Page 6 of Ice & Sweet

CHAPTER SIX

Luke

Despite my worries that the rehearsal would drag out for hours, Natalia, the hotel’s gorgeous and fearsome Polish-Glaswegian wedding coordinator, had us all whipped into shape in less than forty minutes before shooing us away towards the bar.

I let everyone go ahead and hung back to ask Natalia about setting up the wedding cake, wanting to make sure I got enough time to do it before all the photos and festivities kicked off. Especially because I’d need to get changed afterwards.

There was no way I was tempting fate by trying to finish decorating the cake in my suit. Knowing my luck, I’d end up with buttercream or ganache all down my shirt. It was why I tended to wear old T-shirts when I worked at the bakery and one of the nice black branded ones I’d had printed when I did deliveries.

It was only after I’d been talking to Natalia for nearly twenty minutes that I realised André was still hanging around outside the large reception hall where the cake would be set up. My chest twinged and my stomach fluttered when I saw him, and I took a moment to admire the way his jeans hugged his thighs and highlighted how sculpted his ass was from his hours on stage. He was wearing a dark green jumper too, which skimmed across his shoulders, and I couldn’t help but think how much the colour suited him.

I didn’t know why he was waiting, but it was nice to get a quiet moment to look at him with nobody else around.

“Hey,” I said as I walked over to him. “Is there a reason you’re lurking here? Don’t tell me you’re hiding.”

“I’m not hiding,” he said, a soft flush spreading across his cheeks. “I’m just… I thought I’d wait for you.”

My stomach fluttered again, harder this time, and I had to swallow before I spoke just so I could try and gather my thoughts before I spewed something random into the air. Although the words that came out weren’t exactly the epitome of sophistication. “Wait for me? Why?”

“I, er, well… I didn’t want you to get lost. And I… I wondered… would you… Fuck! Can I buy you a drink?”

I stared at him, my brain still trying to process what he’d said. He was so adorably nervous, it was hard to believe he’d been a member of one of the biggest-selling boy bands in history.

“It doesn’t have to be anything,” André continued, the blush on his face deepening to crimson when I didn’t say anything. “I just thought it would be nice to catch up since it’s been a while and—”

“No! I mean, yes,” I said, reaching out to put my hand on his chest, right on his sternum. I could feel his heart racing through the soft wool of his jumper and a small voice in the back of my head said touching him like this was weird, but now I had my hand on him, I couldn’t bring myself to take it away. I stepped closer and the rich, spicy-sweet scent of his cologne enveloped me, flooding my senses and making all my thoughts grind to a halt. Christ alive, had he always smelt this good? “A drink would be great.”

“Good, okay. Do you want to go down to the bar? I know everyone else will probably be there but I’m sure we can squeeze into the corner.”

“I’d like that.” I turned down the corridor towards the bar and shot him a smile. There were a thousand thoughts and questions suddenly swirling in my brain, but there were two hovering above the others, lit up in bright red lights. What had he meant about it not meaning anything? And why had he waited for me here instead of asking me when we were both in the bar? Had he not wanted anyone else to hear?

Or had he been worried that someone else would swoop in and take me away before he got a chance to ask?

“Did you manage to get everything sorted for tomorrow?” André asked as we walked towards the snug. Even from this far away I could already hear the sound of a lot of voices.

“Yeah,” I said. “Natalia showed me where the cake is going and we talked about the timeline. Should be fairly straightforward and unless anything goes horribly wrong I’ll be able to get it all set up and get changed before everything kicks off. There’s not actually a lot left to do—it’s only the final touches. I’m just a perfectionist, so I get super picky about the details.”

“Isn’t that a good thing, though?”

“Yes and no. Sometimes I get so focused on fixing the tiniest detail that nobody will notice that I almost work myself into a state of panic and then I think everyone will hate it and nobody will want to hire me again.” I chuckled dryly. “Would super recommend being a child star and getting a lifelong helping of trauma around perfectionism at an early age. It’s awesome.”

