Page 31 of Gabriel's Album

“Sorry, ma’am!” I salute her, and she laughs and rolls her eyes at me as she holds the door open for us to walk through.

Ariana makes a beeline for the side of the room, and I take in the room for a few seconds before a couple of fans see me and come over to talk. I talk to the first few fans, then when they’re gone, some different fans make their way over to talk to me.

It goes on like this, and eventually, I’m talking to a pair of fans. I kind of know that the brunette one is flirting with me because she’s telling me all about how I’m her favorite member of Cruise Control, but even so, I’m surprised when she grabs my ass while we’re having our photo taken.

She keeps her hand on my ass the whole time we’re standing there, and I completely freeze. I don’t know what to do. Every cell in my body wants her hand the fuck off my ass, but I have a smile frozen on my face for our photo, and I am grateful as shit when she finally lets go. I thank her for coming to the show and for being a fan, then walk swiftly over to another group of fans who are hovering nearby, grateful as hell to get away from her.

“Hey, I’m Gabriel,” I say to them.

“Hi, Gabriel. I’m John.”

I shake his hand. “Hi, John.”

Melissa, Kit, and Alex introduce themselves as well. They tell me that Kit won a competition online to come to the show.

Kit seems shy, so I smile at them and ask, “Have you been a fan for long?”

“Yeah, I came across you guys on YouTube about a year ago; it’s awesome to get to meet you,” they say with a smile.

“We don’t really upload many videos to YouTube these days; we really should,” I say as I nod my head.

I’m distracted from the conversation I’m having as Melissa starts talking because I’ve just noticed that Sebastian has two fans standing with him, and he has his arm around one woman's waist while he’s holding the hand of the other one.

For fuck’s sake. I don’t give a shit if he wants to have threesomes, but does he have to be so damn obvious about it? He’s got a reputation for being a player for a good reason, of course. I couldn’t tally up the number of women he’s slept with if I tried, and I don’t think he could either.

Since we got famous, he’s gotten worse, though. He had plenty of women to choose from before, but now it’s like he sees the crowd of fans as an all-you-can-eat buffet of women for him to pick and choose from as he sees fit. I kind of worry about him, but he brushes it off whenever I try to talk to him about it.

I realize that Alex is looking at me and wanting an answer to some question I didn’t hear. “Oh, sorry, I missed that. What was your question?”

I’m the biggest douchebag. I try to ignore Sebastian and force myself to focus on the fans I’m standing with and answer their questions about the tour and the album. I notice a couple of the other groups of fans looking over at Sebastian and whispering as they do, and I can’t stop myself from frowning.

I wipe the expression from my face and smile at the group in front of me, then my phone buzzes in my pocket.

“Sorry, one second,” I say to them as I pull it out to see a text from Ariana on it.

Are you okay?

I look around at her and smile before turning back to the fans in front of me. “Sorry, I just need to answer this.”

You sneaky girl! I’m fine, just annoyed that Seb is probably going to get us bad press.

I answer another of their questions as my phone buzzes in my hand with another text from Ariana.

Not necessarily?

“Sorry about this,” I apologize again as I tap out a reply to her.

Two girls? Twice as likely that someone will talk. Texting each other is stupid, by the way.

“It was lovely to meet you,” I tell them and shake their hands. “Sorry, I have to go.”

“No worries, thanks for the awesome concert!” Melissa says, and her friends agree with her.

“You’re welcome. Congratulations again, Kit! I hope you had a great time.” I smile at them, then turn to walk over to Ariana as I signal to Hayden that I’m going to leave.

Hayden raises an eyebrow at me. The meet and greet isn’t anywhere near done, but I am. I feel like an asshole for leaving early, but I’m tired and cranky, and staying is probably a worse idea than bailing, so I shrug back at Hayden as I walk over to Ariana.

She follows me out to the arena exit but doesn’t say anything to me. We reach the large garage doors, and I get into the nearest of the white vans that are here with drivers waiting to take us all back to the hotel.

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