Page 82 of Between Now and Always

His smile is sunshine breaking through the clouds. He pulls me into a good old fashioned hug before he lifts me off my feet.

“Okay, I’ll have Dean get you an expedited passport. They can do it in hours. You’ll love Berlin and our last stop is Paris. I can’t wait to show you,” he says when he puts me down.

My heart is full to bursting. I’m not the girl in the fairytales I grew up reading. And yet somehow, I’m being given all of her treasures.

“I have one condition.” I smile mischievously.

He laughs. “Hit me with it.”

“Promise not to serenade me on stage every night?”

“What? Once is enough for you?” he says with mock affront.

“I’m sure someone got it on camera. So we can just relive the moment any time we want.”

“That’s cool. As long as we can relive the after party,” he quips and carries me back to bed.

When he kisses me, I don’t close my eyes, and neither does he and in his; I see forever.

City Of Lights

BETH

I’m woken up by Phil’s ring tone which has become synonymous with bad news. My dread only sharpens when I reach over and find Carter gone, long enough that his pillow has grown cold. I frown. This is the first time I’ve woken up to find him gone.

The tour has been amazing, it’s like being in a bubble where nothing exists. I’ve spent my days being a tourist in the cities we’ve stopped at and my nights watching Carter rocket from rising star to rock God. We’ve made love everywhere, eaten the most delicious food and fallen even more in love every night.

Paris is our last stop, and yesterday was their final show.

We ate a celebratory dinner with the rest of the band before he took me to the Eiffel tower. He gave me the necklace, a rope of gold and jewels he bought in Venice…so like the one I remember my mother wearing and told me how he’d been saving it for the perfect moment.

We made love in the car on our way back to our hotel. He built us a bed of blankets in front of the fireplace in our suite and made love until we fell asleep on a cloud of bliss and contentment.

So this is a rude awakening. I groan and swing my legs over the edge of the bed in a rush to get to my phone before I miss Phil’s call. I groan when I see it’s a Facetime video call and run my hands through my hair.

“Phil, what’s wrong?” I answer the phone without preamble.

“Clo, are you okay?” he breathes, his face a mask of relief and worry.

“I’m fine. What’s wrong?”

“Where’s Carter?” he asks in a clipped tone clearly not interested in niceties either.

“He’s already up, hold on. Let me check the living room. What’s going on?”

“He left you alone?” he barks, his brows drawing together.

“What do you mean? Wait,” I snap,annoyed with him but more focused on finding Carter.

I walk into the suite’s living area and it’s quiet. My stomach tightens and I look back at Phil’s expectant face.

“He’s not here. And you’re scaring me. What’s wrong?”I demand.

“Haven’t you watched the news?” he asks and I shake my head slowly as my fear ratchets up.

Dean told us that his public declaration at the concert had gone viral and that we were the talk of the gossip machine. We were determined to lay low and enjoy being back together. We kept the television off and our phones were blocking calls from anyone who wasn’t in our contacts.

We knew the world was going crazy around us. But that was two weeks ago. I was sure it had all died down by now.

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