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As I walked around the corner and into the mixing room, Jared was already talking to Halo, but Slade, Jagger, and Killian were all eyeing me like they’d never seen me before.
“What the fuck are you three lookin’ at?” I said as I moved to take the seat Halo had vacated.
“Hell if we know,” Jagger said, running his eyes over me. “But we think it’s a new species of…viper.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Keep it up, Jagger.”
“Pretty sure Halo’s busy doing that,” Killian interjected.
“Really, Kill?” I cocked my head in his direction. “I expected better from you.”
“No, you didn’t. Plus, even you gotta admit, you’ve been acting a little different lately.”
“Hey, ladies?” Jared said as he let go of the button and looked over his shoulder at us. “Hate to break up this little gossip sesh, but you want to take a listen to your man in there—”
“You mean Viper’s man,” Slade said, to which I rolled my eyes, but Jared kept right on.
“Just see what you think, yeah?”
Jared turned back to Halo, and we all did the same. With the headphones on, his hair had been pushed back from his face, and the sharp angles of his cheek and jaw line—the same ones I’d kissed, licked, and bit—were all on full display.
When the music started up, I shifted forward on the couch, rested my forearms on my thighs, and clasped my hands together. Halo nodded along with the music we’d recorded earlier in the week, and as he stepped forward and angled his face up so his mouth was close to the mic, my eyes roamed up over his Adam’s apple to his lips—lips that were now singing some of the filthiest fuckin’ lyrics I’d ever written, all courtesy of him.
“Damn, Viper,” Slade said, and I dragged my eyes away from Halo to look in his direction. “That’s some love song you wrote for him to sing.”
I ran a hand through my hair and was just about to tell Slade to bite me, when Halo belted out the lyrics:
I’ve thought about how to fix it,
What might do the trick
And fucking you for hours
Just might get it licked
“Does that sound like a love song to you?” I said, and Jagger chuckled.
“From you? Yeah.”
Shaking my head, I went back to listening to Halo. Back to watching him, too. “You’re all delusional.”
“And you are all about the angel,” Jagger said. “Admit it.”
Choosing to ignore him, I kept my eyes forward.
“Come on, guys,” Killian said, and I thought, Finally, the voice of reason. I should’ve known better. “Give it a rest. If V isn’t ready to admit that he wants to go on long walks on the beach at sunset with Halo, who are we to push him?”
Slade snorted, as Jagger laughed, and I glared at Killian over my shoulder. He was grinning at me like a fucking idiot.
“I hate you.”
Killian shoved me in the shoulder. “No, you don’t. But come on. You like him…a lot. Just admit it.”
“Why do you fuckers even care?”
Jagger’s mouth fell open. “Umm, because you have never—in all the years the band has been together—dated, repeated, or sat moon-eyed over anyone. This is…it’s…”
“Unprecedented.” Slade shot a look at me.
“Do you even know what that means?” I asked.
Killian pushed his leg against mine. “Don’t try and change the subject.”
“Fine, you bunch of nosy fuckers.” I shook my head and turned back to where Halo was singing. “I like him,” then I added, “A lot,” because I knew they wouldn’t quit until they got some kind of confession. But that was all they were going to get, because I didn’t even know what the fuck I was thinking or feeling yet.
“Now can you all please shut the fuck up so we can listen to him?” I said. “I don’t think I heard any of that over all your damn yammering.”
“Neither did I,” Jared said without looking back at us, and I gave a pointed look to the three who were smiling smugly at me, and thought, yet again, that they were a bunch of gossipy fuckers before I turned back to hear Jared say, “Halo, can you take it from the top again, please?”
Sixteen
Halo
“HALO, WE SAVED you a seat,” Jagger said a couple of hours later, when we’d taken a break for a late lunch. We still had a few hours’ worth of work to do on “Hard,” but it was coming together and would be done by the end of the day—well, apart from Viper’s four a.m. session.
Speaking of Viper…
With a plate in hand and sitting on the end of the couch, Jagger reached over and patted Viper’s knee, where he sat in the recliner beside him. “Right here good for you, man?” he said to me, shooting a wink my way while Viper swatted Jagger’s hand away.
“If you don’t fuck off with that shit…” Viper said.
