Page 194 of My Three Billionaire Rockstars

His jaw flexes. “Yeah.”

“Why?”

He leans back against the couch, staring up at the ceiling. “My best friend died.”

I nod. “Josiah?”

Xander looks over. “You know his name?”

“Julian didn’t tell me much. Just the main bits.”

“He was…” Xander exhales. “A great guy. He was the kind of person who made rooms feel bigger when he walked into them. Loud. Reckless. Annoying as hell.” A pause. “Best musician I’ve ever known.”

He stares down at his hands. “We were coming back from a festival in Chicago. Snowstorm hit halfway through the drive.” His jaw tightens hard. “Truck lost control.”

Silence crashes into the room. I can practically feel the memory pressing down on him.

“He died instantly,” Xander says. “I didn’t.”

The rawness in his voice nearly undoes me.

Because I understand him differently. Not just the intensity, the control, the grief.

The kind that never really leaves.

I move closer before I fully think about it. My hand settles gently over his, and he goes completely still beneath my touch.

“I’m so sorry.”

“Everybody says that.”

I nod. “I mean it.”

“I know.”

He turns his hand beneath mine until our fingers slide together naturally.

“I couldn’t go back after that,” he says. “Couldn’t stand the cameras. The interviews. People asking how I was healing like my grief was some kind of fucking press release.” Anger flashes briefly across his face now. “I started pulling away from everything.” His thumb brushes once absently against my knuckles. “The band. Fame. My fiancée. And then Dylan happened.”

Every muscle in his body tightens.

“Xander—”

“She slept with him, and I found out three weeks after Josiah died.”

My chest physically hurts for him.

“She said I was disappearing,” he says flatly. “And maybe she was right. Maybe I already left before she did.”

“You were grieving.”

“I was drowning.”

The honesty in that sentence guts me.

Xander leans forward again, elbows on his knees, hands clasped tightly together. “And now, this,” he mutters bitterly. “Dylan stirring shit up online. Dragging you into it.”

I hesitate carefully. “Do you really think he leaked it?”