Great, he had two hysterical women on his hands now. “Bianca, let me call you back.”

“No. Answer the question. Was there a fight?”

Gio sighed turning his back to his mom. “Something like that. I’ll tell you about it a little later, okay? I’ll call you back soon. I promise.”

His mother walked around to face him, as adamant about taking care of his eye as he knew she’d be. Bianca finally agreed to wait for him to call her back and he hung up.

After finally convincing his mother there was no need for a trip to the emergency room, he was able to take a moment and log onto the internet. Bianca’s friend Toni and Noah were right. The pictures and story were everywhere. He frowned at some of the headlines.

Sanchez’s two-timing girlfriend caught red-handed in the arms of his best friend.

But the comments from readers were even worse. Some made him slam his fist against the table. They were making comments like the one Felix had made about Bianca doing the rest of 5th Street.

The only good thing was that apparently whoever took the photos took only two of them together that night. It must’ve been on a phone camera because the quality was very poor but they were clear enough that there was no denying what was going on. One was of them against the van kissing and another as they climbed in it. The rest of the photos going viral were taken at the bar. They had the story all wrong too. Most said Felix caught them and that’s what the scuffle at the bar had been about.

Clicking on link after link other photos of the two of them began to surface. Stills of them on the slopes and even a couple of them leaving her grandmother’s shop. He’d searched online before for stories about Bianca and Felix and he’d never seen any of these. Whoever took them obviously didn’t think them newsworthy until now. Now they could add their captions and create a story. All of the photos were innocent enough but the captions told stories of how they’d been betraying Felix for months and how these photos captured their “growing affair.” As if any of these people knew what the f**k they were talking about.

For a moment Gio understood the frustration Felix talked about when he said he hated having to explain the stories about him with other girls to Bianca over and over.

Worried Bianca might have seen these already and that she might be upset he called her but it went to voicemail. He left a message and took another aspirin. Logging off the internet he swore he wouldn’t read even one more story about it. Everyone could just screw themselves. The stories would die down soon enough and the tabloids would move on to the next celebrity scandal. The only thing that mattered was that no matter what anyone felt or said about it, he and Bianca were free to be together now. Nothing and no one could keep them apart.

CHAPTER 23

It’d been days since the scandal broke—days since Bianca had last seen Gio and an eternity since she’d last kissed his lips. She hadn’t even been able to say goodbye properly. What was worse was that this could go on for much longer.

Both Bianca and Gio had assumed that the story would die down soon enough. Not only had it not calmed down, they were turning it into a full-blown soap opera. The paparazzi were relentless in their pursuit of a statement from any of the three parties involved in the, now internationally talked about, love triangle. Because they were all Hispanic, even the Spanish tabloids had gotten in on it.

Bianca dropped the only class she’d taken on campus that spring because the once respectful photographers and sleazy journalists were on her now, as Nana so nicely put it, ‘like flies on shit.’

Gio had been fined for flinging one photographer’s camera across the 5th Street gym parking lot. They were forced to lay low for now. The media wanted nothing more than to get more of the story that had everyone talking. At first, Bianca didn’t understand why it was such a huge deal, then she remembered Andy. Felix’s publicist always said any publicity was good publicity. Felix’s fight was just weeks away and Andy was probably loving the media circus surrounding Felix. If she didn’t know any better he was probably working around the clock to keep refueling the story himself. If she was right, this wouldn’t die down at least until after Felix’s fight two weeks from today. Bianca groaned at the thought that it might be that long until they could be together again.

Nana and her mother who’d, as expected, been upset about the dangerous situation she’d put herself in, were over it now. She knew they’d understand that she would’ve never even considered doing something like this unless she was crazy in love. Her mother even offered up her theory on why this had happened. It was simply meant to be. Bianca thought about that a lot. It made perfect sense. All the unlikely circumstances that led them to one another.

As usual, Nana had managed to shock her into silence when she told her she’d seen the twinkle in that boy’s eyes way back when he’d first been in the shop. Nana said that was the reason she made her comment about Felix being a fool to leave Bianca alone with such a good looking boy. Needless to say, neither her mom nor her grandmother were too surprised about how things turned out.

Having already been forced to drop her only class that semester, and most infuriatingly being forced to stay away from Gio, Bianca refused to let the media frenzy dictate any other part of her life. So when Nana suggested she take some time off and stay home so she wouldn’t have to be hounded as much, Bianca adamantly refused.

She drove up the street toward the shop. Her grandmother had since made sure the paparazzi knew they weren’t welcome anywhere near her property, which included the parking lot, but they knew the law. As long as they stayed out of the parking lot they could still stake out the place from the street.