“Hey.” He grinned. “You Aaron?”
I regretted my eyeliner and lip gloss at that moment. “Yeah. Hi. I’m here for Doxx?”
He stepped back. “Come on in. Doxx and the guys are in the music room. You look like you could use a drink.”
“Scotch, straight. The whole bottle.” Oh, God, my stupid mouth. “Sorry, yeah. Water?”
Taylor chuckled and motioned me into the apartment. I trailed behind him—“Should I take my shoes off?”
“Sure, if you’re more comfortable that way.”
Slipping them off by the pile at the door, I jogged to catch up with him as he turned into the gourmet kitchen. My eyes went wide.
He grinned. “My little sister lives here and she’s in culinary school. She makes some damn wicked good food and sings opera while she does.”
“That’s the life,” I grumbled. “I have a fridge in the corner that does a piss poor job of saving my leftovers until the next day and a hot plate that gets entirely too hot.”
“Ah, college.” Taylor pulled open the fridge and tossed me a bottled water. “Okay, so all the guys are in the music room and I have my kit all set up in there.”
“I’m usingyourdrums?”
Taylor laughed. “My man, you are going to lose your shit when you walk in there.”
“Tay! Is that him?” someone screamed from the other side of the apartment. “Did he live past Pete and the Yoko Ono heart attack?”
“Shut up, Aus,” Taylor yelled back.
I swallowed. “Au…Austin Lowell?”
“All right, we need to get in there so you can faint and get this over with.” He laughed and headed back out of the kitchen. There was a gorgeous living room with some of the highest ceilings I had ever seen in New York. There was a fireplace in the sitting room. I could see there were bedrooms through the doors we passed and finally reached the end of the hall where there were a tall pair of wooden doors wide open, and a music room, an actual conservatory, beyond.
Bryce Boudin was sitting at the piano, next to his girlfriend Hailey Demarest. They were tinkering on the keys, playing a melody I’d never heard before.
Up Down Left Right was writing a song while waiting for me. I nearly tripped, but Taylor caught me.
“Easy there.” He stopped me. “Take a deep breath. You’re probably going to have to change your pants after this.”
Oh. God.
He motioned me in and walked in directly behind me. “Hey, Aaron’s here. Are we ready for him?”
Bryce and Hailey stopped tinkering and smiled at me. “I think we are,” Hailey said, “but is he ready for us? You guys were mean about this.”
“Whatever. The look is priceless.” Bryce played the note sequence fromClose Encounters of the Third Kind, and grinned like an idiot.
“If there are aliens, I’m out,” I said.
“Okay, I like him,” Bryce said.
“Not your drummer,” someone else said from somewhere in the room.
“So,” Taylor said. “You know Bryce and Hailey.” He started pointing at people around the room. “That’s Austin and his boyfriend Uriah. Next to them is Luis and his girl Christy-Anne. Then Grant and his girl Aubrey.” They all waved as he passed them by.
“You probably recognize Nelson Powers. He’s decided he likes hanging out with rock and pop floozies when not making multimillion dollar films. Next to him is Jace.”
Jace was cute and waved at me shyly from just behind Nelson Powers.
This was either a dream or a nightmare and I didn’t want to think about which one would be better.
