Page 63 of Thick as Thieves
He turns to me. “Xander, are you still for the fuck them don’t say a word, if the band goes pop then so be it?”
Gabe gasps at that, but I nod. “Yes. I don’t see why it affects anything, but fair enough. If people don’t want to buy our music anymore, then fine.”
“They’ll probably buy more. It’s a weird thing,” Tim puts in. “Marcus?”
“I keep swinging backwards and forwards. If we do, they’ll try to get photos of us, then the kids. ‘Who do they look like?’ and all that shit.” Everyone starts to laugh.
“They look like you and James, so that story will be a short one,” says Levi.
“Then they’ll try and get photos of us all snogging or fucking, so they can prove we are a three. In a way, I think, fuck it, let’s go for it. Say yes, so fucking what? What are you gonna do about it?” He stops and smiles at Evie. “We are married, it was legal. If I want to have an affair with anyone, it wouldn’t be illegal, so why are they up a height over this? In fact, it isn’t illegal for us to be together. Some people won’t like it, nowadays, though others won’t be bothered beyond the initial facts.” He squeezes Evie’s leg and turns to her. “What do you think?”
“I’m a bit of both. I don’t want to have to explain my relationships, but I know, either way, they’ll keep coming. Trying to prove things or disprove them. I think we could put a statement out as a family, or maybe just from Marcus, saying he loves his family.” She smiles at us all. “That is true, after all.”
She pauses, and I see the pain flash in her eyes. She knows the score, knows how it will play out. It’s a game older than time. But I also see determination swimming in those eyes, a storm of defiance, and it makes my heart soar.
“I think if we go with Marcus’s view, tell them all, they’ll want to dig into who does what to who. People are weird like that. Questions they would never normally ask, but if you’re out in left field, they feel happy asking. And the more we answer, the more in-depth and personal the questions will get. It will never stop. Whereas, if we say nothing, they’ll just keep asking the ‘Is it true?’ one, for a while anyway. I’m not bothered to tell anyone anything. What I think is what matters. End of.”
“Are you worried it will affect James and Bucky’s band?” asks Gabe.
“If it fucking does, then?—”
“Bucky and I support my mum. If anyone asks me anything, I just intend to say I don’t discuss anyone else’s marriages or love lives, and especially my parents. I think we can just pass it off, but again, I’m with Papa—if it means people don’t want our music, I’ll go do something else. I think I’ll make a fucking amazing lord of the manor.”
Marcus is smirking at him. “Cocky little shit, I love it. You totally would.”
“Or I’ll go with mum and build things, or Jonno, and make billions in tech. Or make whiskey with Marshall. I’m not short of options. So in a way, I think, actually, let’s say nothing at all about any of it.”
Bucky chimes in from the speaker phone, “I agree with James. I’ve got A level Geography, I can do anything I fucking want.”
We all laugh at that. These boys are so ‘fuck you, take us or leave us.’ It must be a Greystone thing. Jonno, Jude, and Jackson are the same. She hammered the behaviour into all of them.
“Gabe? Levi?” Tim asks them.
“Well, I don’t want to stop the band,” says Gabe, looking over at me.
“I didn’t say I wanted to, Gabe. I said if people cancel us, then we won’t have a choice. But not everyone will,” I tell him.
He goes on. “I’m not in favour of telling everyone everything. You think it’s going to help and stop the speculation, but like Evie says, they just move onto the next bit, so it never stops. We can always send Marcus onto another American morning TV show, or even late night, and get all the women oohing and ahhing. In fact, we could send them both.” He points to Marcus and James. “The ladies would agree to anything if you two go on. Then we can show a picture of those two.” He points to the twins. “It’d end in more love for us all.”
“But maybe not Evie?” says Tim, voicing my biggest fear.
“I’m with Xander,” adds Levi. “Just carry on. People will figure it out, or they’ll make it up, whatever. They’ll agree or they won’t. A statement won’t change it. If security gets bad, we can appeal to people. If they have kids, they’ll understand.”
“So we're all agreed we do nothing. No statements, just business as usual. We’ll keep getting questions vetted for chat shows and interviews, and we can decide as we go if we want to answer.”
We all nod in agreement.
Evie’s biting her lip. Marcus zeros in on her, and I stand up, addressing the room in general. “Right, people, I’m shoving you all out.”
Valentina comes and takes the babies and they’re whisked off to bed. James hugs us all, including Gabe and Levi, he talks a bit to Tim, and then moves towards the stairs.
“We going out, Gabe? Levi?” he asks, over his shoulder. “I could do with a bit of a club night. Your old bones up for it?” he jokes at them.
Tim looks a bit concerned, but Mick nods at Zak.
“Don’t draw attention to yourselves,” advises Tim. They all laugh at that.
“We’re taking James out. You got no chance. It’s worse than taking Marcus back in the day. We get mobbed,” says Gabe, grinning like a mad man.
