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Quickly thumbing my phone open, I scrolled through the list. Amir, Grant, and Harvey had all tried calling me. Instead of wasting time listening to the voicemails, I hit the button to return the most recent missed call, which was from Grant, two minutes earlier.
“Grant? What’s happening?”
He told me.
* * *
The hotel conference room we’d commandeered was filled with the Glevum staff and teammates who had stayed overnight in London rather than returning to Gloucestershire. The PR and legal teams had joined us via video call, along with a representative of the PFA. Rory and Amir were thankfully both in London, and their presence calmed the raging storm inside me just enough that I could breathe through it.
But it was the hardest thing I’d ever had to do. Jordan and I had planned to come out on our own terms, and now that had been ripped away from us. We had a whole fucking plan, and it had been cruelly snatched away by the anonymous asshole who thought they had the right to out us and our relationship to the world.
Whoever had taken the pictures had a clear shot of us in the alleyway, as well as out on the street. Me, laughing as Jordan pulled me out of the pub. The two of us walking along the pavement next to each other, our arms and hands brushing. Me, up against the brick wall of the alley, staring into Jordan’s eyes while he cupped my cheek, our bodies pressed close together.
We might have been able to come up with something to explain the pictures, but the asshole had also posted a video. Me and Jordan, kissing, completely lost in one another, oblivious to the rest of the world.
Everything had been posted to Reddit, and it had spread like wildfire. Our PR department was already being hounded by the media, and we had to come up with a new plan right now. A new statement that would both get our original message across and condemn the actions of this person who thought they had the right to take away something that should have been ours to share.
Jordan turned to me. His eyes were red-rimmed, making them look greener than usual, and his lip was trembling. He was barely holding it together. I wasn’t much better, but the overwhelming need to comfort my boyfriend overtook my own worries.
“H—how could they do that? That was ours. I—I told you I loved you.” A tear spilled from his lashes, tracking down his cheek. “They stole the most special moment of my life, and for fucking what? Attention? Why would someone be so cruel? Why?”
I gave zero fucks about anyone else in this room. The love of my life was hurting, and it was tearing me apart. “Baby, come here.” Pulling him into me, I wrapped my arms around him, kissing his tear away. “We’re going to get through this, okay? It’s you and me. We’ve got each other. We’re strong enough to deal with whatever life throws at us.”
He sniffed, giving me a tiny nod. “Promise?”
“I promise.”
It was then that I noticed the room had fallen silent, and I looked up to see all eyes were on us. Fucking great. Jordan burrowed into me, and I stroked my hands up and down his back while I concentrated on breathing in and out evenly, doing everything I could to hold it together.
“This is serious between the two of you, isn’t it?” Rory spoke softly.
Jordan raised his head, meeting his agent’s gaze. “Yeah. Very. I—I love him.”
My arms tightened around him as I dipped my head to his ear, speaking too low for anyone else to hear. “I love you, too.”
Rory nodded. “When the two of you told us you were in a relationship, I could see it. It made sense to me because of the way you always used to obsess over him.”
“I did not obsess over him.” Some of Jordan’s fire returned as he glared at his agent, and it eased something inside me.
A small smile appeared on Rory’s face. “Anyway, what I was going to say was I didn’t realise just how much you meant to each other. I should have. The fact you were both prepared to make your relationship public at some point should’ve given me a clue. But seeing you both together now…I think it’s clear to everyone in this room that you’re in love.”
On the big screen, I noticed one of the members of our PR team was dabbing at her eyes with a tissue, and when I glanced over at our team captain, his eyes were suspiciously shiny.
“We won yesterday, and we’re going to win against this fucker!” Reuben suddenly shouted, waving his fist in the air. “Love fucking wins!”
Jordan let out a surprised laugh, and the sombre atmosphere lightened.
Harvey clapped his hands together. “Let’s come up with a new plan.”
39
THEO
“Look at this.” Jordan rolled over on the bed, holding up his phone. “Rory says my sponsors want to renegotiate my contract and do another couple of shoots, specifically for the gay market.”
I smiled at him, tugging him into a kiss. “That’s good news.”
“Yeah. We could do with some of that.”
