“But Iwasright. This was a good idea.”
Pulling his shoulders back, Cameron sniffed haughtily. “I never said it wasn’t.”
“Right,” Asher scoffed. “My bad. I guess it was my other neurotic boyfriend who made a categorized list of all the ways this could go wrong.”
Cameron’s nose scrunched as he furrowed his brow. “That guy sounds like a dick. You should totally dump him and stick with me. I’m clearly the better choice.”
Laughing right from his belly, Asher bent and pressed a kiss to Cameron’s creased forehead. “You are insane.”
“You love me.” Cameron shrugged. “What does that say about you?”
Asher didn’t miss a beat. “That I have impeccable taste. Obviously.”
“Obviously. You know, that’s not…” Whatever he’d been about to say trailed away into nothing.
Looking up to see what had caught his attention, Asher grimaced when he spotted his parents crossing the lobby as they headed toward the bank of elevators that led to the parking garage. Their eyes met, and for a moment, he thought they would say something. Without any cameras to play up to, however, they seemed disinclined to even acknowledge his existence, both of them ducking their heads as they hurried past him.
Asher gave a mental shrug. That suited him just fine.
At the last minute, his mother looked up from inside the elevator, their eyes met, and she leveled him with a glare of pure, unmasked loathing. Lifting his hand, he gaveher a little wave and smirked, immensely enjoying the way her face mottled an angry red before the doors slid closed.
“What a bitch,” Cameron mumbled, all of his previous happiness deflating. “I didn’t know any of those things you said in the interview.” His hand tightened around Asher’s. “I’m so sorry you went through that.”
“Thank you, but I’m okay.” He meant it. Purging those secrets, confronting his parents, it had been like sucking poison out of his soul. “They don’t matter anymore.”
Cameron glanced toward the closed, innocuous elevators again with narrowed eyes as if the metal doors themselves had offended him. “What do you think they’re going to do now?”
“I don’t know.”
Maybe they’d try to do damage control with more interviews. Maybe they’d go home and blend quietly back into society like nothing had ever happened. It didn’t matter, and he really didn’t care.
An errant thought made him snort.
“What?” Cameron looked up at him curiously.
“They moved after I disappeared. Not because of whatever bullshit reason my mom gave, but because the shame would have been too much.” He could barely get the words out through his laughter. “After this interview, they’re probably going to have to move again.”
Catching on to the joke, Cameron chuckled along with him. “My heart bleeds for them. Really, it does.”
His dry sarcasm only made Asher laugh harder.
“Sorry to break this up,” Ryder said, appearing at Asher’s side from seemingly nowhere. He nodded toward the row of glass doors that made up the street level exit of the studio. “It’s showtime.”
Asher swallowed down a groan. He really hated this part, but Talon had stressed how important it was that he follow up his appearance onWake Up, Dallasby addressing questions from the media. Naturally, Asher had protested, insisting being bombarded with questions from reporters defeated the purpose of the interview in the first place.
A part of him still wanted to slip away to the parking garage and avoid the media circus gathering on the sidewalk out front, but Talon hadn’t steered him wrong yet. If he thought it was important, Asher trusted him.
“Are you ready?” Cameron asked, his attention on the exit as he adjusted his grip on Asher’s hand to link their fingers together.
No, but they might as well get it over with. “Let’s go.”
Reporters converged on them the minute they stepped through the doors. Their shouted questions blended together with the click of cameras and the scuff of shuffling feet, coalescing into a cacophony of unintelligible sound. Flashbulbs blinded him, forcing him to duck his head as Ryder led them deeper into the sea of frantic bodies.
“Asher, is it true that your parents are here at the studio?”
He couldn’t see who had asked the question, but he nodded. “They were.”
“…you reconciled?”
