Page 106 of The Moon & His Tides
“Not now. Get in the car.” I watched Savannah mouth to him before opening the door and shoving me inside.
I went willingly, cold and drifting like some spirit through the ether. I imagined the graves of Gregory, Bryce, and my mother cropping up in the car park, empty graves with markers reserved for Sebastian and Savannah and myself beside them.
When Savannah got in on the other side, I said woodenly, “What is it, then?”
She was already on her phone, tapping away madly. When she froze, eyes wide on the screen, I winced at her curse.
She wasn’t a woman who swore.
“Bad?” I asked, but I couldn’t hear my own question through the static.
I stared at my hands, touched my fingers together experimentally and found I could not feel them.
She was talking to Sebastian, voice clipped, and then raising her phone to her ear to call someone.
Probably my agent and publicist.
Something touched my knee.
Sebastian.
I didn’t flinch this time because I seemed to have lost sensation in my limbs.
“Here,” Sebastian mouthed and pushed his phone into my hands.
I looked down at the grenade thrown into my life.
A single photo.
The latest article ofThe Daily Spread.
Adam Meyers Caught Kissing A Bloke!
We weren’t kissing.
But we were closer than you saw most mates on most days.
The shot had been taken at Croyde Beach months ago, the day of my birthday when Sebastian had taken us to meet Linnea for surf lessons. We were in the shallows, laughing so hard our faces were creased and contorted. I remembered the moment vividly.
I’d just tackled Sebastian to the sand, pinning him there with my whole body and using my one hand to secure his hands above his head so I could smear wet sand on his face and chest.
The photo caught us body to body in the froth-frilled edge of the ocean with my hand above his head, the other pressed flat tohis naked chest, and our faces too close together, smiling those bright, wild smiles that spoke of fierce, unguarded happiness.
I’d never seen such an expression on my face outside of films.
And some fucking sleaze had captured it and sold it to this drivel to derail my entire life for a few hundred quid.
“FUCK!” I roared, hurling the phone into the half-raised partition, where it cracked harshly and fell soundlessly to the carpet.
“Adam––” Sebastian said quietly.
“Shut up,” Savannah snapped. “Both of you. I’m handling this.”
We both quieted.
For my part, not because I cared about whoever she was talking to on the phone––I doubted they could do much to rectify the damage.
But because I was having a full-blown panic attack.
