an absolute coward in your office. Can’t even look me in the eye. But you can fuck me in an elevator until I say what you want to hear. Then you drop the bomb on me. Why manipulate me like that? Why not just tell me? Why not just-”

  “Be honest. Be open,” Junie said.

  “Why not just be my friend?”

  Junie’s hand slipped into mine. “I’m sorry, Cass.”

  I didn’t know what she was apologizing for. The loss of trust in my relationship? The loss of a friendship? My sorrow? The corners of me that held a shame that didn’t belong to me?

  I sat down again. “I don’t know what to do.”

  “Do you really love him?”

  I nodded.

  “Huh.” She laughed.

  “What?”

  “Wasn’t supposed to be you, I guess.” She rubbed her shoulder. “I might have to rethink some things.”

  “Like what?”

  She shook her head. “This isn’t about me. This is about you. What you need?”

  I should have pressed her. I should have made her admit to me what was wrong, what was going on. But I was so relieved that there was a place, a person, that could focus on just me that I let it go.

  “I wish I could let him go.” I took a deep breath. “I wish I could just run from it, from all of it.”

  “You could,” Junie said. “But what’s the fun in running if you don’t have all the facts?”

  Cahir

  I felt the absence of her. And they weren’t anything alike, but I found myself comparing what it was to lose Zion to what it was to lose Cash. It took me a day to realize there was no comparison. The loss of Zion was about confusion. What did I do? Did I do anything? How could she be here one day and gone the next? Did she miss me? Did she think of me? Did she do anything at all?

  Had I imagined her? The way her body felt? The way mine felt when I was connected to her in any way? Had I imagined her skin and the eternity in her eyes? The softness of her voice and the rigidity of her spine? The way everything seemed like it just wasn’t quite good enough for her?

  Confusion. Then desperation because I needed to know. I needed to know that I’d felt something. That she felt it too. I needed to know that she wasn’t fabricated in my mind.

  Losing Cash-

  Cash was the other side of the coin. The cool side of the pillow. She was realer than me. More vivid than me. More alive. I injected her into my veins and used what she gave me to get through my day, to plan for and move toward the future. I knew her laugh lines and the creases that formed between her eyes when she was angry. I knew the arch of her eyebrows and her back. I knew the quiet of her footsteps and the grace in her hands. I knew the laughter that lived in her eyes. I knew her curls. I knew each strand of her hair personally. Intimate friendships I wanted to hold onto for the rest of my life.

  I knew her sleep and how she moved when pleasant dreams overtook her. I knew what she smelled like after a long day of work. I knew what her mouth tasted like when sleep still coated it. I knew how often she cleaned and the order she did it in.

  I knew why she left.

  Hadn’t I expected it? Wasn’t that why my mouth went dry and my mind blank the day she came to my office? A week. That was only a week ago. I knew why I didn’t have her voice. I knew why I didn’t have her hands in mine, on me. I knew. I should have prepared for it. I should have known. Didn’t Zion say there would only ever be me and her?

  In the week without Cash I held my phone in my hand and considered it. I considered calling Zion, hearing her out. Maybe there was something different. Maybe there was something new. Maybe she found the perspective that would make it all okay. Maybe she found a reason that wouldn’t make me wonder if it would be easier to leave life behind.

  I thought about what it would be like if I went back to her. If she got what she wanted and I was by her side while she had the child. The answer was fast. Winning was its own kind of approval. Winning was encouragement to do it again, do more. Winning was all she would need to continue down the path we were already on. All the proof she needed to know that my life, my wants, my needs, my thoughts, were forever second to hers.

  I didn’t call Zion.

  I didn’t call Cash either. I saw it on her in the parking garage. I saw how close to breaking she was. I saw how easy, in her anger, it would be for her to end us. I stayed silent.

  Then my phone rang. A time. A place. And then silence again.

  I wore a suit to the coffee shop she picked. The one I hated because it was full of doctors and college students and light. Just a room full of people high on what they would be one day and the things they did that day. Conversation after conversation about the banal and the ridiculous.

  I ordered green tea for Cash. Thought about coffee but it felt like everything in my body was in a rush. What would I do with caffeine? I sat at a table by one of too many windows in that goddamned place and waited for Cash.

