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Jason’s threat didn’t bother me as much as the question of what people were reading about me while they ate their morning toast. He wouldn’t follow through, anyway. I hadn’t pressed the issue with my mum, but I had to find out how much damage had been done at some point. Better to hear the blunt truth now than walk around oblivious.
“What exactly do the papers say?”
“What do you think? There’s a full transcript of everything that happened in one of the tabloids, and they all believe you’re a whore who fucked me and Drew, and caused the fight on New Year’s Eve!”
My legs weakened and I leaned against Drew for support. I’d expected it, of course. It was the obvious conclusion to jump to, but the reality of being spoken about that way was still a shock.
“None of this would be happening if you’d come to us yesterday instead of having a tantrum in front of everyone,” Drew said.
“None of this would be happening if you two hadn’t lied!”
As Jason’s voice got louder, I half expected someone to poke their head out of their room to tell him to keep it down. Nobody came. All around us, people slept, while I stood between the two men I loved more than anyone in the world, knowing I had to make a choice. I couldn’t walk away and deal with it later. This was later.
I heaved a sigh. “Jason, wait there.”
I closed the door, and taking Drew’s wrist, pulled him farther into my room.
“You’re going to ask me to leave.”
Drew’s shoulders sagged, ripping another enormous hole in our cocoon of happy, because I knew the expression on his face. Resignation. The whole “second best” thing. It sort of stung that he still thought he fell behind Jason on my list of important people. A confession of love, and many hours wrapped up in each other obviously wasn’t enough to make him understand. I always knew it would take time, but surely we’d made some progress?
“That’s not what I was going to say.” I took his hands. “But we’re going to have a million questions thrown at us when we leave this hotel, and if we can calm Jason down, it’s going to be a hell of a lot easier to tackle them. We need him on our side, Drew. Regardless of what the rest of the world thinks is happening in the band, we need him to be okay with this.”
And I need you and Jason to be okay with each other again. Jason and I would be fine. We’d fight, we’d talk, and everything would be back to normal. It wasn’t so easy between brothers. Common sense reminded me I’d be waiting a while for them to resolve their issues, but at least for now, we had to get on the same page.
Drew stared at my hands, gently stroking my palms with his thumbs. “You’re shaking, Ells.”
“Yeah. This is pretty much everything I didn’t want.”
“I know. I hate that he did this.”
“We’re not innocent, Drew. We should have told him.”
“But we-”
“I know the reasons. But this is... it’s a mess. We made a mess.”
“I don’t want to leave you alone with him.” I opened my mouth to respond, and he added, “I trust you, Ells. But I don’t trust him when he’s so pissed off.”
Wrapping his arms around my waist, I said, “I can handle him.”
I waited while he weighed it up in his head. Clearing the air versus me being alone with Jason. Eventually, he said, “Do you promise to call me if he gets out of line?”
I meant to answer right away. Instead, I took a minute to cement the memory of how ridiculously sexy he looked first thing in the morning.
Another shiver.
No, Ellie. You don’t have time to drag him back to bed. Yet.
The first day people found out about our relationship was supposed to be different. Full of relief, with Drew and I celebrating by holding hands in public, and having guilt-free sex, not avoiding contact with the outside world.
“Ellie?”
“I promise.”
He leaned down to kiss me, his lips lingering on mine a touch longer than I could cope with. “Okay. Let’s do this.”
I was half tempted to wait until Drew was outside, close the door on both of them and hide until they sorted their differences out for themselves. When Drew turned the doorknob though, the hostility between the guys made it clear that wasn’t an option. Without a word, Drew left, and headed down the corridor to his room. Drawing in a deep breath, I turned my attention to Jason. “Come in.”
