Page 30 of The First Chord

“I think Ethan’s adoption is enough just for now,” Beau replied, a grin appearing on his face at the mention of Simone’s son who he was in the process of makinghisson.

“Did he have a good birthday, by the way?”

“Great. Just the three of us chilling out and doingLego.” He rolled his eyes and I grinned. I’d bought Ethan a huge Avenger’s Tower Lego, one because Ethan loved Lego and two because Beau hated it.

“Glad he liked it.”

“Joey bought him some, too.” He shook his head. “You pair of fuckers.”

“It’s a pleasure mate. Anyway,” I said, winking at him. “This engagement you need to be organising.”

“Who says I haven’t already got something planned.”

I rose an eyebrow. “Really? You sneaky little devil.”

“Yeah, so keep your mouth shut.” He pointed a finger at me as he sat down. “So, back to business, how did you get on with Ali and Destiny?”

“Totally get it, although Destiny did say fuck and cunt a few times. She tried to blame Joey.”

We both started to laugh, knowing how much our tour manager hated our drummer. No one had any real idea why, other than they’d had sex and since then she could kill him as soon as look at him.

“She even accused him of getting Belle pregnant and not Elliot.”

Beau dropped his head back and roared with laughter but then suddenly stopped, landing me with a glare.

“Why the fuck have you put that in my head? Joey impregnating my sister. It’s bad enough that Elliot actually did it, but now I have other nightmares.”

“I’m sure his balls don’t work, so don’t worry about it.” Kicking my boots off, I lifted my feet onto the sofa and lay back. “How did it go with Hugo?”

“Yeah, he was good. Ali had already spoken to him as a rep for Concepta, but I just thought out of courtesy.” Beau scrubbed his hand down his face and groaned. “I don’t know what they’re going to do about that fucker Jimmy, though. Aside from what he’s done to Amber, they’ve just about had it with his antics.”

“He’s the worst person we’ve ever had to work with, so fuck knows how they’ve coped with him on a daily basis.”

“How is Amber? Is she still at yours?”

I nodded. “Yeah. I left her looking for a place to live.”

“Well, you don’t look happy about that,” Beau said with a grin.

“I just don’t want her ending up in some shitty flat where he can get to her.”

Beau inhaled slowly and I knew some sort of lecture was on its way. That was normally Elliot’s job, but he had much bigger things on his mind. It seemed that he’d passed his fucking bossy baton onto our lead singer.

“Don’t you think maybe you should have encouraged her to go to stay with Hugo and Amelie?”

“She calledme.” It was a fact, and I wasn’t going to apologise for that. I was glad she had because I’d have gone mad if she hadn’t. The innate need to protect Amber was a weird feeling that I’d never had before. Never once in my life had the idea of someone else being hurt taken the breath from my lungs. I loved my auntie Mo, more than anything, and I don’t know, maybe if I thought she was in danger then it would knock me off my feet in the same way. However, it was Amber was who currently filled my every thought, not my auntie.

“I know she did,” Beau continued. “But maybe today you could have, I don’t know,” he shrugged, “persuaded her to go and stay with someone else. Someone who isn’t going to create a load of gossip and shit from her husband.”

“When have you ever worried about gossip?”

“I’m not,” he said with a shake of his head, “but Amber might be, and Jimmy will certainly be worried about the fact that she’s staying with you. You know, seeing as you were the one who put him down on his arse.”

“And I don’t give a shit what he has to say about it.”

The door opened and Simone came in holding two mugs of tea. “Here you go.”

“You not having one?” Beau asked, frowning.

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