  When I saw her walk up the sidewalk, heavy, oversized purse on her shoulder, I thought I’d been shot. Just the sight of her. Long, small, delicate. Dangerous. The woman that made me believe in fairies and witches. I hated her car. It wasn’t good enough for her. I didn’t know why she drove it. I hated her purse. Lumpy thing. Why didn’t she own a Birkin? I would buy her a Birkin. A dozen of them. And a car. A Range Rover. Better than mine. Or maybe I would get her a driver.

  I stood. I didn’t expect her to touch me. Shit, I didn’t expect her to look at me. But she did. She hugged me. The kind of hugs I’d come to expect from her. The ones that pressed her whole body against mine and lasted until our heart beats were in sync. Until my heart beat was in sync with hers. I wasn’t fool enough to believe I was in charge.

  “You look beautiful,” I said.

  She did. A sweater hung off her shoulder and her pants clung to her hips, to her, like a second skin. Big jewelry and lipstick that made me wish we were what we used to be. Made me wish it was okay to lean in close. Hair that smelled like home and tickled my face in all the places it used to.

  “Thank you.” She sat. “Thanks for the tea.”

  I nodded and sat down too.

  “Nice suit.”

  A smile flirted with her lips but I ignored the hope I felt.

  “Thanks,” I said. “My stylist is the shit.”

  “Yeah.” She took a sip of her tea. “Tell me what happened.”

  “Zion’s six months pregnant.”

  Because it was Cash it was different. I didn’t have to wait for understanding to come. Her hands went to the scars on mine.

  “I’m so sorry.” Her fingers were gentle. Maybe I didn’t look as strong as I thought I did. “I’m so sorry.”

  I told my parents in the week Cash was gone. Once the shock wore off their faces they congratulated me. My mother hugged me. My father pressed beer and a cigar into my hands. So I had to smile. With everyone I told, I had to smile. It felt as wrong as what happened to me.

  I nodded and breathed. Looked down at Cash’s hands, studied the lines of skin that made abstract patterns over her knuckles. Told myself I wasn’t going to cry in a room full of people so bland and unoriginal that they probably all hid their cocaine in the same place.

  “Is that why she-”

  “O’Shea thinks it’s because she started showing. That’s why she left me alone.”

  Cash shook her head.

  “It was O’Shea that told me. And she had a recording. Of Zion. Admitting to the whole thing. She told them over fucking mimosas and fruit how she planned out the whole thing. Ovulation tracker. Trip to the drug store to buy every condom in the place. How she didn’t get the size of the holes in the condom right the first time.”

  Cash’s hands balled into fists.

  “Because she used a safety pin. Too big. She used a sewing needle. That worked better.”

  “Cahir.”

  “You’re the only person I haven’t had to pretend with. You’ve always been that person.”

  “I’m sorry.”
>
  “I’m sorry.” I would have touched her. I would have grasped her hand in mine if I weren’t such a coward. If I weren’t so close to breaking my goddamned self. “I’m sorry that I disappeared. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you as soon as I knew.”

  “That’s what you’re sorry for?”

  I was good at tests. Good at avoiding traps and minefields. I was good at reading Cash.

  I nodded. “Yes. I’m so sorry. I’ll never stop being sorry. We’re-I’m better than that.”

  “Okay.” The sadness on her face was new to me. Panic inducing.

  Her hands slid off the table and into her lap. But her eyes never wavered. Not once. Cinnamon brown and steady on mine.

  “Our relationship, me as your girlfriend, that’s over.”

  Chapter Three

  Cassidy

  Leaving Cahir wasn’t like leaving Kevin. Kevin was smooth. Smoother than smooth. He was oily. He touched you and left something behind that you were never quite sure you liked. You just said you did because it was him. And the rest of your life was a shit storm so why not a little something more?

  Leaving Cahir-I left a piece of me at that table. His prints were all over that piece of me. So many that I couldn’t see myself beyond them, couldn’t remember what it had been before. And it called to me. Cried for me. Pushed me to silence one moment and screaming tears the next. It made me lose focus mid-conversation. Sharp looks from Gran. Sympathetic ones from Junie.

  Junie still dragged me out for drinks every day after work. She wouldn’t let me drink more than two.