André threw his head back and laughed, the sound bold, bright, and warm. Like I was drinking hot chocolate laced with Baileys and a mountain of whipped cream. “I see your child star and raise you boy band superstardom. The kind with crazy fans who stalk you and send you packages with worn panties and vials of their blood.”

“Eww, seriously? Worn panties?”

“Yeah, and vials of blood. Luckily I never actually had to deal with them, but our management team would tell us about it.”

“I’m not sure that counts then,” I said teasingly. “I mean, yeah, that’s creepy as fuck but you didn’t actually have to deal with it.”

“What about the punishing demands of a tour schedule and having to learn choreography and vocals for a two-hour show?”

“Taylor Swift did a three-hour show. Suck it up.”

André laughed again. “I guess she’s got me beaten. The Eras Tour was incredible, though.”

“Did it make you want to get up on stage again?” I asked as we walked through another open door. “As a musician, I mean.”

“No, not really,” he said. There was a thoughtful expression on his face and his mouth twisted before he added, “Weirdly, it made me want to be a dancer more than a singer. Don’t get me wrong. I love singing, it’s why I’m doing musicals, but being the single focus of a crowd of ninety-two thousand people sounds like hell.”

“Didn’t you play shows that size? You played Wembley at least a couple of times,” I said, mentally running through what I could remember of Kane’s tour schedule from when we’d been together. I’d gone to quite a few of his gigs and not simply because it was good PR but because I really liked their music, cheesy as it was. I still had a load of their songs on my playlists for when I wanted to dance around the kitchen.

“Yeah, but I was one of five then,” André said. “And I was always at the back. I wasn’t pretty like Kane and Haru. Being labelled ‘the shy one’ had its perks.”

“What do you mean you’re not pretty? You’re fucking gorgeous! You always have been.” The words were out of my mouth before I could stop them, hanging in the air between us and refusing to dissipate. I could hear them echoing around and around my head, as loud and clear as if I’d just spoken them.

Christ on a fucking cracker. I was toast, of the burnt, crispy, and charred variety.

It was the first time since we’d arrived that I wanted Kane to materialise out of thin air and swoop me away on some wedding errand, but I could hear his voice in the distance and it didn’t sound like he was coming to save me.

André stopped and turned to look at me, one eyebrow slightly raised above the frame of his glasses. “Thanks?” He sounded so unsure and I hated the idea that I might have ruined things between us before they’d even had a chance to start. “I’m really not, though. I’m… I mean I guess I’m kind of good-looking? I guess it comes with the territory, but I’m no way near as gorgeous as those two. Or Toby—I mean he’s stunning. And Dai!”

“Yeah but… have you seen yourself recently? Those glasses—they’re just ugh , incredible.”

“Thanks.” He flushed. “Usually I wear contacts when I’m on stage but I’ve started wearing my glasses more and more. They’re easier than contacts, and they don’t itch either.”

“Well, they look spectacular, so keep them.”

“I will,” he said softly. We were still stood in the middle of an empty corridor, the snug just close enough that I could hear voices but far enough away that nobody was going to randomly stumble onto us. “You, er, you’re gorgeous too. I hope you know that. I’ve always… even when you were with Kane, I… shit, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have…” He waved a hand like he was trying to bat his words away. “Forget I said anything, please.”

“Firstly, I’m not going to forget because you complimented me,” I said, hoping I sounded teasing and not like an arrogant prat. “And secondly, you know Kane and I weren’t ever really together, right? It was fake.”

I’d assumed he’d known. I’d assumed all the guys from Underground Dreaming had known, even though Kane and I had been told to keep the whole fake dating thing to ourselves to prevent leaks and to force us to be on whenever we were around people. But the way André had mentioned me being with Kane… the soft hitch in his voice like he thought finding me cute was somehow wrong because I was Kane’s ex, even though it wouldn’t have actually mattered if I was. Half the queer people I knew had fucked most of their friends—it was the way things worked.

“Fake? Why would it be fake?” André asked and God, I felt like such a dick.

“Sorry, I thought you knew! I thought he’d told you,” I said, my heart sinking. Fuck, why did I have to bring this up tonight? But it was too late now. The only option was to forge ahead.

