Page 118 of Sky Full of Stars

“Yeah?”

“I thought it was Bianca,” Jen frowns, she thinks Bianca doesn’t like her. “But Jordan of all people backed her up.” I sigh heavily and her finger touches my chin, tilting my head to look at her. “It might have been Erica.”

Her brow arches but she doesn’t look all that surprised.

“I don’t really care how it happened,” she says, shocking the crap out of me. “I was pissed, not gonna lie. We were in this pub in Dublin when someone recognised me, we had to run out of there cos they were all trying to take my picture.”

“Shit, I’m so sorry.”

She kisses me, I think to shut me up, it works. “Yeah, Kevin got me out,” she grins.

“I still don’t like him,” I mutter.

Jenna swats my shoulder. “It sucked, but when I got back to the hotel and looked at all the articles again, I realised something,” she smiles. “We look so happy in those pictures. I didn’t care what the articles said and didn’t read any of it, you taught me that,” she kisses me again and I’m not totally unhappy about this conversation. “I already knew I’d fallen for you, so I had to think what that means for me. You can’t fall in love with a rock star and remain in the shadows forever.

“So I called my mom, told her everything, and we talked about how my life would change, how people were going to want to know who I am, that they might say mean things about me, but ultimately, she said I only had to consider one thing,” she ran the tip of her nail over my chest and I realised she was drawing the shape of a heart. It made me feel fucking sappy as shit. If any of the guys could see this, I’d never live it down.

“And what was that?”

“You know what it was.”

“I think I love your mom,” I tell her, making her laugh.

“I’m sure she’ll love you too. She’s trusting you to take care of me.”

“I will. I swear, I won’t let anyone say shit about you.”

“You can’t stop people being assholes.”

“I’ll beat the shit out of them all.”

“Cos that will help.”

I laugh but pull her down into a hug. When she pulls back, I look at her, memorising every nuance of her face, knowing she is giving me all of herself right now. She is willing to give up her privacy for me. As hard as it might be with the band and how we work going forward, I’m not letting her go and if it means I need to be in New York, then I will do whatever it takes. It isn’t like I have a nine to five tied to one place. We can make it work.

“So I can do it, I can tell the world you’re mine?”

“Well, Iz pointed out you have a whole team of publicists and people who know this fame business, so they should be able to see it’s done right.”

“You talked to everyone?”

“Well, they’re all in my life, it may affect them too. But I trust them, and you should be thankful, they all told me to go for it.”

I can give her that and it pleases me her friends back me. But I owe her the truth and I’m not convinced Arch’s influence can win over Bianca’s control.

“So…Bianca wanted to put out a press release saying you were a groupie, but Arch got it stopped,” I hold up a hand before she says anything. “They need something, so now I know you’re good with it, I’ll tell them to run it that you’re my fucking girl and I love you and I don’t care who knows.”

I sit up and roll her over, my fingers trailing down between her legs.

“Adam, you have your show.”

“We have time,” I murmur, once I know she’s ready, I slide into her again.

We are halfway through the show when I decide I don’t want to wait anymore. Jordan found out the girl we suspected had in fact taken my phone but she wouldn’t say anything about Erica’s involvement. She didn’t need to, I was already convinced. Jordan said he’d speak to B because by the time I cleaned up after another couple of rounds with Jenna, I had to rush to the venue and get ready to go on stage. Bianca was almost having heart failure until she saw me. She eyed Jenna but my girl just stared back at her and Bianca knew there was nothing she could do.

Now, I would make sure everyone did.

We are between songs, Arch about to start the opening riff on our next, when I speak into the microphone.

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