Among the Echoes (Wrecked and Ruined #2.5)(60)

"Rightest thing to ever exist?" he says with a sigh while crawling up the bed to lie facedown next to me.

"There’s a reason I didn’t major in English."

He laughs and throws an arm over my back. "If anything ever happened to you, I…" He pauses before rolling me onto my side to face him. "I just need you safe somewhere. Do you think I can buy one of those underground bunkers from the 1970’s?" I laugh and throw a leg over his hips. "I’m serious, Erica. I can’t be the reason Wilkes finds you. Before, when we first left, all I could think about was spending time with you. But now that there’s the possibility of an out, all I can think about is spending a lifetime with you. It’s damn near crippling to think about losing that." He drops his head to my chest and sighs.

My heart squeezes as my attitude melts away. I scratch his back as we both lie in silence. My mind is racing, and if I know Slate at all, his is also.

"No one knows that picture is me, Slate. You know I am the first person to freak out if anything is even remotely threatening. But I’m more scared of losing you than I am anything else."

"You’re not going to lose me. Just let me head back to LA for a little while and draw the attention away from you. We can put a cap on it if you want. How about three months? If Wilkes is still breathing in three months, we can rethink things. I’ll come back or maybe we can head somewhere totally different. But we have to be smart about this. It’s so f*cking close to being over."

"I don’t want to go three months," I pout. "What if you find another girlfriend in three months? She would probably be prettier than I am and love to be fawned all over by the paparazzi," I say teasingly, but the proverbial light bulb of genius goes off above my head. "Oh my God. Slate, you need to get a girlfriend," I squeal then fly up off the bed and dash out of the room. "Leo!" I shout, running down the hall.

"In here, babe," he calls from the security room.

Frozen on the screen is the video from yesterday that clearly shows a man taking a picture with a cell phone of Slate kissing me. He’s standing just outside the door, but I don’t remember seeing him at all.

"I’m pretty sure it was a fan. Watch." He presses play.

The man walks past, but as soon as the glass door opens, it catches his attention and he backs up with a broad smile. He instantly digs through his pocket for his phone and snaps a picture. But as I walk away, he never tears his eyes from Slate.

"Slate needs a girlfriend," I say as he rewinds the video, zooming in on the fan’s face.

"Threesome? That’s hot, babe. But I’m not sure Andrews could handle two of you." He turns to face me with a questioning look.

"No. Seriously. If he started publicly dating a short woman with brown hair, no one would question it. He was exposed by that picture, so let’s out him completely."

"Have you lost your f*cking mind?" Slate appears behind me, dressed in a pair of sweats riding low on his hips.

"Think about it," I plead, looking between the two men. "You could go to LA for a week, not three months, go out on a couple of very public dates, get your picture taken, and then come back home to me. No one has to leave and the paparazzi would stop trying to figure out who you are dating."

"That’s probably the most ridiculous plan I have ever heard in my life," Slate replies, but my eyes never leave Leo, who is surprisingly silent.

"Tell him it would work," I beg.

"It would probably work." He shrugs. "And if it didn’t, it couldn’t hurt anything," he answers, turning his attention to Slate.

"No f*cking way! Who exactly do you propose I date for a week?"

"I don’t know. I’m sure we can find someone who would want to be seen with you." I smile, but he doesn’t look even remotely entertained.

"I’m not doing it," he bites out while turning to walk away.

"It would buy us some time!" Leo shouts behind him, but Slate doesn’t respond. He turns his attention back to me. "He’s right you know—it’s a ridiculous idea."

"But it will work."

"Maybe." He shrugs again. "Now, you just have to talk your boyfriend into cheating on you."

"It’s not cheating," I say dismissively.

"It will be for him."

I wave him off and head back down the hall after Slate. When I walk back into our room, he’s pacing around.

"Hey," I say as I shut the door behind me.

"I have spent my entire career avoiding the celebrity life."

"I know." I walk forward, wrapping my arms around his waist.

"I love you. I really do. But I’m not sure I can do this. I don’t think just being seen with a woman on my arm will do it, beautiful."

"I know," I lie, suddenly realizing I didn’t think this plan out very well. Managing my jealousy, while pushing him off on another woman, is not going to be easy.

He lets out a resigned breath. "The fight for my vacant title is next week. They would go nuts if I showed up with a woman," he says absently. It’s as if he is forming the plan in his head even though he has absolutely zero intentions of following through with it. "I’m not sure I can do a week, but I can probably do a night."