A small flicker of a smile tugged at the corner of my lip before I stifled it. "Disappointed, huh? Dare I even ask?"

He leaned forward. "I just wanted a chance," he said, lowering his voice so I was forced to lean closer. "To show you what I could do."

Whatever stammering reply I managed to make was drowned out, because at that moment, the opening band crashed its way into its first number.

"Jesus Pogosticking Christ," Jules swore. "This just gets better and better." He was glaring at August, looking personally affronted.

"My ears," Niall moaned.

I looked on, horrified as the opening band butchered other people's perfectly good songs in a cacophony of mistimed beats, wrong chords, and off-key shrieking. Glancing up at August, I could see her face set stony and knew that she was putting up a good front but was secretly doubting this. A band this terrible couldn't really be opening for the guy she wanted to be the new lead singer, right?

"I need another bloody drink," Jules muttered into his glass and got up. I shifted in my chair, inadvertently moving closer to Ewan who glanced at me with that dimple on display. In the blare of noise from the stage, we couldn't hear each other well enough to keep talking. But the cacophony wasn't loud enough to drown out my surprise at how bothered I was by the fact that I couldn't talk to him any more. It was fine that I liked talking to him, right? He was funny, with the perfect mix of cockiness and self-deprecation. I wanted to keep needling him, keep our banter going, but the band was too loud.

I glared at the stage, irrationally irritated at the jokers up there for getting in the way. It felt like they'd been up there forever now. I was getting antsy. Sure, I wanted to give August benefit of the doubt, but if she truly dragged us all the way down here to see somebody on par with these guys? Well there was no question about whether or not this Hudson guy was going to work out.

I leaned back again. Ewan shifted in his chair and his arm brushed against mine. He looked at me and mouthed something with a smile. I grinned back, having no idea what he said, but loving the way his dimple winked in and out of existence as he said it. His face contorted into a devilish laugh. Blushing for what reason I had no idea, I shoved him lightly with my elbow.

He responded by reaching out and grabbing my hand.

For a second I froze, staring down at it like it suddenly belonged to someone else. I wanted to snatch it away, but the feel of him, the dry warmth of his palm, the rough callous on his fingers, had me frozen in place. He leaned in, brushing against me again.

"This band sucks!" I shouted even as I wondered what the fuck I was saying.

He shook his head, miming that he couldn't hear me, and then leaned in closer, tapping his ear to indicate that I should speak right into it.

I licked my lips, feeling the devil come over me. Having him get this close to me was making my circuits cross, and the caution I'd normally exhibit flew out the window.

I leaned in, so close my lips nearly brushed his earlobe. "I was wondering!" I shouted.

"Yeah? What were you wondering?" he shouted back. His breath was warm against my ear but for some reason it raised goosebumps along my arm.

I licked my lips again. "If you were this awful when you started out?" I shouted, grinning and gesturing to the stage.

There was a sudden discordant crash from the stage and it ended in a dissonant shriek of feedback. The opening band staggered off to a smattering of confused applause and suddenly it was quiet enough for me to sit back again and not be this close to him anymore.

I almost wanted to beg them to play longer.

He rolled his head atop his neck, running his hand through his hair back to front. "I was always good guitarist," he said. "And Niall was always brilliant on bass. Jules was pretty shit on drums to start though."

"Still am!" Jules shouted, raising his newly refilled pint.

"Shush!" August called as the lights went down. "Here he comes!"

I looked back out into the audience and blinked to see how full the floor suddenly was. A shriek went up, distinctly feminine in pitch when Hudson's band loped on stage.

They counted out the beat and then launched into a fairly middle of the road, three chord progression that was musically boring but at least not an assault on the ears. They were competent, a decent bar band.

And then suddenly Hudson came out, prowling like a jungle cat. He surveyed the crowd with a scowl, all his aw shucks niceness left backstage, and suddenly he throttled the mic and let out that sound.

Holy shit that sound.

"Holy shit," I heard Jules say.

We'd found our man.

It was the kind of performance that makes you sit up and take notice. We all were. All of us, at the edge of our seats, leaning forward. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see August smiling, looking like a cat who ate the canary. I raised my glass in her direction, lifting my chin, and she smiled all the harder. There was no denying it, she knew her shit.

I looked back over the stage, I didn't know whatever song Hudson was singing. Maybe it was an original. But the way he was singing it made the hair on the back of my neck stand on end.

And he was hot too, there is no denying that. The women in the front of the house were going absolutely bonkers. He stalked the small stage, singing to each one of them in turn, making them feel the music just the way we were feeling it way back here. He had a way of singing that made you feel like he was singing right to you.

"He’s good, isn't he, lass?" Ewan leaned over, his breath brushing across my ear. "He's pretty hot too, yeah?"

I knew objectively that Hudson was, but there was something wrong there. Like, I knew I should be attracted to him, I knew this intellectually. He was a musician. He had long blond hair, a wide easy smile and muscles for days. And as if to prove the point, he tore his shirt off at that moment, throwing it into the small crowd, and the shrieks were deafening. But even the sight of his tanned skin under the bar lights did nothing for me. Nothing stirred at all.

"Think we've got a winner?" Ewan asked me, and my whole body stood at attention out at once. A gentle throbbing, just like a bass guitar, set itself off unbidden between my legs. Here I was watching shirtless blond guy tear it up on stage, but the quiet voice of the man next to me was what made me weak at the knees.

"I think we have a winner," I said with an emphatic nod. "He's fucking perfect." My mind was spinning as I desperately tried to grab ahold of the last shreds of my professionalism. "A new lead singer was your first order of business."

"Business," Ewan breathed. He wasn't even trying to move away from me right now. And I didn't want him to.

"My conditions, yeah."

His eyes were glued to my lips. "Tell me those conditions again?" he asked.

I pressed my lips together as if I could somehow hide them from his gaze. Like maybe if he stopped looking at them they'd stop burning with the need for him to kiss me. "New name," I mumbled through pursed lips. "New singer."

"And new look, yeah?"

I swallowed. "Yeah," I said, though this moment, if you asked me right at this moment, there wasn't a single thing I could think of that I'd want to change about Ewan Boyd. The way his blue eyes peered out at me from under that shock of dark hair....

He nodded. "If that's what you think love, then I defer to your expertise."

My heart did a sudden and violent backflip that had me dizzy. "You mean it?"

He lifted his chin. "But you have to do it."

"What?"

"You want me to change my look? Then you do it for me. Don't fob me off on some bullshit stylist. If I'm gonna change my look, love, it's only gonna be for you."

"For me," I repeated.

"That's what I said."

"Not for your future, or your fans?"

His eyes twinkled. "I don't really give a fuck about either of those things right now."

"It's all for me, huh?" I darted a glance away from him. "Okay, when do you want me to get started?"

He looked up at the stage. Hudson was wrapping up. Niall was clapping his big hands together in sustained applause. Jules was shouting drunken encouragement at him and August was pulling paperwork from her bag. "What do you say we get out of here?" he asked. "We can start right now."