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“Fine. I’m gone,” Brian said as he opened the door. “But you guys need to take this seriously. Think about what’s at stake here.”
“I think we’re aware of what’s at stake, Brian. It is our careers.” With a final fuck you look in his direction, I turned back to Halo, whose lips crooked at the side as he held his hand out for the whiskey.
I passed it back to him, and Halo said, “Thanks for that.”
“What?”
“Standing up for me.”
“You deserved it. We rocked the shit out of it tonight. You killed it. There was nothing you could’ve done any fucking better.” I cocked my head to the side, my eyes roaming over Halo’s face, and I found a part of myself relieved to see the apology from earlier had been replaced with…respect. “It’s not your fault they wanted Trent. Just like it’s not our fault. So fuck ’em. I’m not going to let them talk shit about you when you’re doing everything you can.”
As Halo grinned, I made no attempt to hide where I was looking, and if I didn’t know better, I would’ve thought he purposefully licked his lower lip. Then he raised the bottle, took another drink, and said, “I think I just might get drunk tonight. Can I keep this?”
“It’s all yours, Angel. Plenty more where that came from.” And before I did something stupid, I made myself step away from him and head back to the catering table, where several unopened bottles sat. I planned to take all of them back to the hotel room with me and drink at least half of them before we had to catch our flight tomorrow. Because I hadn’t been lying to Halo just to make him feel better—we had owned that stage tonight. We’d played better than we had in years. The problem was, we were missing one key element—and fuck Trent Knox for that.
Thirteen
Halo
HOURS LATER, I found myself slumped behind a baby grand piano in the empty lounge of our hotel, my head resting against the top of it as my fingers moved of their own accord over the keys.
Numb. In shock. Bewildered. My brain couldn’t seem to wrap itself around what had happened tonight, and as I ran through the show again and again, I tried to pinpoint where I’d gone wrong. But my voice had been strong, the energy had been high…it was a flawless set. Which meant the problem had been…me.
The problem is me. I wasn’t Trent, and tonight proved that the fans of TBD weren’t going to be accepting of whoever took his place. I’d stupidly assumed that because the rest of the guys were still there, the lead singer could be interchangeable. It wasn’t like the music had been revamped; I’d matched Trent note for note.
Wrong. Dead wrong.
The chorus of boos echoed in my head, and I squeezed my eyes shut like it would force out the sound. No such luck. I’d probably hear the chants and see the disappointment on the faces of those in the crowd for the rest of my life.
“Excuse me, sir?” I lifted my head, and the bartender gave me a hesitant smile. “I’m about to close things down. Can I get you anything before I go?”
I looked at the almost-empty bottle of alcohol I’d taken from the venue—the one Viper had given me—and shook my head.
“Okay. Stay as long as you’d like.” She set a bottle of water on the lip of the piano and then backed away, giving me my space.
She hadn’t been the only one. I hadn’t seen the others since we’d arrived at the hotel, though I had a feeling they weren’t much better off than me. After Viper’s epic throw-down backstage, it’d been a surprisingly quiet ride to the hotel, everyone caught up in their own misery.
Viper. He’d shocked the hell out of me tonight. Of anyone, I’d have pinpointed him as the last person to come to my defense, but he’d ended up being the only one.
A rush of warmth filled my chest as I thought about the way Viper had told our manager to fuck off when Brian had insinuated they needed to take care of the problem—meaning me. It was still a strong possibility they’d tell me to get lost, and maybe it would be the smart thing to do. Drop me, beg Trent back, bam—shit fixed. But with the way Viper hated Trent, I doubted it’d be a smart idea to get the two of them back in the same room, so…what was the solution?
“There was nothing you could’ve done any fucking better.”
Viper wasn’t the kind of guy to throw out praise, but he’d done that tonight, hadn’t he? Vouched for me like he thought I added something to TBD, not like I was a second-rate imitation of who everyone had wanted to see. And if Viper, the toughest critic in the band, thought I’d done well, then it had to be true.
