Midnight Blue

“Well, I’m her husband. I’m allowed to.”

Alex paused, stared at him like he was the very cause for the Ebola phenomenon, and sneered. “You’re a pig.”

“And you’re no different. Only thing is, you’re a pig with money, so you get better pussy, really.”

Alex’s fist connected with Jim’s nose immediately, and I jumped in to pull him away. I grabbed onto his arm just as he was swinging for a second punch, and he must’ve had a hell of a lot of momentum, because his elbow collided with my eye. The sharp pain made me stumble back, and I fell flat on my butt once my back hit the wall. My hands immediately went to my left eye, and I winced. Damn, that hurt. I could feel my tears running freely now—not from emotion, but from the sting. Everything around me blurred, but I still caught Alex squatting by my side, his hand on my shoulder.

“Shit. Fuck. Are you all right?”

“Hmm.” I nodded, even though I really didn’t know that for sure. “I’m good.”

“Let me have a look.”

“Oh, it’s okay.”

“It’s not, Indie.” He peeled my fingers off my eye, his own eyes flaring when he caught a glimpse of me. Not magazine material, I gathered from the look on his face.

“Black eye,” he muttered.

“Really? Already?” I asked, feeling more deflated than angry. My eye felt numb now. But it still stung. Like my eyelashes had curled backward into my eyeball.

“I’ll get her some ice,” Louisa said.

“Sorry, luv,” Jim offered.

“I fucking hate both of you,” Alex seethed, grabbing a bag of frozen French fries his mother handed him and pressing it against my eye. “It’s gonna hurt like a bitch, but you need this right now.”

Same could be said about you.

I nodded, feeling the bite against my skin intensify with every second the cold bag was on my heated flesh. Alex took out his phone and demanded Siri call Blake .

“I need a cab back to the hotel from my parents’ house. Now.”

There was a pause before he said, “A hundred? You’re fucking joking.”

By the look Alex shot behind his shoulder to his shrugging parents, I knew Blake wasn’t joking. A hundred photographers waited outside. His parents must’ve told the entire world and its nephew that Alex was coming over. Carly was sitting down at the table, staring at her hands. I wondered what part she’d taken in all this. Not once had she tried to interfere with the confrontation between Alex and his parents. My gaze wandered back to Alex, who frowned and stared at me with a mixture of exasperation and wonder.

“Well, the only way I’m spending the night in Jim and Louisa’s place is in a fucking body bag. So sort something out.”

Jim and Louisa. He didn’t even call them Mom and Dad anymore. Man, I felt shitty for pushing him into this whole thing. I shook my head, placing my hand on his arm. He immediately relaxed under my touch. Like he’d been waiting for some confirmation that he wasn’t a complete monster for giving me a black eye. Which he wasn’t. He had no idea I was behind him.

“If we need to stay, we’ll stay.” I gave him a weak smile. Ouch. That hurt the entire area under my eye.

“We never thought it’d be that big of a deal,” Carly finally murmured from her place at the table, still staring hard at her hands. “You always deal with them. We thought it would be just another day at the office for you.”

Blake was saying something on the other line, and Alex sighed and hung up, dropping his forehead in defeat.

“Is that okay?” His hand cupped my knee, his thumb brushing over it in lazy circles. I didn’t know if he meant his touching me or staying the night at his parents’ house to make sure the coast was clear and prevent them from seeing my black eye. “Sure.”

“Harry and Hamish should be at the front door at six a.m. to pick us up. The paparazzi will clear up by then.”

That made sense.

Louisa opened her mouth again, about to say something, but Alex shut her up, jerking me upward to stand in front of him.

“Spare me the excuses, Louisa. This is the last time you fuck me over.”

U ncomfortably close, intolerably far away.

That’s how I felt about staying at my parents’ house. Stardust and I would sleep in my old room. I didn’t believe in sentimental shit. Not usually. I was too hardened by life, circumstances, and the very people I shared a roof with. But there was no point pretending it wasn’t a little monumental. To have a girl in my room. A girl whom I’d given a black eye to—by accident, sure, but fuck it, it looked so bad, more so since it was tainting her beautiful, olive skin—a girl who was willing to sleep at a strangers’ house for me, without batting an eyelash.

When Indie went to take a shower, I was still watching the paparazzi swarming under my window. One raised his head and spotted me, and I flipped him the finger. He immediately raised his camera and took a slew of pictures of me, his mates following suit. I shut the holey, twenty-year-old curtain before they got any good shots. Stardust walked in with a towel wrapped around her body. Her hair was wet, clustered into little snakes, dripping water onto the beige carpet. She wiped her chin with the hem of the towel and stared at me, her bottomless blues not dimmed, even by the black eye I’d given her.

“Hey, you.” She attempted a smile.

I hated that she was the perfect combination between sweet and tough, because it made letting her go less easy. And letting her go was not fucking optional. I had Fallon to recollect—to punish her for what she’d done—plus, even if Fallon hadn’t been in the picture, Stardust was simply too good. Once we went back to the real world—where days and the weather and family mattered, the world outside this tour—it’d be very easy for her to walk away. And walk away she would, because I was a fuck-up, an addict, and I’d screwed up everything with her before it even started.

I’d given her a black eye, for fuck’s sake.

Instead of answering her with words, I walked over to her—towering over her tininess and liking us even more for it—and shut the door behind her back. She looked up; I looked down. I laced our fingers together; she didn’t resist. I’d fucked Stardust many times, in many places. I’d fucked her hard, and then rough, and then lazily, all while shoving my fingers in places that made her eyes widen. But when the towel fell off and pooled at her feet, her freckled, tan skin and toned body bared in front of me, I didn’t want to destroy her like I had all those times in London.