“We’ll be in touch.”
My stomach dropped. “We’ll be in touch”? Shit. Shit shit shit. I had just bombed that answer. I’d just bombed, and now they were all looking at me like I needed to get the hell out of the room and—
“I’ll walk you out,” Killian said, getting to his feet.
I quickly packed up my guitar as a sinking sense of dread came over me. Keep it together until you get outside.
“It was great meeting you guys. Thanks for the opportunity.” I walked to each of them and shook their hands. Slade and Jagger nodded at me in return, but when I reached Viper, he held on to my hand longer, his grip firm and his gaze traveling down over me before he let go.
As I backed away, I wondered what Viper saw when he looked at me the way he had. Did he see some young guy trying too hard? Or had he been even the slightest bit impressed at all?
Guess I’d soon find out.
Five
Viper
“YO, V. PIZZA or Mexican?” Killian called out from his kitchen, as I fell down into one of the leather couches in his sprawling Tribeca penthouse later that afternoon. We’d just gotten home from a long-ass day over at MGA, our record label, where we’d sat in one meeting after another with our manager, Brian.
Ever since Trent walked, MGA had been putting the pressure on for us to find a new frontman stat, because there was no way in hell a record company was going to “continue funneling money into a sinking ship”—their words, not mine.
I mean, we’d brought them enough money to last a goddamn lifetime. You’d think it would at least buy us some time to figure our shit out. However, they saw things differently. Assholes. We’d been given a deadline, which we were fast approaching, and that was one of the reasons Killian had been pulling us from our beds at ungodly hours this week to watch these auditions.
We’d been searching for months now, and all of them had gone nowhere fucking fast. But today’s…today’s had been a different story altogether, and was the reason we’d ended up spending most of the day in meetings across town—something none of us enjoyed.
“Pizza,” I said, then rattled off my usual topping of sausage, onions, mushrooms, and extra cheese.
Killian grabbed his cell off his kickass guitar-shaped coffee table. “As if I didn’t know that. Don’t you get sick of ordering the same thing every single time?”
“I like what I like. That ain’t gonna change anytime soon.” What could I say, I was a creature of habit.
Killian chuckled as he called the number and placed our order. Once he was done, he took a seat in his favored club chair that sat facing the bank of wall-to-ceiling windows, and then looked my way.
“Speaking of things you like…” Killian eyed me as he propped his ankle on his knee. “What’d you really think about Halo today? He was good, huh?”
Uh, that was one way to describe him. Probably not the way I would. But I doubted Killian wanted to know I couldn’t stop thinking about the way Halo might look stripped naked in my bed.
“Yeah,” I said, giving my standard noncommittal response. “Like I said, he’s not bad.”
“Not bad, my ass. That guy is fucking brilliant. Admit it. He’s almost as good as—”
“If you say Trent, I just might kick you in the balls.”
Killian laughed, and I decided I just might kick him anyway. “Why? Because there might be someone out there who can actually match him or—”
“Because his name makes me want to commit violent acts.”
Killian sobered in an instant. “I swear, one of these days you’re gonna have to stop talking shit about him every time you open your mouth.”
“Yeah? Well, one of these days I might stop hating him. There’s hope for us all.”
Killian let out a sigh and ran a hand through his hair, and I knew it was too much to hope for that all conversation would be over, and the TV be turned on. And not a minute later, Killian was right back on topic. “So…Halo. Did you finally look at the video I sent you last night?”
Had I looked at it? That would be an affirmative. As soon as Halo had left, and the guys had gone outside for a smoke, I’d been quick to open that email and the attachment. Quick to get another look at that face—because what a fucking face.
“Yeah, I looked.”
“Aaaand?”
“And what do you want me to say, Kill? He’s good. Really fucking good. You’ve got ears, but—” I drew up short, and when Killian just sat there giving me his what look, I thought, To hell with this. “He makes my dick hard, okay? I can’t stand on a stage with that guy. Did you see him? He’s too damn pretty for his own good.”