Page 101 of Gabriel's Album

Cooper starts to respond, but Tristan cuts him off. “Look, I think we’ve discussed that aspect enough at this point. What we need to do now is take a more direct approach. We’ll still do the other interviews I lined up, but some of the questions may need to change.”

He looks a little uncomfortable and takes a deep breath before letting it out with a sigh. He gives me a tight smile and looks directly at me when he continues.

“I’m afraid that we’re going to need to address Ariana in some form. From what I gathered yesterday, she’s…unavailable for interviews?” he asks carefully.

“Yeah, she’s gone,” I choke out, immediately feeling tears pricking the back of my eyes.

“Ariana left?” Cooper seems surprised by this news.

I swallow heavily and nod my confirmation, unable to acknowledge it out loud—pain and anger war inside me. I drop my head to my hands and look at the patterns in the marble of the table. I can practically see Cooper’s smug face as he’s vindicated in his position from yesterday.

“Now isnotthe fucking time, Cooper,” I hear Sebastian snarl.

By the time I raise my head and look at Cooper, whatever he did that caused Sebastian to respond that way isn’t obvious to me. Cooper’s expression is completely inscrutable, while Sebastian is glaring at him, along with both Harrison and Hayden.

He turns back to face me and says, “Okay, so Ariana isn’t available for interviews. We still need to have some sort of statement about her, I think—”

“Don’t use her name. I won’t lie, but”—I swallow heavily as the pain in my chest engulfs my entire mind and body, and it’s a couple of seconds before I can breathe properly again—“I can do that much for her. Let them continue to think her name is Ariel, please.”

“That makes sense. We can keep her anonymity, hopefully. Assuming nobody talks, of course,” Tristan purses his lips. “If they do, we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. There are other diversionary tactics I can use if you’re really dedicated to keeping her a secret. Nonetheless, in the meantime, you can play the pronoun game to refer to her without lying or giving her name to anyone.”

I nod my acknowledgment to him. I’m so grateful that Sierra brought Tristan on board. I realize that he’s been a hell of a lot more sympathetic and helpful than Cooper, and certainly more so than I expected when all of this started and we were called to Sierra’s offices.

A wave of painful hurt hits me as I remember defending Ariana in that meeting when Cooper talked shit about her. The embarrassment of him being correct washes over me, and I feel resentful that she left after I’d stupidly declared she wouldn’t. A small part of me wants to use her name in an interview, but I know that I don’t want to be that vindictive and petty.

I’m hurting so badly that I think I might never rid myself of this pain, but I’m not that much of an asshole. She left because she wasn’t ready to be in the spotlight with me, and dragging her into it won’t do anyone any good. It certainly won’t make her want to come back, that’s for sure.

Tristan clears his throat. “There is one other matter, though.”

I turn to look at him, and he’s still looking at me.

“You will actually have to take part in the press conference, Gabriel. I appreciate that yesterday was difficult, but they will want your thoughts today.”

They can’t have them. My thoughts are all about Ariana. She’s all I can think about, all I want to think about, and they’re all I have left of her now that she’s gone.

I take some calming breaths and push away my initial panic as I nod at him. “Yes, of course.”

“Good. You’re doing an excellent job.” He gives me a reassuring smile. “You’re known as the frontman of the band, so ideally, I’d like for you to be the one to read the statement.

We spend the next hour going over preparations for the press conference. Tristan runs through the prepared statement with me, and we discuss answers to possible questions that may be asked. When Cooper and Tristan finally leave, we go to see Heather.

The first words from her mouth when she sees me are, “Has she called you?”

I shake my head and frown at Heather. “No. Not even a text. I have no idea if she’s safe, or if she’s seen Stacey’s interview, or anything.”

“I swear to fucking god, it’s like she’s just forgotten we all exist,” Sebastian says in a cold voice.

Harrison wraps his arms around Heather and kisses her. “Hey, angel. We’re here to have lunch with you.”

“Hi, honey. I missed you.”

She kisses him back, and I hate how jealous I am of my friends and their easy relationship. I’ve seen them argue over stupid things like being late somewhere, or dishes left in the sink, but Ariana and I had more serious arguments in our six months of dating than I’ve seen them have in the entire seven years they’ve been together.

Why couldn’t my love with Ariana be as easy as theirs? Despite everything, I still fucking want her back, and that sucks so hard.

Sebastian orders us food for lunch, and we sit and eat it together in Harrison and Heather’s suite. I’m starting to feel nervous about the press conference, and Heather must have noticed because she smiles at me.

“You’ll be fine,” she assures me before taking a bite of the food Harrison dished up for her.

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