“Impossible.”
“Nothing’s impossible, trust me.”
“You’re the best singer, performer, musician I know, and that’s totally not me being biased, so I think maybe you’re being too hard on yourself.”
“It wasn’t the audition that was the problem. I killed it.” I thought back to the look Viper had given me as he asked the final question, the one that had put the nail in my coffin. “Let’s just say sometimes I should think before I speak.”
“Oh, Halo, you didn’t.”
“Yuup.” I swallowed several gulps of beer and then lay back, resting my arm over my eyes.
“Hey, maybe it wasn’t that bad. What did you say?”
“They asked what I’d change about the band.”
“Oh shit.”
“Yeah. And telling them I should be their frontman didn’t exactly get a good reaction.”
“Wait. What?” Imogen pulled my arm away from my face. “Is that all?”
“What do you mean is that all? They practically shoved me out the door after that.”
Imogen stared at me for a long moment before busting out laughing.
I sat up, glaring. “What the hell’s so funny?”
“You.” She wiped her eyes and shook her head at me. “Did they tell you to have a nice life?”
“They said they’d be in touch.”
“They’d be in touch? You dumbass. That’s a good thing.” As I lifted the beer to my lips, she swiped the can from me and set it on the ground beside her. “Listen, we need a come-to-Jesus here, okay? Look at me.”
I rolled my eyes but tilted my head in her direction.
“I’m just gonna be blunt here. I get you’re hard on yourself. That’s why you’re as good as you are, because you push hard and you don’t take no for an answer. That’s why you told them they need you as their singer. Hello, you were honest. You know you’ll make them better. And you know what? They don’t want some pussyfooting wallflower on stage with them—they want the confident badass who flat-out tells them he’s the best.”
I blinked at Imogen. With her long red hair draped around her shoulders in waves, and with her emerald eyes flashing, she looked the epitome of the feisty redhead you always heard about, and at this moment, she sounded like one too. I didn’t even get a chance to respond before she was firing off another question.
“So which one got in your head? Was it Slade? You know he only looks scary, right? I’ve heard he’s actually a nice guy.”
I thought back to the meeting, and how all the guys had, at one point or another, laughed and cut up with each other…all but one.
“There,” Imogen said. “I see it all over your face. Who?”
“Viper was…interesting.”
“Interesting? You mean freakin’ hot.”
“I wasn’t really looking.”
“Yeah, but you can admit when you know another guy’s good-looking. And Viper? He’s, like, outrageously hot.”
“I get it. You think he’s hot. Maybe he also gets off on giving others a hard time, because that guy didn’t smile once.”
“Well, if you believe Entertainment Daily, he gets off often.” Imogen winked at me, and when I gave her a shove, she laughed.
My cell vibrated in my pocket, and as I pulled it out and saw the number on the screen, I broke into a cold sweat. “Shit.”
“Who is it?”
I looked up at her. “Killian.”
“What?” she shrieked. “Answer the damn phone!”
“But—”
“Answer. The. Phone.”
Oh God. Here it was. The thanks but no, thanks line I’d been dreading all day. I brought the phone to my ear and closed my eyes like I could block out what he was about to say.
“Hello?”
“Halo, it’s Killian.”
“Hi,” I said, and licked my lips, ready to throw out an apology. “Listen, I’m—”
“Available tomorrow at eleven?”
My eyes flew open. “What?”
“We all think you’re great, and we’d like to see where this thing can go.”
The blood rushing in my ears almost drowned out his words, and I needed to make sure I’d heard him right, because it sounded like he’d said—
“You want me?”
Killian chuckled. “You sound surprised.”
“Uh, yeah.” Imogen was bouncing on the couch, her hands over her mouth to stop from squealing.
“Don’t be. You fuckin’ rocked it, man. We can’t wait to hear what else you can do.”
Holy shit, this was happening. I hadn’t screwed things up after all, which meant they hadn’t been offended by my answer, and Viper hadn’t blackballed me.
I’ll be damned…
“So eleven tomorrow, yeah?” Killian said. “We’ll be rehearsing at my place. Got a pen?”
I mimicked writing in the air to Imogen, and she jumped up and ran off to grab a pen. When she came back with a paper towel and a marker, I wrote down the address Killian rattled off and told him I’d be there at eleven sharp. It didn’t occur to me until I ended the call that I had Killian Michaels’s address in my lap. Not only that, but I’d just been invited to join the band on a trial basis.