“Shit, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said anything. It was just… Kane wanted to come out, so they basically hired me to be his boyfriend so they could market his queerness in, like, the most squeaky-fucking-clean corporate way possible. And I was a good fit because I was cute, marketable, and famous enough to fit in without overshadowing him. But we were never more than friends—even if I’d wanted us to be, he was already fucking around with Austin. That was way back when they were pretending they didn’t really like each other while sneaking off at every moment they could. Idiots.”

André stared at me and while his expression had dropped to something oddly neutral, his eyes were flickering and I could see him processing the information overload I’d dropped into his lap. “Huh, okay,” he said with a nod. A small smile pulled at the corner of his mouth as he pushed his glasses up his nose. “That makes a lot of sense actually.”

“It does?”

“Yeah. I always… I don’t know… it was super clear that you were friends but Haru always said he didn’t think you had a lot of chemistry. But Kane used to duck out of his room, so I assumed he was with you, but now you mention it, I do remember seeing him talking to Austin at every awards show we went to. And there was that time he disappeared while you were sitting quietly in a corner and came back looking dishevelled.”

“God, I remember that! I was so pissed at him because I thought we were going to get caught. I made him tell everyone he had an upset stomach for the rest of the night,” I said. “Violent diarrhoea and everything.”

André chuckled softly, the sound enveloping me like a hug. “I remember that. Toby almost refused to let him on the tour bus the next morning because he was convinced Kane was going to stink the whole place out.”

“Serves him bloody right,” I muttered, shaking my head. “I’m sorry he didn’t tell you, though. I know we were told to keep it to ourselves but I’d thought he’d at least have told all of you.”

“Kane’s always been a good boy,” André said wryly. “And Dai is fucking appalling at keeping secrets. He’d have tried but he probably would’ve mentioned it offhandedly as a joke to someone and then it would’ve gotten out. I don’t blame him for not telling us. And I mean, we liked each other then but there was always a risk we’d end up hating each other’s guts and trying to leak secrets to the press for petty revenge. Luckily, we broke up before we got to that stage.”

There was a dramatic gasp from the other end of the corridor and we both turned to see Toby’s tall, gorgeous figure walking towards us. If André was gorgeous and Kane was classically handsome, then Toby was pretty—with plush lips, green eyes, and the sort of eyelashes that most lash technicians took hours trying to replicate. His reddish-brown hair hung in soft waves around his shoulders, almost reminding me of Ariel or Elliot from Stardew Valley . “You’re not seriously talking about how glad you are we broke up?” he asked in the rich, melodic voice that always seemed to hypnotise people. “And I thought you loved me, darling.”

“I do,” André said with a teasing grin. “But that doesn’t mean I need to spend any more of my life on a tour bus with you.”

“Oh God no.” Toby shuddered. “Heaven forbid. If we ever decide we’re mad enough to do a reunion tour, then it’s individual buses or first-class flights only.” He smiled at me and then gestured back at the bar. “We were just wondering where the pair of you had gotten to. Austin said something about the cake but André hadn’t appeared either and I was curious where the pair of you had snuck off to.”

He shot us an intrigued look, like he was hoping we’d tell him more but there wasn’t anything to tell.

Not yet anyway.

And since we were about to be dragged back to the bar, I doubted I’d get much more time alone with André until much later. Maybe I’d have to try and sneak into his room… as long as I could get the number first. Otherwise I’d just look like a creep trying to break into random people’s bedrooms.

“No sneaking,” André said. “Luke was sorting out the cake and I had a couple of messages to answer, so I thought I’d do it now before you talk my ear off for the rest of the evening and try convincing me that doing shots is a good idea.”

“You are boring,” Toby said with a grin, looping his arm through André’s and then reaching out for mine. “Come on, no more work. It’s time to celebrate our friends. Sensibly, I promise. None of us want to look hungover in the photos tomorrow. Also there are some very gorgeous people here you should meet—you’re both single, right? Because Austin has a lot of beautiful friends.”

I glanced over at André as Toby swept us towards the snug and grinned at him.

And when he smiled back, it felt like fireworks were exploding in my chest.