Page 24 of One More Made Up Love Song
I always have a few ready just in case, but I’ll need to personalize the card and coordinate with security to make sure it’s delivered to the couples’ seats before the end of the concert.
“Happy Anniversary,” Freddie says. “And thanks for celebrating with me and one hundred thousand of my friends.” The crowd laughs, then Freddie adds, “Melanie and Jared, this one’s for you.”
“How didyou know I was going to ask for a gift basket?” Freddie asks. He’s lying on the couch in his hotel suite, and when he lifts his arms to stretch, a tiny band of skin appears at the hem of his t-shirt. His pants are sitting low enough that I catch a glimpse of a swirl of ink just beside his hip bone, and I wonder if I’ve just discovered secret tattoo number eighteen. But then he shifts and rolls over, tugging his t-shirt back down.
I clear my throat. “How could Inotknow?” I say. “You’re very predictable.”
“I’m not predictable.” He adjusts the throw pillow under his head. “Can you toss me one of the pillows from the bed in there?”
“Absolutely not,” I say. “Because then you’ll fall asleep on the couch, which is criminal when you have an entire hotel suite at your disposal. Also, you need to eat.”
“I didn’t eat?” he asks, and I let out a chuckle.
“Not yet.” I walk over and nudge the bottom of his foot. Freddie is lean and lanky and over six feet tall, built morelike Tom Hiddleston’s Loki than Chris Hemsworth’s Thor, but he’s still making the couch look tiny, his long limbs hanging off the end like it belongs in a Hobbit house. “Come on. Sit up. Your food will be here any second.”
Right on time, a knock sounds on the hotel suite door.
I cross to open it, knowing it’ll be Wayne with the DoorDash I ordered.
“Thanks, Wayne,” I say as he hands over the food.
He nods. “No problem. He’s in for the night?”
“Pretty sure.”
“I’m going to do the rounds and check in with the security team, then I’ll be up.” He holds up a finger and points it at me. “Areyouin for the night? Because if you try to pull another?—”
“It happenedonce,Wayne.Once.You’re worse than my dad.”
“It only takes once,” he says dryly.
I roll my eyes, even though I know he’s right. Theoncehe’s thinking of, I snuck out of a hotel in Kansas to satisfy a craving for Krispy Kreme and wound up running into a fan who actually recognized me. That almost never happens. I’m pretty good at staying out of the limelight. But I’m always traveling with Freddie, so his most serious fans know who I am.
Inside the Krispy Kreme, the fan cornered me and pestered me with question after question. I was afraid to leave because I’d walked three blocks from the hotel, and I was pretty sure she would follow me back if I did. I managed to text Wayne an SOS, and he came to my rescue, but he hasn’t let me forget how important it is that when I’m traveling with Freddie, I can’t go anywhere without a member of the security team.
Going into the CVS the other night stretched my leash about as far as Wayne will allow.
“It’s my job to be worse than your dad,” he says.
“Yeah, yeah, I get it. I promise. When I leave here, I’ll walk straight to my room and nowhere else.”
Since Freddie has a second show in Chicago the day after tomorrow, his entire crew is spread across a few different hotels—a blissful break from the tour bus and a little more downtime than we normally get.
“Good,” Wayne says. “Be right back.”
When I make it back to the suite’s living room, Freddie is sitting up, elbows propped onto his knees and his fingers pressed into his eye sockets. I drop the bag onto the coffee table.
“Your dinner.”
His eyes pop open. “Mushroom and Swiss?”
“With friesandcheese curds,” I say.
“Did you get the?—”
“It’s in the bag.”
He lets out a groan as he pulls out a Culver’s burger, followed by a container of cheese sauce because he’s a total weirdo and likes to dip his cheese curds inmore cheese.
