Haven Harbor • a.i. •

Chapter 38

Ashton's PoV:

"She has no social media presence right?" The bands general manager Adam sat in front of me.

"No, none." I answered, my hands holding my head up from crashing onto the light wooded table.

"What about her friends? Anyone that could see the photo and show her?" He asked and I opened my mouth to reply no again when I was interrupted.

"Ari." Michael piped up and my head snapped to look at him. "I saw her on Twitter when we were waiting at the hospital."

"Damn it." I muttered.

"We're all over Twitter, how has Ari not seen anything. She seems like the type to be all into pop culture." Calum said from his seat next to Michael.

"She is." I answered. "I just don't think we're popular enough for Ari to be following us. That or she knows who we are and just hasn't put the pieces together."

"Until someone she follows retweets that picture or something we tweet and she finds out." Michael commented.

"Ash, you've gotta tell her. Someone in Haven has already had to have seen that photo and is going to tell her, or Ari is going to find out and do it for you." Calum shook his head. "You had your chance to tell her and you waited too long."

"This is going to blow over. We'll be more careful. As long as we don't get photographed again, the fans will forget about it in a month." I tried to explain.

"A month? You want to keep this secret for another month?" Luke's head shot up, wide eyed.

"Well I-"

"Look, if you really loved Carter, you'd tell her the damn truth." Calum said in a stern voice.

"I'm not telling her because I love her, I'm trying to protect her." I defended my actions but they weren't having it.

"No, you're trying to protect yourself because you lied to her in the first place and now you can't get out of it without losing her." Luke snapped back and I let out a groan of frustration.

Looking down I stared at the printed out photo laying on the table.

There I was, kissing Carters forehead, my mother holding Ender's hand next to us, and Ari and Jason walking out of the doors behind us.

How did I let it get this far?

My hand had been gripping the the table so hard that my knuckles were white and I figured I was going to snap off a piece off the wood at any moment so I let go.

I took a deep breath and then released it, trying to to calm myself down.

"I'm going to tell her, I am. But now, is just not the right time." I said in a lower tone.

"Is it ever really going to be the right time?" Michael asked, moving his hand for emphasis.

I sighed loudly.

"At least give me till the end of the UK tour. I can go back to Haven and tell her and have time to fix things up if it goes bad, or at least convince her to come on tour with us." I suggested.

"You want three weeks?" Luke asked.

"Yes." I nodded. "Let me and Calum go this weekend and scope out how it's going to work and after the tour I'll go back and tell her."

The room was quiet for a moment as we let it sink in and then suddenly Michael began to chuckle behind me.

All of our heads turned to look at him with strange looks.