16. Chapter Sixteen #2
As soon as I’m through the door of my hotel room, I drop my backpack and suitcase and leave them where they land. Camera and phone come with me to the couch.
I dump both on the coffee table, flop down, and grab my phone first. Liam’s name sits at the top of my favorites. I hit it and put the call on speaker, then pick up my camera and wake it up, scrolling through the Lisbon shots on the tiny screen.
Stage lights. Sweat. Carter’s profile half in shadow. A fan in the front row crying, mascara streaked and beautiful. I really need to run another backup tonight—this is gold.
“Hey, how’s it going?” Liam answers on the third ring.
“Good. How’re Anne and the baby?”
“They’re doing well. Both of them,” he says, and I can hear his grin down the line.
“You got a name yet?” I ask while I zoom in on a shot of Xander’s guitar solo. They’ve certainly taken their sweet ass time announcing one.
“Indigo.”
“Really?” I say, the end of the word pitching up into a squeak.
“Yup.” He sounds smug. “Figured if she turns out half as strong as her aunt, she’ll be set for life.”
I stare at a blurred crowd shot and see nothing. “I don’t know what to say.”
“Don’t go mushy on me now,” he warns.
I snort. “No promises.”
There’s a rustle, the sound of him shifting the phone, and a soft wail in the background.
“Everything good with you?” he asks.
“All good.” I click over the backstage photos, Carter laughing at something Kai said, head tipped back, eyes crinkled. I clear my throat. “Listen, I know you’re on leave and busy with . . . Indigo.” I try her name for the first time, loving how it sounds. “But I wanted to ask you a favor.”
“Shoot. Anything.”
I blow out a breath down my nose. “Carter is going to call you later,” I say. “And he’s going to tell you something. I need you not to freak out. Okay?”
“Vi . . .” he cautions, and his whole tone flips. The soft new-dad glow drops; Pulse’s manager shows up instead. “What the fuck is going on?”
I tilt my head back against the couch and stare at the ceiling. “He thinks his liver is failing,” I state plainly. “He’s been burying his head in the sand for a while. When he calls, I need you not to lose your shit at him. I already did that.”
“What?!” The word cracks across the speaker. “Why the hell hasn’t he said anything?”
I wince and lower the volume on the phone. I can hear Anne’s voice in the background.
“Shit. Sorry,” he mutters, muffling the receiver. “Hang on.”
There’s movement, footsteps, the sound of a door closing. When he comes back, his voice is lower.
“Okay,” he says. “Explain.”
“I don’t know why he didn’t tell you. Pride, maybe? Stubbornness. Terror. Take your pick. I think the years of partying finally caught up with him, and he’s pissed at himself for turning into Maeve.”
He exhales sharply. “Oh, fuck.”
“Yeah.”
I lean my elbows on my knees, camera hanging from my hands.
“I wanted to give you a heads-up before he calls,” I continue.
“I want you to handle this better than I did. I didn’t react well.
Instead of sympathy, I basically called him an idiot and a child.
I’m thinking it’ll work better if you come at it from a different angle.
With a little more . . . poise.” I scrunch my nose. “Less theatrical homicide.”
He chuckles. “I bet you ripped him a new one.”
“Yup.” I pick at my nail polish with my thumb. “Not my finest moment. I’m working on it.”
“I know you are.”
We sit in a small pocket of silence.
“Can you arrange a gap in his schedule to see a doctor?”
“Absolutely,” he says without hesitation. “Who else knows about this? We need to keep a tight ship. Press can’t catch wind of it.”
“No one,” I respond. “Not even Chris.”
“Good. Let’s keep it that way.”
“How are you going to get him to a hospital without Chris and security finding out?” I ask.
“Leave it with me,” he says. I can practically hear the gears turning, routes and timings and fake meetings lining up in his head.
I let out a long breath. “Okay. Thank you, Liam.”
“Thanks for giving me the heads-up. You’re right, I would’ve flipped my shit otherwise.”
I snort. “I know.”
There’s a muted knock, then Anne’s voice comes through the door, calling his name. “I gotta go,” he says. “I’ll let you know what’s happening once I’ve set it up.”
“Give Indigo a kiss for me,” I say.
“Will do.”
The line clicks off.
I sink deeper into the couch, lifting the camera again. Thumb to the wheel, click, click, click. From Lisbon to Madrid.
I hit the newest set, and there it is. The shot from the airport.
I pause.
In the frame, the fan’s chest is front and center, bra half visible, boobs pushed together and up. Her face is turned toward him, lit from inside, pure joy and disbelief plastered across her features. It’s the expression of a woman who has waited years for this moment.
But that’s not what holds me.
My focus is on him.
His face is turned straight at the camera, straight at me. Pen in hand, frozen midair, his posture angled toward her, but his attention on me.
His brows are drawn just enough to show it’s not a pose. His eyes are wide open and unguarded, bright blue beneath wind-tousled hair, a question sitting there so clearly, it may as well be a caption.
Is this okay?
I zoom in until his features fill the tiny screen. The faint red at the tip of his nose from the cold. The flip of his leather collar. The outdoor light catches his iris, turning the startling blue into the color of ice.
It’s Carter stripped bare, a moment of pure vulnerability. A true representation of who he is as a person, and deep down, into his soul.
One of the best photographs I’ve ever taken. My thumb hovers over the trash icon on instinct. This doesn’t belong in any folder that might one day get dragged into a documentary cut or an album release. It’s too personal.
Too mine.
I should delete it.
My thumb falls away. Instead, I sit there, staring at that small, stolen moment of him looking straight through the lens at me, a stranger’s breasts blurred in the foreground with nothing but pure devotion on her face.
The contrast is exquisite. I lower the camera slowly. No one will ever see this shot. Not the band, Megan, or PrimeTime+. Not even Carter.
Some images are for the world.
This one is for me.