Page 112 of Broken Rock

‘Both slices?’

She frowns up at him. ‘Hey. It was a very nice cake. I had to grab the second slice before you and your horde demolished the lot.’

‘My horde had just played for an hour and that always makes us hungry.’

‘You’re always hungry, it had nothing to do with performing.’ She leans on his chest and rubs the side of his face. ‘Did I tell you how amazing that was?’

‘The sex or the performance at your party?’

‘Both.’

‘Glad to hear it.’

‘I just realised something. I have no idea when your birthday is.’

‘Fourth of April.’ She looks away and he knows what she’s thinking. ‘Yeah, my thirty-sixth birthday was a bit of a non-event. Being in rehab kind of took the fun out of it. Takes the pressure off you next year though. A takeaway and a movie would top that any day.’ He brushes hair away from her face and decides to ask the question he needs an answer to but is kind of dreading hearing. He’s also not keen on putting a downer on her birthday.

‘Okay, so I need to ask you something. Actually, it’s more that I’ve got a bone to pick with you.’

‘You want to know why I didn’t tell you about my birthday?’

‘Yeah.’

Chloe pulls the duvet up over her shoulder and looks away from him for a minute. ‘I just... I didn’t want to... there’s a lot on your plate right now and I didn’t want to add to it. And then you... Seriously, it’s not a big deal. I don’t usually do anything crazy for my birthday anyway.’

Tate props himself up on an elbow and looks down at her. She may have stopped herself from saying it but he knows full well what she was going to say. He got drunk and that overshadowed all thoughts of her birthday.

Chloe rests her hand on the side of his face and smiles up at him. ‘Hey, I wasn’t having a go at you. I really wasn’t.’

He squeezes her hand. ‘I know, but let’s get one thing straight, Chloe. I’m your boyfriend. Forget everything else. that part comes first. You hear me? We’re a couple. I want to — scrap that, I need to know stuff like this. It’s my job to know stuff like this. It doesn’t matter what other crazy shit is going on in my life, you come first. It’s my right to spoil you rotten on your birthday.’

‘This is all new to me, Tate. I’m still trying to figure out... you, I guess. Your life. Your job. It’s all so different to me.’

‘Talk to me about it. I can’t help you understand if you don’t ask.’

‘I’d probably be firing questions at you all the time.’

‘That’s grand. I’d prefer you to do that than have any worries about things.’ He pats the pillow beside him, and she lies down facing him. Tate pulls the duvet up and drapes his arm over her waist. ‘Fire away. Ask whatever you want.’

Chloe traces along the tattoo on his chest for a few minutes before she looks up at him again.

‘Okay, so the studio. When you’re there for the day can I call you if I need you for something or are you off limits? I have no idea what Ellen does for you and how much control she has over what you’re doing. I’ve heard you talking about touring again but you could be talking about going to the moon for all I know. Are you going for a week? Or a month? Longer? Will you be gone the whole time or be able to come home? I think that’ll do for starters.’

Tate blows out a long breath. ‘Wow. Okay. Studio first. If I’m recording, my phone will be on silent but I check it regularly. I’ll give you Dillon, Gregg, and Luke’s numbers and the one for the main studio reception. If you need to get a hold of me urgently when I’m there ring the reception first. They’ll pass a message on. Never be afraid to ring me whenever you want. If I can’t answer I’ll have it turned off or on silent.’

‘That’s good to hear. I was afraid I’d ring you mid interview or whatever and get you in trouble.’

‘No risk of that. I promise. Ellen’s job is looking after everything, bar the music side of things. I write everything. Music and the lyrics. Ellen makes sure our music gets in front of the right people at the right time. She arranges our publicity, any interviews we do, appearances, signings, tour dates. You name it, Ellen and her team look after it.’

‘Do you have a say at all?’

‘Ideally I should give her free rein and go with it, but that interferes with my control freak side. We bump heads a lot, but she doesn’t take any shit from me. Under normal circumstances, if she tells me or the guys she wants us to do something or go somewhere, we’ll do it.’

‘And touring?’

She looks as thrilled about the thought of touring as he is. He needs to get back to live performances again but leaving her is the part he’s not so keen about. ‘I should have talked to you about this before now. Nothing’s set in stone yet so I didn’t think to bring it up. No excuse though. Okay, well the plan is to head off at the beginning of September until Christmas. It’s the second leg of the tour we had to cancel when I went to rehab.’

‘So will you be away for all of that?’

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