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“Can you believe it? Mom and Dad are gonna freak,” Imogen said, shutting the laptop, a huge grin on her lips as she faced me. “Aren’t you excited? You don’t look excited.”
“Yeah…”
“You don’t sound excited either.”
I snorted. “It’s called shock. I mean, I didn’t even know I was being recorded, and now millions of people have seen it?”
“You didn’t know? Do you know who taped you, then?”
“It had to be TBD’s manager, Brian. But I don’t know how the Warden would’ve gotten a hold of it, unless Brian sent it to him, which is random as hell. I don’t get it, Im.”
Was this some kind of marketing ploy to fight back against the bad press we’d gotten after the show? Were the guys in on it too? Or, shit, did they even know?
“That is weird,” she agreed. “But also freakin’ awesome. This is it, Halo. Your big break.”
I wanted to laugh in her face, tell her she was crazy, but a strange sensation settled in my stomach, and I wasn’t too sure she was wrong. And if she wasn’t wrong, then that meant everything was about to change.
Thirty-Four
Viper
FUCKING HELL, IT’S cold tonight, I thought, as I stuffed my hands into the pockets of my leather jacket and trudged through the ankle-deep snow blanketing the sidewalk. Even with the beanie I’d pulled down over my head and the scarf I’d practically strangled myself with to ward off the frigid night air, the wind that whipped up every few minutes or so made the icy precipitation feel like tiny pinpricks stinging my face.
It was Monday night, and as always when I was in New York, I was making the commute from Manhattan to Dyker Heights, to check in on the one person in the world I loved above all others—my mother.
It was always such a trip coming back here, back where it all began, and as I passed by Killian’s old house, I saw the flickering lights of a television playing inside the living room. His mother and father were sitting down to watch the nightly news, as was their routine even now, over a decade after we’d all grown up and moved away. It was strange, and comforting to know that some things would never change, even if everything else around you did.
Like the boy who’d lived in the house next door to Killian. The boy I now wished would go to hell. The boy who’d left us… Yeah, it was always a trip to be back here, all right.
The streetlights overhead lit up the narrow strip of snow-covered concrete as I made my way past their tidy little house and the rest of the block, where home after home stood side by side until I reached the one-family semi-detached brick home where I grew up.
Swirls of smoke drifted up into the night sky, and the porch light was on, as it always was when my mom was expecting me. The peaked entrance and roof were covered in the fresh white powder that was now coating my boots, and once I was up the three steps and on the small porch, I shook as much snow off as I could.
Before I could pull out my key for the front door, it was pulled open and my mom pushed through the wrought-iron security door with a smile on her face, wearing her usual pink robe with white flowers on it.
“David.” The warm greeting made the chill in my bones instantly vanish, and so did the swift whack upside my shoulder that accompanied it. “Are you insane coming out here tonight? Walking around here in this kind of weather. Do you want to catch your death?”
“Damn, woman.” I rubbed at my arm. “No. I always come home on Mondays. Plus, I didn’t walk here.”
“Really?” She planted her hands on her hip, her robe and matching slippers not detracting in the slightest from the fierce look in her dark eyes. “Then why are your jeans wet? Right up to mid-calf. God knows how much of that stuff got in your boots.”
Okay, my feet are fucking freezing. “I walked from the station. Not from the city. And how about you yell at me about it in there? Where I can take my boots off.”
“Don’t you get smart with me,” she said, pointing a finger my way.
“I’m not.”
“Uh huh. That viper tongue of yours came from me, remember?”
I smirked and wrapped an arm around her dainty shoulders, tugging her into my side. “How could I ever forget?” I kissed her on the side of the head where her dark hair was tucked behind her ears. “But seriously, I’m freezing my ass off. You gonna let me in or what?”
She tsked me, but then pulled open the door. “Come on, then. In with you.”
We headed inside, and as she left me to go into the kitchen, I unwound my scarf and toed off my boots, the inviting smell of homemade chicken parmigiana—my favorite—hitting my nostrils.
