CHAPTER 57

JARED

"And that, gentlemen, is how it's done." I turned to the others, standing behind me and grinned like a madman. Down to the last man, the band looked to be as proud as I was. Four smug, satisfied faces grinned back at me.

We were in the studio to record the last portion of the album. The smooth streak we’d hit with recording after we got back to work had continued through to the last note. Not even Dominic complained or accused anyone of not taking it seriously enough.

"Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think this is going to be our best one yet."

"Hell, yeah!" Matt cheered and high fived Nick beside him. He flipped his fringe off his forehead and tilted his head. "Make room on the mantles boys. We might not have been aiming for it, but I predict a couple of awards in our future."

Dom raked his shoulder-length hair back and held it at the nape of his neck, still grinning as he shook his head. "What's that saying about counting your chickens before they’ve hatched?"

Nick gasped and pointed at the floor. "One, two, three."

“It’s that you’re not supposed to count them yet.” Caleb laughed into an eye roll and set his guitar down. "Whatever. We did a good job. Let's leave it there. Anyone for a water?"

Hands shot up, and Caleb walked to the mini fridge in the corner to pull out five water bottles, passing them around the room.

In the past, that fridge held beer, and the studio lackeys would have been carrying in buckets of champagne to celebrate by now, but though we were still planning on celebrating having finished the album, I'd requested they hold back on anything alcoholic.

No one complained, requested a beer, or asked when the champagne was getting here. So far, so good on their promise to stand by Caleb.

I twisted the cap off my water bottle and chugged its contents down, the ice-cold liquid burning my throat, but I was too thirsty to slow down. Small beads of sweat rolled from my forehead past my temples and from my neck down my back.

The energy in the room while we recorded the last few songs was electric, and I'd put everything I had into keeping it that way, thus the sweat despite the air conditioning blasting in the studio. The others were as shiny as I was, a sign we'd all given it our best. People could say what they wanted about us, but when we really got into it, there was no stopping us.

Caleb rolled his water bottle across his forehead and walked to me.

Music, not ours, started playing in the studio as the small celebration we would be having with the few people we'd worked closely with on the album kicked off. Our sound guys and a few others came in to exchange handshakes and back slaps, helping themselves to drinks as they started talking to the others.

I was about to go and join them when Caleb cleared his throat beside me. "I know you're responsible for the dry party were having."

"It's not dry. There's water and soda." I pointed out the obvious, staring him down.

A short laugh burst from him. "Not what I meant, and you know it."

Lifting one of my shoulders in a shrug, I drained the last bit of my water. "Things seem to be going well for us even without the constant flow of alcohol. Thought we should try it out a little while longer."

He nodded thoughtfully, squinting his eyes as they darted to mine in a sidelong glance. "Just so you know, I wouldn't have fallen off the wagon just because there was alcohol around. Plus, the doc said to take it easy for a while, not forever. It's been almost a month, pretty sure that's more than he was expecting."

"Gee thanks, Dr. Larsen. Why didn't you invite me when you graduated from medical school?" Sarcasm dripped from my words. I wasn't trying to be an asshole—for once. I was just worried about my brother, and while I knew one beer wouldn't kill him, I didn't want him to dip his toe into the water without consulting his doctor.

Caleb heaved an exasperated breath and dragged his fingers through his dark hair, shooting me a look that said, “I’m not a damn child.” I ignored it. He was, and always would be, my kid brother. “I would’ve invited you, but I didn’t think it was appropriate for me to invite people to Doc Hansen’s graduation.”

Doctor Hansen was his treating physician back in New York. “You’ve spoken to him?”

“Of course, I have. I’m not an idiot, and I don’t have a death wish. As much as you don’t want me to become a statistic of the lifestyle, I don’t want to become one. I’ve been checking in with his office. He also referred me to someone here.”

“I didn’t know.” Pride and irritation mingled inside me. I was proud he’d been keeping in touch with the doctor but annoyed he hadn’t told me. “Here I’ve been stressing my ass off about you, and you couldn’t even tell me you’ve talked to the good doctor?”

It was his turn to shrug as he rocked back on his heels and pretended to check my ass was still there. “Seems you didn’t stress it off. Also, I’m a big boy now. I can take care of myself, check in with my medical providers by myself, that kind of thing.”

Grinding my teeth together, I tried to temper my irritation. He was right, of course. “Point taken.”

He exhaled a sigh of relief and nudged my shoulder with his. “Good. Now, can we focus on celebrating what we’ve done here? We managed to finish a kick-ass album just about on schedule in spite of all our setbacks. I think that calls for a day without worrying.”

“Fine,” I agreed. The mood in the studio was jovial and celebratory. Someone cranked the music.

I hadn’t been aware that I had a protective bone in my body until very recently. I wasn’t going to let that one bone I discovered when it came to Caleb and Alicia ruin the day for me. Tossing my empty water bottle into the trash basket, I decided to let go of my annoyance. If the doc was happy with Caleb, who was I to argue?

I would continue to keep a close eye on him, but I also had to trust he wanted to and could keep himself alive. “You want to go join the others?”

