Living In The Shallows (UK Crush #1)

Chapter Three

The search process for UK Crush had been brutal and wearying, a national talent contest that had brought hundreds of thousands of hopefuls to auditions that had gone on for months. The finals had been a televised circus, with crying boys and screaming parents pleading with the judges on live TV. I recognized my boys—funny how quickly they'd become my boys—as youngsters, shorter, more vulnerable, less assured, with their high, pure voices, singing their hearts out, jumping for joy when they'd been chosen, bouncing around the stage.

Then came the concert footage, seeing them growing up before my eyes, getting taller, more confident, watching their antics onstage, becoming the guys I'd met this morning, the jokesters with the acerbic wit, the thoughtful adults, and the music maturing with them.

I'd had time to read about them a little, too. Matty's parents had apparently wanted him to leave the band, to go to medical school, but he'd refused to leave his mates at least until the current contract was up. The article didn't say when that was, though. His name had been linked to a few girls he'd gone to school with back in Edinburgh, but none recently, so apparently, he was keeping a low profile. Gethin's weakness seemed to be for athletes. His name was linked over and over with professional tennis players, golfers, and beach volleyball players; he couldn't seem to get enough of them. Ronan had gotten in a bit of trouble when a video surfaced of him with some friends and a bong when he was still nineteen, though nothing had come of it, and his name had been linked to a few female singers over the years, but again, nothing too serious. Theo, however, was the winner in the Playboy of the Year Sweepstakes. One article stated he had dated seventeen of the twenty most beautiful women under thirty in the world, and another referred to him as "that English crooning hunk of beefcake". Oh my god. The boys I'd met this morning seemed to have nothing to do with the people I'd just spent the last two hours reading about. But I needed to merge all of the information I'd acquired into one coherent picture if I was to do my job.

The one constant, from the beginning of their fledgling careers until now, was the girls. Everywhere, screaming, crying, fainting, waving, running after them, wanting selfies, autographs, hugs, it was never ending. I'd actually passed a phalanx of them when I'd entered the hotel, but I'd been too loopy to give them more than a passing thought. How did they deal with it?

I was brought back to the present by my phone buzzing. It was a text from Matty, asking what I wanted to do for dinner. Did I want to join them? He said they were on their way to my room to talk about it. I had barely finished reading the text when they were knocking on my door.

I asked the boys if they felt like sushi and saké. This idea was met with a resounding yes, and they started texting their friends on the crew to see who else wanted to go. I quickly explained that this wasn't a club, there would be no women or drugs involved, just food and liquor. I wanted to be crystal clear from the beginning.

Theo looked at me and smiled. "We're not degenerates, Miss Foster, just hungry." He tipped me a wink. I had the good grace to blush.

I called an old friend of my grandfather's to see if he still owned his restaurant, and found he did. He was overjoyed to hear from me, and to hear I was back in Tokyo. I asked if he could accommodate me and my work colleagues for dinner, and he was thrilled. He said he would prepare the back ozashiki, or Japanese style room, for us, and he would expect us as soon as we could get there.

As I headed for a quick shower, it occurred to me that, unless one of them invited another one, I'd be the only female among half a dozen men I'd just met today. Wow, my world was growing by leaps and bounds.

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"I think Tink should sit in the middle," said Ronan as we climbed in to the waiting SUVs, and I noticed with amusement that because of his accent it sounded like he said "Tink" twice. I smiled to myself. "Because she's so tiny," he continued, patting the top of my head. "That way the driver can see over her." He grinned at me, and I smiled back. Very quickly in Japanese I gave the driver the name of the restaurant, and he relayed the information via in-car speaker phone to the other two drivers.