One More Time - Ali Parker Page 0,12

going to be okay.

Also, as much as I’d made the suggestion because I wanted to do well for GNM, I also really wanted that interview with Caleb. It would be interesting to get to know him better, and I really, really wanted that.

Chapter 5

Caleb

“She wants to do what?” I asked disbelievingly. I’d been sarcastic at that fucking interview yesterday. Well, mostly sarcastic, since I really did think that the tour would be a test for Jared and Alicia. I hadn’t actually been serious or creating “brotherly conflict” as the spin was now calling it.

Waves crashed outside the conference room at Alicia’s offices. The sky was about as black and angry as I was in this late afternoon. Jared, as always, found the whole situation funny. He was amused as hell and thought that it was hilarious that anyone would think we were fighting over this.

Alicia played with her shiny engagement ring, twisting it around her finger as her eyes lifted to mine. She was being uncharacteristically tentative. “Kelly thinks that we might be able to garner some press by playing up this angle. Fuel the flames of the rumor fire just a little, in a manner of speaking.”

“And she would do this by interviewing me?” Looking around the large conference table, the same room, apparently, where Madison broke the fake baby news to Jared and Alicia, I wondered if I should’ve known it could be disastrous news when we were called in here.

“Yeah, that’s what she asked for. An interview with you as a follow-up to the question she asked yesterday. In other words, are Jared and Caleb Larsen on the outs because of the engagement?”

“That’s idiotic,” I grumbled, ignoring the asshole in the back of my mind who was yelling that it wasn’t idiotic, that Jared—of all fucking people—finding that kind of happiness after everything he’d done and on top of everything else he had was a cruel twist of fate.

Especially since that kind of happiness wasn’t for me, when—

No! I shut the thought down so violently that the box I shoved it back into rattled from the force of it. Dom was watching me curiously, his gray eyes stormy as ever.

Out of everyone here, he was the one who would come the closest to understanding what was truly going through my head, so I looked to him first. “What do you think, man?”

“I agree with you that it’s fucking idiotic, but I’ll go along with whatever the rest of you decide. This is your choice, and Jared’s. Yeah, it’ll bring the tour publicity, but this is your real lives. Up to you.” He crossed his arms and sat back in his chair, clearly done raising his opinion. There was doubt plastered in his eyes, but as always, Dom had been completely straightforward in his opinion.

“It’s not idiotic,” Jared countered. “The public eats shit like this up for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. We all know the truth. So what if we play around with the mirrors when they’re already blowing the smoke our way?”

Nick and Matt nodded at Jared’s oversimplification of the issue. Then Nick shrugged. “I’m in. As long as I don’t have to actually do anything.”

“I second Nick’s thoughts,” Matt added cheerfully. God, nothing got those two down.

“You don’t think that’s an overly simple way of looking at it?” I asked my brother, since it appeared that I was the one who was stuck playing devil’s advocate here, what with even Alicia leaving it up to the two of us.

“How is it an oversimplification? It’s the facts. The fans are already speculating about it, which means there’s smoke coming from a fire that we might, or might not, help fuel while placing the mirrors where we want them to create maximum publicity for the tour.”

Alicia stood up from her black leather chair, placing her palms flat on the conference table. “I’ll leave this to you. I’ll see you all tomorrow.”

She turned to leave, but Jared lightly grabbed her wrist and tugged her toward him, kissing her like he was a dying man and this was his one last shot at goodbye. At that, three more chairs scraped back, and the rest of the guys begged off too.

Since Jared had been devouring her face, Alicia was the last one out the door, and she shot us a final, worried look before closing the door behind her. Jared stared at the spot she’d been standing in for a couple of beats before coming out with it pointblank.

“Do you have