Page 101 of Going Solo

“Dirty little secret?” I said.

Cole looked wounded. “You wouldn’t even go to Stonehenge with me because people would see us.”

“Look at what happens to my life when people see us together!”

“Do you know how it feels to think I’m only good enough for you in private?”

“Shall I ask Jasper how it feels?”

I was like a sniper. You could almost see Cole recoil from where the bullet entered his heart.

“Are you ashamed of me?” he pleaded. “Do I embarrass you? Or is it that you want all the good stuff that comes with being with a celebrity—the money, the private jets—but not the hard work of dealing with the price of fame?”

The volcano finally erupted. “Oh my God, you so nearly had it, babes. You weresoclose. But you can’t open your eyes wide enough to see the world outside your own narrow experience. This is about protecting myself.”

“From me!” It was a statement. There was no question mark in the way he said it.

“From the circus that comes with you.”

“The circus is a part of my life,” Cole said, hitting his chest with his finger, tears welling in his eyes. “You don’t get to have me without it.”

“Can you hear yourself?”

“You think I don’t know how hard the circus is? It’s been my life for a decade. But it won’t always be this way, Toby. In a few years, no one will care. You know as well as anyone pop music moves on. I’ve got what, five years, and I’ll be forgotten. But right now, the circus is a big part of my life. I hate it as much as you do, but it’s part of the deal.” He was pleading with me now. “I need someone who’ll walk tall and proud by my side, who’ll be there for me when it all gets tough, who’ll be there to tell me it’ll all be OK.”

I looked Cole square in the eye. “I’m sorry, but that person was never going to be me.”

“That personisyou, Toby,” Cole said. “I know that person is you. You’re stronger than you think you are. Together, I genuinely believe there’s nothing we can’t do. The press will get bored with us in a few days anyway.”

My tears burnt my cheeks. “I’ve been ‘marriage material boy’ for ten years, Cole. The pressnevergets bored. I’m sorry, I’m not built for this.”

Cole’s arms reached out for me, then fell back to his sides. We stood there, both in tears, three feet apart, neither of us able to close the gap.

“Are you breaking up with me?” Cole’s chestnut eyes pleaded for me to give the answer he wanted to hear.

I wavered, unsure what I wanted. If I was honest with myself, what I wanted was what we had together when the rest of the world wasn’t watching, when no one else got to have opinions about us. But that wasn’t on offer anymore. If I thought about it, I’d been lucky to have what we’d had for so long. It was always going to end. But did I want to lose Cole from my life completely? I thought of the hours in the broadcast van, getting to know each other again, and the amazing week on the farm, falling in love with each other again. Was all that over? I wasn’t ready to make that decision.

“No.” I shook my head. “No, I’m not breaking up with you.”

Cole leapt forward and folded me up in a hug. “Thank you.” He kissed my neck, my cheek, my ear. His face was wet against mine. “Thank you, so much. We can make this work. I promise. I know we can.”

I held him in my arms, not feeling at all sure that we could make this work. I couldn’t be the guy who broke up with Cole Kennedy right before he left the country on an eight-month-long world tour. But the fight had opened a wound that needed time to heal.

“You don’t have to sign the NDA,” Cole said. “I trust you.”

“I think Fiona?—”

“Fiona is being a big sister. And a lawyer. Will you come to Stockholm for Friday night’s show?” Cole’s eyes looked hopeful.

I wiped my face on my sleeve. “If you’re inviting me because you need a translator, they speak better English there than we do in Essex.”

“Please say you’ll come.”

I shook my head. “I have a job to do.”

“I can fly you out Friday afternoon and get you back in time for your show Saturday lunchtime. Come on, it’ll be fun. And the world already knows about you now. The sooner I start showing you off, the sooner the press will get bored with us.”

The thought turned my bowels to water. I tapped my hand against Cole’s chest. “I’ll think about it.”

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