Page 126 of Everything After

“Does it really matter?” Alfie muttered as he pressed play again to watch the end of the post.

“Good news, right? So why hasn’t anything been announced by the happy couple?” Pedro mused. “Did they want to keep this news to themselves or is there more to this than Lily and Alfie merely protecting their privacy?”

“What the fuck does that mean?” I muttered.

“If you haven’t already, hit that follow, do it, like and reshare this post because once I’ve done a deep dive into this story, I’ll be back for sure with a second part to this sensational rumor coming soon to you from me, Pedro Compton.”

“What the hell else does he think he has? And who at our party would be talking to a scrotum like him? He only posted that an hour ago. Let’s see what the fucker comes up with. It’ll tell us if he’s full of shit or not. Meanwhile, let me spoon you and we can catch up on more sleep.”

CHAPTER 67

ALFIE

“For fuck’s sake, why can’t people leave us alone?” I ground out while I lifted my ringing cell phone and slapped it to my ear.

“Did you see Pedro Compton’s posts about you?” Drew hurriedly asked.

“Fuck me, you woke me up for that?”

“You’ve seen it, and it hasn’t pissed you off?”

“Well, we wanted to announce it ourselves, but I think it’s par for the course you lose privacy when you’re famous.”

“You watched all of it?”

“Yeah… oh you mean the veiled threat at the end where he’s threatening a deep dive. You and I know he isn’t going to find anything to gossip about. Although, I’m pissed that he said someone at the party told him something.”

“Wait… that’s the first part. You didn’t see the second one yet?” Drew asked.

The alarmed tone in his voice instantly got my attention. “Second part?”

“Watch it. Call me back after.”

“What now?” Lily asked, shifting up the bed to rest against the headboard.

“Apparently part two about ‘the saga of us’ has been posted.”

Lily groaned, snuggled against my arm and I pulled his TikTok page up on my laptop.

“Good morning, Pedro Compton here with the latest developing blind item on our rock royalty couple the gorgeous Mr. and Mrs. Black.

“So, we’ve deduced from the images we’ve seen…” The image of Lily with the bump circled is flashed for the viewers again. Lily groaned and ducked her head under the covers, annoyed I imagined that she didn’t get to tell everyone herself. “And the source from the party that allegedly told us that Lily Parnell, as most of us know her by, is with child.”

“Get to the fucking point,” I muttered to my screen.

“So far there’s been no denial from her camp… although it has only been a few hours since this blind item has been circulating. But… I’ve been working hard since then, doing a deep dive into this. During that time, I was told by someone I trust that there may be a more salacious twist to this story.”

Lily scurried out from the comforter, stood up and stared up at me. “Salacious? What’s salacious about keeping a pregnancy to myself until I’m ready to share it?” she asked.

“These guys should be shot for stirring up untruths about people. It’s how wars start,” I suggested after pausing the screen again.

She shrugged, hugged herself and I restarted the video. “I have three questions for you to ask yourselves when considering this alleged saga. Number one, who saw that wooden performance between Cody Vickers and Lily Parnell last night? Did that look like the same people we’ve all been captivated by over the years?”

“See, they instantly picked up that we’re different toward each other,” Lily pointed out, frowning and staring at the screen again.

“A source close to the rock royalty couple disclosed that there was a heated bust-up between Cody and Alfie, regarding Cody’s less-than-subtle crush on Lily.

“Now according to the source that I mentioned before, the normally cool Alfie Black allegedly lost his shit with Lily’s XrAid co-singer at their party. Apparently, Alfie warned Cody that he needed to keep his hands off his wife. So, my second question is, did that obvious, on-stage chemistry between Cody and Lily, accidentally spill over to their private lives? And if Alfie has warned Cody off, is that what made the notable difference in their performance last night?”