Page 49 of Just Wait

Tennyson and Parish don’t seem to be in any hurry, and I catch up to walk by Tennyson’s side.

“So, what did you and Mal get up to before practice?” Tennyson asks, flinging his obnoxiously long curls back from his eyes. They immediately fall back into place as his blue eyes sparkle.

I very expertly stumble over my own feet at the question, barely righting myself before I face-plant.

Malcolm failed to give me an excuse to use if someone asked. He’s self-conscious about trying to write his own music, and I have no intention of violating his privacy.

“Nothing,” I say, shrugging. “We walked around the venue, and he messed around on his guitar until you guys came in.”

“Is that what the kids are calling it these days?” Parish asks, laughing as he steps down onto the concrete of the parking lot where the buses are waiting. “Come on, you can fill us in on the gossip. We’ve got nothing else going on at the moment.”

“I caught my boyfriend cheating on me yesterday,” I say incredulously. “I haven’t even talked to him since everything went down.”

“That’s even more reason to fuck someone else to get back at him,” Parish says, laughing obnoxiously.

Tennyson stops in his tracks, turning to face me. “I’ve known Mal for years. The industry is small. Even if I wasn’t on the road with Liminal, we interacted a lot.”

“Okay?”

Where is this going?

“And he’s always been a fuck anything that moves kind of guy,” Tennyson says, making me flinch.

It’s silly.

There’s nothing between us that would suggest that sentence should make my stomach drop, but it does, and I hate it.

Malcolm is affectionate and funny and an all-around nice guy. At least, that’s what I’ve seen from him so far.

I’m also not stupid.

I’ve seen the paparazzi pictures and even some on social media taken by fans when he was in a club. He’s been a rock star for years. I’m sure his body count is astronomical.

It’s also none of my business.

“When his dad had that heart attack earlier this year, it changed him,” Tennyson says.

My eyes widen.

I had no idea about that, but I’m not sure how I would have heard about it. It feels like a piece of information that Malcolm should have told me, if he wanted me to know at all.

“It was right around the time the label brought me and Parish on,” Tennyson says, shoving his hands into the front pockets of his jeans. “Whenever we crossed paths, I never saw him go a night without finding someone to entertain himself with, but this entire tour, I haven’t seen him with a single person, outside of you.”

My jaw falls, and I rock back on my heels.

That makes no sense.

“Somewhere between Drew throwing his life away and his dad almost dying, Mal grew up.” Tennyson quirks a light brown brow. “He’s the type of person who would give someone the shirt off his back. Loyal as fuck. As ride or die as they come. I’m just saying, if you’re going to run back to your boyfriend the second he apologizes, you should do that before Mal gets any more attached.”

“Yo, you’re going a little hard,” Parish says, slamming his shoulder into Tennyson’s. “Dial it back a few notches.”

“I’m not trying to be an ass, I swear.” Tennyson pulls his hands from his pockets, holding his palms up. “I’m just looking out for a friend. Because long after you move on, the rest of us will be around, trying to keep him from spiraling when he’s finally getting himself on track.”

I have to bite my cheek to keep from telling him to go to hell. He might know Malcolm, but he doesn’t know me.

I hate the way they all seem to talk about him like he’s stupid.

Kincaid called him an idiot when I was having a panic attack. Malcolm straight-up referred to himself as the fuck-up, and I can’t tell if that’s because he genuinely thinks he is or everyone else’s judgments of him have worn down his self-worth.