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I heard people shouting my name, calling for me to speak to them, asking me questions, trying to get a good shot for them to plaster all over their crappy tabloids tomorrow. Ed leaned across, pulling the door to the car open again, pushing me inside, and then running around to the front passenger seat.
Safe inside, I tried to pull up the privacy screen so I could check on Ethan and Ivy, but Ed turned, holding up his hand to stop me. “That was too close, Gray. You put me in a really shitty, dangerous situation there and I don’t appreciate it. My job is to protectyou. I’m sorry if you don’t like it, but they’re the facts. I can’t risk your safety because you decided to bring people along with you. I need to call Addi.” He turned away from me and I hit the button to raise the screen so I couldn’t hear him bad mouthing me because I knew that was what he’d be doing.
“Grayson.” Ivy flung her arms around me and pressed her cheek to my chest. “We were so worried. You could have left us in there. They didn’t care about us. It was you they wanted.”
“Never, firefly. You both are the most important things in my life. I chose this life. You two didn’t.”
Ethan fisted my shirt and slammed his mouth against mine, forcing a grunt from my chest as his emotions spilled silently from his lips to mine.
“I love you so fucking much, Gray. Your life is fucked up, but I will learn to love it because I love you. Both of you are my world.” He moved his mouth to Ivy’s kissing her with less force, but still claiming her lips, while his hand tugged on my top until my mouth found his neck. And that’s how we spent the car journey back to the hotel, buried in each other’s touch.
“Take your bags back to the room. I just need a minute,” I told them both, squeezing Ivy's ass as she passed. The door to my suite hadn’t even closed when Addi started shouting.
“What the actual fuck, Gray? Did you not get the memo about the person who is after Tanner? Have you not noticed all the extra security? And you decide to walk out and spend time in a public place, with one security guard. One! And then I hear that you refused to leave the place until your… whatever the hell I’m supposed to call your latest sexual adventure… had got out safely. You are a Cosmic God. You can’t just wander out like a regular person. Poor Ed nearly had a heart attack. And what are the papers going to say tomorrow about your ‘new friends?’ What are they going to speculate? Fuck, I’ve got enough with Tanner. I can’t deal with your shit as well. It’s no wonder our publicists don’t last the week.”
“Finished?” I yelled back, equally loudly.
She stood, hands on her hips, glaring at me. I spoke, keeping my voice low because I didn’t want Ivy and Ethan to hear me. “You’re not here to pass judgment on our lives, Addison. You’re here to manage the band. I protected the people I love today. I might be a Cosmic God to the press and the fans, but to them, I’m the man they love, who put them first. Sort me some extra security and I promise I won’t try to sneak off again, but you do not get to bad mouth what I have with them. I’d expect better of you, Addi.”
Addi’s hands fell to her sides, and her shoulders slumped. “Shit, Gray. I’m just trying to protect you. Protect the image of the band.” Her words were like a slap to the face.
I knew they’d all taken the news too easily. It couldn’t be that simple. And she’d simply reinforced all the fears, spinning uncontrollably around my head.
“And there it is,” I fired back angrily. “I knew you’d have a problem with it.”
“I don’t have a problem,” she reassured me, her voice softening as she spoke, but her eyes still glaring at me angrily. “I meant what I said. I want you to be happy. But the rest of the world, the ones that buy tickets for your concerts or put your albums to the top of the charts, they care. They want the silent, sexy Gray. Not the Gray who is fucking two people. Two older people who are fucking married to each other. Did you think I wouldn’t do a background check on them, Gray? Do you even know anything about them?”
“Fuck you, Addi. They got married after I broke their hearts and ghosted them because I was too worried about the band and what people might think. I thought you cared about me and my happiness, Addi, when, in fact, all you care about is the effect it might have on our album sales.”
I turned to walk away, and she grabbed my wrist. “Gray, I just want you to be careful—”
I tugged my arm back, not wanting her anywhere near me. “Yeah, I heard it loud and clear. You want me to be careful with the band. You want me to be careful with the image I give out to the world. Fuck whether I’m happy, as long as I’m behaving. I can’t even look at you right now, Addi.”
I slammed the door to my suite so hard that Ivy gasped. She stood from the sofa she’d been sitting on and walked towards me. “Grayson, what’s wrong? Talk to me?”
I pushed my fingers through my hair, while I tried to calm the anger burning through me. “I knew it was too good to be true. They say they're happy for me and then I get a lecture from Addi about what the fans expect from me and a man who's in love with two people apparently, isn’t it?”
“Sorry, are we making this harder for you? Do you want us to go? Back to the hotel we had booked? Back to England?”
I placed the bag I was still holding on the side table, and I reached for her. She wrapped her arms around my waist, and I buried my face in her hair, breathing her in.
“My skin itches so much I could stand under a boiling shower for an hour, and it wouldn’t help.”
“But you won’t because you have us here.”
“I can’t even get drunk because we promised Tanner we’d stay sober with him for six months.”
“What do you need, Grayson?”
“Fuck knows. Can you just wrap yourself around me and kiss me until I forget my own name?”
“Well, I was just about to start getting ready for dinner,” she said, stepping out of the jean shorts and t-shirt she was wearing, leaving her in only her underwear, “But I guess I could put that off until I cheered you up.” She curled her arms around my neck, and I hooked my hands under her ass until her legs wound around my hips. I carried her into the bedroom and sat on the bed. She pressed tighter to me, stealing my thoughts with her mouth until all I could think about was her.
“Gray, the cars will be here in an hour. Stop banging those beautiful people and make yourself look presentable. By the way, Addi is a dick. Ignore her. I’ll have words with her later, bro.” Tanner’s booming voice broke me from the spell Ivy’s mouth had pulled me under. I looked up and a naked Ethan was standing in the doorway to the bathroom, leaning against the doorframe, exposed, and beautiful, rubbing his solid length that glistened with droplets of water from his shower.
“That was quite a show. Are you sure we have to go out? I’m feeling like I need to lie down for a while,” he growled.
I groaned as my eyes danced between them both. “You two are incorrigible. Get ready. I’m in enough trouble without Mum telling me off for showing up late.”
