She might have protected him from an unexpected attacker on the red carpet, but she didn’t know how to protect him from himself.
The driver parked the car at the hotel entrance, and Lauren took a slow, deep breath before opening the passenger door. As the three of them climbed out and gathered their minimal luggage, a crowd of fans descended on both actors.
Those fans paid her no attention. Good.
Even as Marcus and Alex eventually made their way to the reception desk in the airy, sprawling lobby, no one seemed to realize she was accompanying the two men. Or if they did, they didn’t care. Which was the correct reaction, because she didn’t matter.
Once they’d all checked in—Ron had approved Marcus and Alex staying together in a suite, so she had her own room on another floor—they prepared to go their separate ways.
That tether tugged at her chest again, harder than ever, but she ignored it. It was better for her not to be in his immediate vicinity. Safer.
After pocketing her room key, she gave both men a nod. “I’ll see you at your Q-and-A session, Alex. Have a good evening, Marcus.”
When they stood so close, it hurt her neck to look up at them.
It hurt her heart too.
They were both tall, both exceedingly beautiful, both stars with their own powerful gravitational pulls. Soon enough, though, she’d have to wrench herself out of Alex’s orbit and float out into space, a satellite adrift once more.
He was speaking, gesturing to her, but the buzz of the crowd, of her thoughts, drowned him out. Was he saying something about walking her to her room?
In all honesty, she would love a buffer on the way there, especially since some of the convention’s attendees might recognize her from the red-carpet video. She should go on her own, though. That was the right thing to do.
So she pointed apologetically at her ear, mouthed I can’t hear you, and fled as Alex’s grin transformed into a scowl, Marcus watched them with a gaze as sharp as his best friend’s tongue, and fans with phones poised for selfies descended on both men.
When she got into the elevator, Alex’s aggrieved stare from across the lobby seared the side of her face, and she had to turn away and hide behind the closing door.
Yes, she was doing the right thing.
But leaving Alex felt wrong, wrong, wrong.
OTHER THAN WREN’S abrupt, exceedingly rude departure, everything else was proceeding according to Alex’s very wise and well-thought-out plan.
He and Marcus had entered their blue-and-gold suite minutes before, then claimed their chosen bedrooms and unpacked. Or, in Alex’s case, opened up his suitcase on the provided luggage rack and called it a day, because he didn’t unpack for trips of less than a week.
The rooms were comfortable but generic, and they didn’t matter. What did matter: Alex’s commitment to continual, provoking conversation. It was a particular skill of his, cultivated over decades, and it proved as effective as always.
Marcus was thoroughly distracted from his lovelorn misery, and would remain so, at least until Alex’s upcoming Q&A session. But Alex figured he could guilt his best friend into coming along and staying the whole time, no problem. And after the two of them were done with their con obligations for the night, he’d badger Lauren into joining them for dinner.
A better person would let her have the night off, now that he’d been safely deposited into Marcus’s custody. But Alex wasn’t a better person, obviously, and he wanted Wren and Marcus to know one another. He wanted them to get along.
Just because it would be awkward if they didn’t, what with her babysitting him until the final season finished airing. Since Marcus was back in L.A., the three of them would clearly be spending a lot of time together.
Although, in theory, she wouldn’t need to be present if Marcus was.
Whatever. Alex’s friends should be friends too. That was only logical.
While Marcus got ice from the nearest machine, Alex sprawled stomach-down on the bed, propped himself up on his elbows, and texted Lauren.
You abandoned meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee, you heartless harpy, he tapped out.
One minute passed. Two. No response, and no Marcus with ice.
Both his closest friends were slow as fucking molasses in winter.
You owe me a good dinner in compensation, he added. I’ll pay, because I know you hate that, and it’ll be just punishment for your various sins. Marcus will come too, because whenever I don’t distract him, he looks like an abandoned kitten, and his face may very well freeze that way, and who would cast him then? Besides, he likes you. He said so on the way to our suite. Do you like him?