CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Alex came off stage with his arm around Victor, and the man pulled him into a hug right after they passed the next presenters.
"Thank you for what you said out there. It's always been such a pleasure to watch you grow and I'm honored to have been a part of that."
"You still are." Alex hugged him back. "I haven't forgotten your lessons."
Victor pulled away to look at him. "What about the one about building a life outside of all this?"
Alex couldn't help but grin. "I'm in the process, actually."
"Huh, okay, okay." Victor gripped his arms before stepping back. "I'm looking forward to hearing all about it, then. Shoot me an email and we'll set up something."
"I will, but you should go now." Alex nodded towards the reporter and the camera man waiting for Victor a few steps away. "We don't want to make them wait for too long."
With that, he followed an usher to the press room that Alex had promised to show up in for a few minutes in exchange for skipping the red carpet earlier.
It started off fine—a few questions about where he'd been, what had brought him here tonight, and what his favorite memory of working with Victor was.
Each of them standard and pretty easy, which was a relief, since Alex hadn't done a big live press event in a while and he only now realized he was nervous about it.
And that was when the bomb dropped, of course.
"Have you heard about the recent fallout between your former bandmates?" the tall reporter from the back asked. "Any comment on that?"
Alex could feel his hands getting sweaty as he leaned harder on his cane.
"I haven't heard anything about that and I have no comment on the matter."
"There are photos of them fighting and Connor storming off."
Of course there are.
Of course.
As soon as he left this room, Alex was going straight home.
"Like I said, I haven't heard anything about it, and I've been very clear for years now that I'm not going to speculate on my former bandmates in any way. I'm still standing by that."
Luckily, before the man could push further, one of the producers announced Victor was on his way, which allowed Alex to make his exit gracefully.
He asked for a car to take him home the moment they were out of earshot and while the usher seemed startled at first, she quickly nodded and motioned for him to wait in one of the empty rooms as she arranged it.
Ten minutes later, he was in the back of a limousine—much fancier than the one he'd arrived in, but he figured they didn't need it right now for the stars of the night, who were still at the ceremony.
With the partition raised between him and the driver, he texted Ian, then counted to ten before calling Emily.
"Hey, you."
She sounded like she'd been crying, and it was tempting to let it go and to soothe her instead.
But he couldn't. Not this time, and, most likely, never again.
"I just got ambushed at the press event," he told her in lieu of a greeting. "You could have warned me, at least."
"It happened, like, this morning! I'm sorry that my first thought isn't to tell you about it. Like I don't know what you're going to say!"
"It's not about what I'm going to say, since it's clear that you don't care about what I think at all. It's about giving me the very basic courtesy of a warning before I learn about it from the press in real time."
"I didn't tell him the whole story!"
Alex closed his eyes and thumped his head on the back of his seat. "What did you tell him, then?"
"We were talking about treatments and hospitals versus other facilities, and when he asked why I've been in the hospital, I didn't want to lie, so I told him about staying in one after giving birth."
Didn't want to lie.
As if she walked into such a topic not knowing what would follow.
"And the surrogacy?"
"Well, since he already knew I wasn't rising a child, it was either that or giving the baby up for adoption, so yeah, he knows about that, too."
"And he knows it's mine."
"I told you I wanted to tell him!"
"And I told you why it was a bad idea—not to mention outside of bounds of our legal agreement that you signed. Clearly, it happened like I predicted, since there are photos of the two of you on the internet, with him making a scene and storming off. With you following, of course."
He could have swallowed back that last part, and he would have, in the past. He was through making her life easy, though, when he was the one paying the price now—or would be, once Connor spoke to the press.
"Fuck you, Alex," she spat. "Holier than thou, as if you weren't—"
"I'm not doing this with you, Emily," he cut in, clutching his phone hard enough to hurt.
"You agreed to every rule we set up for this.
We set them up, because we both know what this life could be like and how careful we need to be.
And you understood as well as I did why we needed to be particularly careful this time around.
I have never, not once, forced you into anything, and I wouldn't. You know this.
And yet, here we are. You're the one going back on your word and yet you try to blame it on me.
Sounds familiar, doesn't it? Have a nice life. "
He disconnected the call and saw Ian had been trying to call him, but the car was already slowing down before his building, so he figured he might as well talk to Ian in person.
After hugging him for an hour and staring at Boo for twice as long, reminding himself that his baby was safe.
As the car stopped, Alex inhaled deeply and stepped out without waiting for the driver to open the door for him. He thanked him and turned, only to see Ian coming his way.
"What—" Alex started to ask, his gaze going up towards the windows of their apartment, but before he could finish the thought, another voice cut through.
"It's you, it's always you!" Connor shouted as he ran towards him. "I'll fucking kill you this time, I swear, there's no—"
Alex plastered himself to the car that thankfully hadn't left yet, but before his former bandmate could get to him, Ian was there. He grabbed Connor and pulled his arm behind his back before sending him to the ground until Connor was face to face with the sidewalk.
"Don't move," Ian told him, then looked up at Alex. "Get inside before the crowd gathers, and call the police. I'll wait for them right here."
A part of Alex wanted to protest, to say that was an overreaction, but the rest of him was freaking out, so he pulled out his phone and dialed 9-1-1 as he hurried towards the building.
Once inside, with his heart still hammering but the door firmly closed between him and Connor, Alex managed to breathe easier and his conversation with the dispatcher was hopefully coherent enough.
He made sure to let her know that the Latino man holding the attacker on the ground was the hero of the story and not the villain, in case they sent a wrong kind of an officer to the scene.
The small, opaque window was enough to watch the events unfold, with Connor trying to fight Ian off, unsuccessfully, and the man who'd driven Alex home stepping out of the car and keeping the onlookers from coming too close.
Then, yet another man showed up, and it took Alex a few seconds to recognize Kalei Lee, Ian's boss and the owner of KRK Security. Ian talked to him while still keeping Connor down, and the man nodded and moved to help with the crowd control until the police finally arrived.
As Alex watched the officer putting the cuffs on Connor and leading him to the squad car, his vision blurred with tears he did not want to shed.
Fuck. What an absolute mess.