“Not yet,” he said. “You have any idea what the plans are for us from here? I know we were going to go on tour a couple of weeks after wrapping up in the studio, but is that still the plan?”

“As far as I know.” Gerry was back at work, but we’d been concentrating on recording the last few songs on the album, and he was doing whatever it was he did. I hadn’t spoken to him much. “Last I heard, it was going to take about a month for the album to be finished, and then we’ll probably take it on tour.”

“Same shit, different day?” He smiled, the easy, joyous expression from earlier creeping back into his expression.

I nodded. “Think so. Just with a better album than the ones we’ve toured so far.”

Smirking, he agreed. “Yeah, it is.”

“I’ll talk to Gerry and Alicia later and find out what the plans are.” Album promo, more social media stuff, and tons of build-up before the album dropped and our tour kicked off probably, but like Caleb, I wanted to know for sure what was happening.

“Let me know?” Caleb asked, veering toward where Nick was chatting with one of the sound techs, and Dom was listening to something being played through earphones by another.

“I will.”

We hung out in the studio for another hour before the guys all started making plans to move the party somewhere else. Nick’s house, unless they changed their minds on the way. I declined the invite, wanting to get to Gerry’s office before I left. I would check in with the band later, but I was riding the high from our successful finish in a different way than I usually did.

Today, I wanted to be part of the planning and the work that still had to go into finishing off the album. I also wanted to know the game plan and psych myself up for it. For probably the first time since getting into this life, the celebration wasn’t about the party for me. It was in the work.

Fucking weird, but I was rolling with it. It felt right

Taking the concrete stairs to Gerry’s studio office two at a time, I jogged up to see him. His door was open, and I heard his voice echoing down the hallway before I got to it. I’d been worried about him after his talk about retirement and how we didn’t need him, but it sounded now like he was back to his old self.

The office he kept here was smaller than his main office, but his presence in it was the same. Sitting in a wingback chair in the corner, he had a file open on his lap and was firing off questions to someone who was sitting with their back to me, dwarfed by the enormous leather chairs Gerry favored.

Awareness prickled my skin before I even saw her, the floral scent of her perfume mixing in the air with the faint smell of smoke wafting in through the open windows.

Alicia’s here.

My heart did the strange turning thing it had taken to doing lately when I saw her, and a grin pulled at my lips. Rapping my knuckles against the open door, I entered the room. “Knock, knock.”

“There he is,” Gerry said warmly, rising from his chair. “How’s my favorite front man doing? Feeling good about the album? We just got word you guys finished recording the last song.”

“We did. And I bet you say that to all your front men,” I joked, shaking his offered hand before sinking into the seat next to Alicia’s.

I was too far away from her to feel the heat coming from her skin, but it was almost like the hairs on my arm nearest to her rose anyway as aware as I was of her sitting right there. My fingers twitched on the armrest, wanting to close the few inches between her hand and mine.

When I sat down, she shifted in her seat just so. Just enough to make me realize my body wasn’t the only one aligning myself almost instinctively to hers. One of the corners of her lips curled up into a private smile as she caught my eye for a fraction of second, breaking eye contact before Gerry had even settled back into his seat.

Nothing more than a fleeting glance, but I grabbed onto it with both hands and buried the depths of emotion in her eyes deep inside me. In a private place only I would be able to dig out.

My newfound possessive streak had grown to be about two miles wide with Alicia. It bothered the fuck out of me, but I couldn’t deny it was there. I nearly growled a couple of days ago when I saw her talking to one of the cafeteria guys. And he was just offering her another coffee.

Now, I totally got the territorial thing I used to laugh at other men about. Didn’t know what to do with it, but I got it.

Gerry interrupted my thoughts when he handed me the file in his lap. Dropping my eyes quickly to the sheet of paper on top, I saw a table with dates on one side, lined up with a lot of names I recognized.

Reporters. He and Alicia must be discussing promo. Good, this is what I came here to hear.

Settling in for the impromptu meeting, I lifted the paper to scan the chosen reporters more carefully.

Gerry started talking as I examined the schedule. “Alicia came up with an idea for you guys to announce the tour start date for the album in another live interview. We’ve had requests rolling in from all the major players, but I think you’re going to like the one she chose.”

I zeroed in on a line highlighted with yellow ink. The show she’d chosen was a popular late night one. The host was a friend of ours, inasmuch as people in the entertainment reporting industry could be our friends.

We respected him, got along with him, and he was one of the few who never talked shit about us.

“This is great.” A warm feeling I struggled not to think of as fuzzy spread in my stomach. Damn, this girl knew me well.

If I could’ve had a choice out of every show to go on to announce our tour date live, it would’ve been this one. “Well done.”

Gerry smiled proudly. “Didn’t I tell you we needed this woman on our team. She’s the best damn thing that ever happened to us.”

I caught Alicia’s eye from the corner of mine, fighting to contain the urge to jump up and kiss the fuck out of her. Nodding slowly, I met Gerry’s pale blue eyes. “Yeah, she really is.”