Forced | cake au ✓

Chapter TWENTY-SEVEN

Edited - 8/2/19

Warning: Minor PG-rated scene at the middle.

Luke

I wanted nothing more than to just stay in that room with Calum. Both of us just sitting down, enjoying the silence and basking in each other's company after months of being apart.

When we heard voices outside the door, we figured it was time to meet Andrew on the stage. Mercifully, nobody was in the hallway when we got out. Seeing Calum and I walk out an empty room surely would've raised some questions. The silence that settled between us was comfortable.

Andrew was stood in the middle of the stage, holding his phone up to his ear with a hand on his hip. He ended the call once we stopped a few feet away.

"Hey lads," He smiled at us. "Perfect timing. I just got off the phone with both of your managers. Ms. Wilkins requested that you be photographed together, to further confirm what the fans just saw."

Here we go.

It was comforting that Andrew looked at Calum almost like he was sorry. "As with all concerts, most paparazzi will be waiting just outside the arena," Andrew continued nevertheless. "You'll be escorted—"

Calum's phone started ringing. He excused himself before walking towards the left side of the stage, phone pressed to his ear.

"You know," Andrew said after a moment. "Nobody should be forced into what you guys are doing." His face held so much sympathy I almost couldn't look at him. Before I came to the concert and had talked with Andrew on the phone, he told me that he was briefed about Calum and I's situation. Again, he was bound to secrecy.

"It's okay, it comes with the job," I didn't know if that was making Andrew's perspective on the situation a little more optimistic. "He and I are doing okay now."

"You weren't before?"

Yes. No. "It's complicated, also a very long story."

"Before I started working around celebrities, I thought things like this never happened." Andrew sighed, crossing his arms. I wondered how long he's been a tour manager, and whom he had worked with in the past.

"I did, too." It was true. Before becoming an actor then a model shortly after, I never would have guessed that celebrities were actually coerced by their management to do things for publicity, and not because they wanted to do it.

Before either Andrew and I could speak again, Calum was making his way back. "Patricia," He said without me needing to ask.

Somebody shouted Andrew's name from the other side of the stage. "Be right there!" He called out. "You boys can head back to the dressing room. Once Ashton and Michael come back, we can have Jensen escort you two out towards a separate vehicle."

I nodded before Andrew took off. "What'd she say?" I asked Calum. Both of us began to walk off the stage, heading back to the direction we came from.

"She did most of the talking." Calum cleared his throat. "Although, I did ask her if it was possible that you and I could just spend the rest of my short time here in Sydney without her or Dave telling us what to do and without a bunch of cameras following us everywhere we go."