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Viper refilled his coffee mug and nodded. “Yeah, it is. I gotta say”—he took a sip of the hot brew and flashed a crooked grin—“feels good to be hearing things again.”
I chuckled. “When you talk like that, you sound like you need to be committed. Or, at the very least, medicated.”
“Hey, meds might help, you don’t know.”
“Like we need you any fucking crazier than you already are. Knowing our luck, you’d start hallucinating and wind up in the papers running naked down a street or some shit.”
“Nah,” Viper said, as he looked out at the city skyline. “There’s no way in hell Halo will let anyone but him see me naked ever again. He’d chain me to the bed first.”
“An image I really could’ve done without,” I told him, then took a sip of the orange juice sitting in front of me. “So about this song of yours.”
“Yeah, right. I’ve got most of the chorus, I’m just looking for some lead-in lyrics and the hook. Thought you might wanna work on it with me. You know, like the old days.”
“The old days?” I laughed. “Are we even old enough to have old days.”
“Okay, how about the TBD days?”
“Better,” I said as the waiter arrived with my poached eggs on toast and Viper’s Aussie scramble. After we thanked him and he headed off, I picked up my knife and fork. “You don’t want to finish this one with Halo?”
Viper reached for the hot sauce and shook it. “We’ve been working on a couple already, but we were both just saying how it would be great to have your influence on this next album. You have such a distinctive voice, man. Our fans would go crazy for a few new Killian songs to scream at the top of their fuckin’ lungs. Hell, so would I.”
It was funny. I knew Viper was thinking of our harder-hitting powerhouse songs that used to rattle stadium seats. But the song I wanted to show him today was nothing like that. It was more a power ballad. One I could imagine Halo crooning to a packed stadium of fans waving their hands in the air as they sang along and made out with the person beside them.
“I can definitely get on board with that. But the one I want to show you today, it’s more mellow than you’re probably thinking of.”
“I’m down for mellow, as long as it’s not some whiny, depressive shit you wrote while pining after our manager.”
“Bite me.”
“Eh, I don’t know,” Viper said, and then waggled his eyebrows. “Levi might get pissed if he sees me nibbling on you. Not to mention Halo…”
Fucking gross. While ninety-nine percent of the human population would sell their soul to have Viper’s mouth on them, I’d known the bastard way too long and been through way too much to think of him in any other way than…brotherly.
“Excuse me while I go and bleach my brain to get rid of that particular image.” Viper flashed a toothy grin, making me grimace. “Seriously, stop with the teeth shit. You’re gonna give me nightmares.”
Viper started laughing hard, and then shoveled a forkful of food in his mouth. The two of us then cleaned off half our plates before talking again.
“So, okay,” Viper said. “This song you been working on. You bring it with you?”
I dug my hand into my pocket and pulled out the folded piece of paper with the lyrics I’d thought of back in Sydney. After tossing it on the table between us, I reached for my discarded knife, and when I noticed my hand shaking, I frowned.
What the hell was the matter with me? I was never nervous when it came to shit like this. I’d known Viper my entire life, been working on music with him for most of it, and never had my stomach twisted around on itself when I gave him something to read. My general feelings in the past were always: if he didn’t like something, fuck him. He wasn’t the authority. But for some reason, I really wanted him to like this piece.
A couple minutes passed, but it might as well have been an hour with how quiet Viper was being, then he raised his eyes to mine and let out a low whistle.
“Damn, Kill.”
Oh shit, he hated it.
“This is…” As Viper’s words trailed off, I held my breath. “This is some fuckin’ love song right here, man. Has Levi seen this yet? Have you played it for him?”
Wait…what? No.
Viper had it all wrong. It wasn’t a love song, per se. It was more about lust, and giving in to emotions that had been building over time. It was about finally allowing yourself to see, and fall into the arms of the one who had been right in front of you all along. As in fall into bed. Not love.
