The bar was way the fuck out in the outer reaches of Queens, almost in Nassau County. August told us to meet her there, so that's what I did. Because if you asked me to my face if I was afraid of August, I'd laugh. But if you held a gun to my head, I'd break down and admit that the chick sort of terrified me. In the best possible way, of course.

I'd heard the tapes she'd made of the guy we were scouting tonight, and after first marveling at the giant brass balls she had to have to con the sound guy into letting her plug her tape recorder into his mixing board, I listened and had to admit I was excited. The guy had the kind of knock-out, blow you to the back of the bar kind of broken scream that made him sound like the next coming of Chris Cornell. He sounded...different. Not the wailing, ethereal harmonies of Jane and Killian. No, this guy had guts to his voice, and I had this little flutter of actual excitement in my stomach when I thought about what that kind of voice would do, what it would signal to people who wondered if we could make magic again. That voice told me, yeah. We could.

But as I sat in the back of the worst smelling cab in the city, that fluttery excitement in my belly turned over to nausea over the very idea of introducing someone new into the mix. The idea of trying to find somebody to replace Jane seeming like a worse and worse idea the longer it took me to get out here, so by the time I rolled up in front of the Riverside Ballroom, I was in a pretty foul fucking mood.

Made even worse when August wasn't even there waiting for me.

"Fucking hell," I growled, stomping my way into the place. No one turned a head or raised an eyebrow to see the guitarist from the band that dominated the charts a year ago slumming it in some backwater venue that looked like it was getting ready to host the junior prom tomorrow night, and somehow that convinced me even more that this was a mistake. Why the fuck were we trying to start over again when no one gave a shit in the first place? I scowled at the bartender and slumped on my stool in the reserved area — behind the bored, protective eyes of a bouncer who watched me balefully — determined to hate every last second of my time here.

Until I thought of CeCe.

That would be the one saving grace. She was coming out, she'd promised me that. I grabbed my beer and turned toward the front door, just in time to see it opening, letting in a shaft of late-evening light that momentarily blinded me in the dimness of the venue. I sat up straighter, ready to greet her, when the silhouette in front of me resolved itself into Jules.

I slumped back down again. "For a drummer, you have terrible sense of timing," I muttered as he walked over.

"Hey mate," Jules said by way of greeting. He obviously hadn't heard me and for that I was grateful "You're the first here?"

"Seems that way," I growled, fiddling with the label on my poor excuse for a beer. "I'm never going to get used to what these Yanks call a proper lager over here. Tastes like chilled ricewater."

"So you've mentioned," Jules said tiredly, sitting his ass down, taking up much of the reserved area.

"Oh is this us then?" Niall wondered.

"How the fuck do you do that?" Jules shouted, nearly falling off his chair. "No fucker as big as you has any right to be that light on his feet."

"I was in the loo," Niall explained, sounding wounded. "I've been here forever. Where have you lot been?"

"I just got here and got a drink," I said, raising my bottle of chilled piss. "Jules just got here after me because god forbid he ever be on time for anything."

"Hey fuck you, I'm here before August," Jules complained with a fierce scowl.

"No you're not," said Niall. "She was here when I got here, and then the band arrived and she went running off to talk to them." He shook his head, amused. "Neither they nor she have emerged yet. You think they're okay?"

"I think the band is probably fine as long as they do what she says," Jules said, with that dopey look on his face again. No doubt about it, he was smitten with our manager. I made a mental note to give him shit about it as much as humanly possible

But then I shoved that thought aside because at that moment the door opened and my heart started racing in a way that made no goddamned sense.

"There's CeCe," Jules remarked, as if my body hadn't already started signaling her arrival with everything it had.

Her hair was down again, swinging in a shiny waterfall around her shoulders but with this sweet little turn up at the end like she might have curled it. I liked the idea of her getting dolled up before coming out to see me, even if it wasn't just for me. As she drew closer, I could see that her eyes were rimmed in dark shadow, making her look like some kind of sexy raccoon. She wore her business suits and her fake name just as easily as she wore her eyeliner and skintight T-shirts. She claimed to want us to be completely professional, and then she bit her lip and looked at me from under those dark lashes.

Which version was the costume and which one was the real Celia?

And why was I so desperate to find out?

When she saw us, her face registered several expressions at once, none of which I was sure was happy. But I was making up for her apprehension by smiling like a goddamned loon and practically falling out of my chair to call her over. "Hey there lass," I called, still laying the Scottish thing down as thick as I could because once some chick had said it was charming and I thought maybe CeCe might find it charming too. "You can sit by me, yeah? Saved you a seat." I grabbed Jules chair out from him, ignoring his yelp of dismay. "Right here."

Fucking hell, she bit her lip again. If she kept doing that, I was just going to lose it and fucking kiss her right here, right now.

"Mind if I sit here?" she called to Jules, ignoring me in a way that was both sexy and annoying at the same time.

"If you want to sit next to that prat, be my guest," Jules shrugged.

"He's just jealous," I pointed out to her as she sat down.

"Of you or me?" she deadpanned.

I laughed even as I could feel the hair on my arms rising up, like it wanted to be close to her. Her grin was pure sex, the kind of smile every guy wanted to see grinning at him from the other pillow the next morning. I was hard as a fucking diamond for her and all she did was give me shit

And then all at once, August blew in like a redheaded hurricane ahead of the crowd filing in. "Guys," she thundered in that siren voice of hers. "I want to introduce you to Hudson Glenn."

Behind her stood some musclebound blond guy dressed in a white T-shirt and jeans. He looked like your basic mechanic in New Jersey, with the kind of wide, white, easy grin only an American can manage. He immediately started to make the rounds, grinning like an idiot as he tumbled over us, shaking hands. "Big fan, dude. Real big fan," he said, over and over again doing these funny little half bows as he took our hands and shook them.

"It's nice to meet you as well," Niall said finally. But he was the only one of us to speak. The rest of us were too taken aback and slightly horrified. This was the doofus that August was claiming as the second coming of Christ? This was the guy with that voice? He looked like he was ready to change the oil in my car.

"I gotta go do my thing now," Hudson drawled, seemingly unaffected by our collective horror. "Hope you like it."

He turned and headed back in the direction of the stage. August watched him critically, the way a breeder watches a prized horse. Out of the corner of my eye, I checked to see CeCe's reaction and was relieved to see she looked mildly repulsed.

"Jesus, it's like a fucking Golden Retriever turned human," Jules muttered to me. "What we need is a lead singer who's going to reach out and fuck the whole front row, not this muscle bound Boy Scout."

"No way," Niall was saying. "He doesn't have it."

"Shush," CeCe piped up. "Let's see what he's got." She glanced in August's direction. "There must be some reason she drug us all the way out here into the far reaches of the universe."

I leaned back in my chair. "Is that your professional opinion?" I couldn't help but needle.

She shot me a glance that would have killed a lesser man. "That really bugged you, didn't it Boyd?"

I laughed. "Bugged isn't the right word for it, lass." She was watching me warily but the way her body was poised...yeah she was interested, no matter what came out of her mouth. I hadn't spent three years on the road having my fill of females coast to coast only to suddenly be tragically misreading cues. She wanted it. "Let's call it...disappointed."