Ashton's PoV:

"She has no social media presence right?" The bands general manager Adam sat in front of me.

"No, none." I answered, my hands holding my head up from crashing onto the light wooded table.

"What about her friends? Anyone that could see the photo and show her?" He asked and I opened my mouth to reply no again when I was interrupted.

"Ari." Michael piped up and my head snapped to look at him. "I saw her on Twitter when we were waiting at the hospital."

"Damn it." I muttered.

"We're all over Twitter, how has Ari not seen anything. She seems like the type to be all into pop culture." Calum said from his seat next to Michael.

"She is." I answered. "I just don't think we're popular enough for Ari to be following us. That or she knows who we are and just hasn't put the pieces together."

"Until someone she follows retweets that picture or something we tweet and she finds out." Michael commented.

"Ash, you've gotta tell her. Someone in Haven has already had to have seen that photo and is going to tell her, or Ari is going to find out and do it for you." Calum shook his head. "You had your chance to tell her and you waited too long."

"This is going to blow over. We'll be more careful. As long as we don't get photographed again, the fans will forget about it in a month." I tried to explain.

"A month? You want to keep this secret for another month?" Luke's head shot up, wide eyed.

"Well I-"

"Look, if you really loved Carter, you'd tell her the damn truth." Calum said in a stern voice.

"I'm not telling her because I love her, I'm trying to protect her." I defended my actions but they weren't having it.

"No, you're trying to protect yourself because you lied to her in the first place and now you can't get out of it without losing her." Luke snapped back and I let out a groan of frustration.

Looking down I stared at the printed out photo laying on the table.

There I was, kissing Carters forehead, my mother holding Ender's hand next to us, and Ari and Jason walking out of the doors behind us.

How did I let it get this far?

My hand had been gripping the the table so hard that my knuckles were white and I figured I was going to snap off a piece off the wood at any moment so I let go.

I took a deep breath and then released it, trying to to calm myself down.

"I'm going to tell her, I am. But now, is just not the right time." I said in a lower tone.

"Is it ever really going to be the right time?" Michael asked, moving his hand for emphasis.

I sighed loudly.

"At least give me till the end of the UK tour. I can go back to Haven and tell her and have time to fix things up if it goes bad, or at least convince her to come on tour with us." I suggested.

"You want three weeks?" Luke asked.

"Yes." I nodded. "Let me and Calum go this weekend and scope out how it's going to work and after the tour I'll go back and tell her."

The room was quiet for a moment as we let it sink in and then suddenly Michael began to chuckle behind me.

All of our heads turned to look at him with strange looks.

"What's so funny?" Luke asked.

"It's just that," he took a breath a contained his laughter, "when we were at that hospital, I've never seen a girl look at someone the way Carter looks at you. When she got mad at you it was obviously because she didn't want you to worry about her and she wanted you to be happy and not sad because of her. She didn't want you there because she knew that your "job" is important and she didn't want to cause any issues."

Michael took a quick pause then continued. "And Ender...you're like the dad/brother he doesn't have. That kid looks up to you and loves you like you're his family and I shouldn't tell you this but I am, but when we were at the hospital and I took Ender to go get a snack he told me that he was happy you were there because that meant his family was there and Carter wouldn't be alone anymore. You're that kids family and Carters family and you're about to destroy their lives all because you weren't man enough to tell them in the first place."

He was pissed now and I felt worse than I did before he started talking.

"It's not just Carter you have to tell this to, it's Ender."Michael added and my entire being sunk lower than it had ever been.

To say that statement hadn't come to my mind would be a lie. I had just ignored it because it made me sick to think about it.

Ender looked up to me, what was he going to think when he found out I had been lying to him and his sister for months about who I was.

Michael was completely right and I hated it.

I needed a break from the intervention, I had to get out of this room and go think somewhere else.

Standing up from my chair I began to walk towards the door of the hotel conference room we were in.

"Where are you going?" Luke asked.

"My room. I need to think." I replied.

"Just answer one thing before you go." Michael called out to me and I turned around, stopping to listen.

"Do you think that Carter wouldn't feel the same way about you like she does now if you had told her in the first place?"  He asked softly.

"I don't know." I slumped my shoulders, turning around and moping dejectedly away.

I made my way back to my shared hotel room with Calum and threw myself onto the bed.

This was a mess.

Not being able to lay there I began to pace around the room, occasionally going to the window and looking outside to see the crowd of girls standing outside the entrance to our building.

This would be the life I would be subjecting Carter to if I told her the truth.

The fans following us around, constantly asking her for pictures and trying to capture private moments between us.

Media writing things about her that would either make her smile or make her cry.

Fans saying rude things about her on social media because they were petty and jealous.

Constant traveling, plane rides, bus trips.

Paparazzi taking pictures of her and Ender living their everyday lives and trying to get reactions from them about rumours and lies that would undoubtedly be spread by jealous people.

Could I really do that to her?

The sound of my phone ringing behind me ripped me from my thoughts and I went to answer it.

Of course it was Carter.

She had sent me two texts.

'I don't believe this.' The message read and underneath it was a photo that made my world stop turning.

--

This one was short too but I needed a couple of filler chapters to get to the good stuff (; haha

So I know I said I'd have these up soon and I'm sorry about the wait!

I'll try my best to get the next one up by the end of this week.

Also I was thinking about having a place for you guys to ask any questions you had about the story or about the characters, so if you do you can ask those here!

As always, vote and comment if you'd like and I'll see you guys in the next part of our story (:

much love everyone xx -M