bubble: BAILEY. For a moment I’d almost forgotten I’d been waiting to hear back from him. But now that he’d responded, I almost didn’t want to open it. Just seeing his name there was more than I’d gotten from him in weeks, and I didn’t want that ruined if the message inside was anything less than positive.
I took a deep breath in and then told myself to stop being such a coward, then clicked on the message and waited for it to open. What I saw staring back at me made my eyes blur.
Tell me what time and where. We never miss birthdays.
I closed my eyes and fell back against the wall, my knees threatening to give out. I’d been wondering if he would remember, and now I had my answer. He might be angry with me, and hurt by what had happened, but he wasn’t ready to give up on us any more than I was, and that gave me a glimmer of hope.
19
Sean
“SEAN?”
XANDER’S VOICE carried up the hallway as he shut the front door, and I was struck by the power he had to calm me by merely calling out my name.
All day I’d been dealing with curious looks, whispers behind my back, and more phone calls than I’d ever received in my life. That one article in Entertainment Now! had set off a chain reaction I’d had no hope of stopping.
I’d dealt with it, one fire after another, but as I sat in my living room, where there was nothing but all this loud noise in my head, I’d never been more thankful to see Xander walk through the door.
“Sean? Are you in here?”
“I’m here,” I said, and Xander stepped into the room.
“Why are you sitting in the dark?”
“I needed some peace and quiet.”
Xander shrugged out of his jacket, then tossed it over the arm of the love seat. “It was a long day.”
No shit. It wasn’t every day that your face and love life ended up in the gossip magazines. By six o’clock it had been all over the entertainment news shows too. “Yeah, it was.”
Xander loosened his tie and was about to move to the love seat when I reached for his wrist.
“Sit with me.”
He looked down at my lap and then sat across it. I pushed my toes to the floor, making the recliner rock.
“You okay? I’m sorry I didn’t get a chance to call. I only found out about the article before hair and makeup.” Xander searched my face for some kind of response, and if he’d asked me an hour or so ago, my answer would’ve been a definite no.
But as I sat with him in my arms, I realized I didn’t care who knew we were together. The genie was out of the bottle—or the closet—and I wasn’t about to stuff it back in.
“Sean?”
“Yeah, sorry. What?”
“I asked if you were okay.”
I stroked my hand up and down his thigh and nodded. “I am now.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah. Things were a little hectic today, but this is exactly what I needed.”
“Me in your lap?”
“Always.”
Xander frowned. “Did you read the article?”
After Wagner had all but shoved it down my throat, I’d gone back and found it online. So by the time Xander had sent the text warning me about it, I’d well and truly had that sucker memorized.
“Yeah, I read it.”
“I’m sorry. I don’t know where they got all their information from. But rest assured I’m going to track that person down and give them hell.”
Although he was being dead serious, I couldn’t help but smile. “Hell, huh?”
“Yes. That was a huge violation of our privacy. They had no right to tell people what they did, and there was only a handful of people who knew.”
“It’s okay—”
“It’s not okay.”
“Well, no, but…” I took in a deep breath and then let it out. “Everything that was in there was true. Who I am, why I was there, that I’ve fallen in love with you. It’s all true, Xander. I don’t give a fuck who knows that. I just wish I’d had a bit of a heads-up so that dipshit Wagner didn’t have the chance to get under my skin the he way he did.”
Xander’s lips twitched. “Does he still have all his teeth?”
“Yeah, thanks to Nichols. But it was close.”
“I don’t doubt it. I remember the way you used to, um, discuss your differences with people.”
I kissed the side of Xander’s head and grinned. “That was a long time ago. I don’t get into random