“You two have always had this undercurrent between you.”
I scratched my head. “An undercurrent?”
“Yeah. You know what I mean. Like a mad chemistry. Naturally, it died out when you married Scott, Angie, but then the spark reignited when the time was right. Does that make sense?”
“Okay,” Angie said with a blush to her cheeks. “So, you’re really happy for us?”
“Absolutely. We should celebrate when we get home,” Calla said, surprising us both.
“Before any celebrations, there’s something else you need to know,” I told them, knowing we had to explain the headlines that were coming their way. If Ash wasn’t mad about Angie and me being together, I could have put money on him being mad about my threatening a guy in public.
“What the hell, man. You’re out of order.” he barked. “How could you put the reputation of the band in jeopardy. We’re still getting over the wrath of Brett fans who came at us after he left. You’re not helping us here.”
I felt like shit.
Obviously, we spoke to Max next. He wasn’t stupid and he’d seen the way I was acting around Angie, but like Ash, he was pretty mad, although not so much with me.
“What a fucker. I can’t believe that guy,” he said, referring to Fraser. “Yet he was nice as fucking pie when we left the restaurant. What some people do for money shouldn’t surprise me, but here I am.”
I felt the same. I could only think that Fraser had made a mint with his story. Greed is an ugly trait to have.
I’ve been up for hours. I couldn’t sleep, so I left Angie in bed. It was better for her and Josh to stay the night.
I’m about to go into the kitchen when I get a phone call and a full-on dressing down from Dani. I didn’t get to call her back last night. We took so many calls and messages that I had to put my foot down and turn our phones off for a while. I wanted to concentrate on Angie and make her feel safe. I should have thought about the consequences of not pacifying Dani. Now she’s pissed-off and I’ve given her time to stew.
“What the hell were you playing at, you idiot?” Dani shouts down the line. “Who the fuck is this Fraser guy and why did you assault him? Tell me everything, right now.”
“Whoa, slow down, Dani. Let me explain. It was a misunderstanding.”
“He doesn’t seem to think so. You should know better than to go around roughing up members of the public. You were out of order, Tommy.”
I pace around the kitchen but stop when I spot various papers and magazines on the table. I asked Connie not to hide anything from us. We need to know exactly what we’re dealing with. “Maybe I did fly off the handle, but I apologised to the guy. No one’s reporting that.”
“Who is this idiot, Tommy?”
“Just a guy Angie went on a few dates with,” I say, flipping through a glossy magazine.
“Well, he obviously saw an opportunity and ran with it. You’re lucky he isn’t pressing charges.”
I stop on a double-page spread and it nearly knocks me sideways. “Yeah. I know. Look, can I call you another time? Something came up.”
“You’re not fobbing me off again, Tommy. You have to take this seriously?—”
“Yeah, yeah. I am. Speak soon.”
I finish the call. I’ll pay for that later, but right now, I want to concentrate on scanning the pages in front of me.
A grainy picture of me pinning Fraser up against the wall with his shirt grasped in my hand is right in the centre.Where did that come from?Then there’s some old photo of me and Chelsea hand in hand with a lightning bolt through the middle, which is standard. But two images piss me off the most. Both are of Angie. The first is taken on the day she was a bridesmaid for Calla. The second was taken backstage at one of our concerts. I’m talking to her and touching her arm. How fucking dare, they?
I don’t care about the images of me. I’m used to this shit, but Angie trusted Fraser and now he’s making her out to be some kind of merry fucking widow.
How much did that arse-wipe get paid to humiliate her? Surely, no amount of money is worth another person’s sadness. What kind of man does that? Especially when he’s aware of Angie’s history. I fucking hate that guy.
It’s been two weeks since Fraser sold his soul to the media and there are more paps than usual outside the front gates. They’ve learned I’m staying with Ash and Calla for a while and they also found out that Angie lives next door. It meant I had to up my security as the press was camping outside the gates twenty-four-seven, just like they did when Brett left us. At one point, photographers climbed the walls to take pictures of us together until our security removed them. They won’t leave us alone.
Recently, one online magazine wrote a feature about me, Angie, and our love story. They said we were childhood sweethearts, which isn’t true, and we reunited after she losther husband. Again, not true. Jesus, will they ever get their facts right?
Don’t get me wrong, I expected some intrusion. In fact, we had no doubt at all that it would happen, but I had hoped that Angie wouldn’t have to endure any of this stuff until we were ready to tell the world we were together.
