Page 89 of Rebooting Conor Flynn

My muscles tensed. If he laid into me, I don’t know if I could take it—even though I deserved it.

“What took you so long? I was waiting for you.” He stroked my hair. “Are you alright? I’m sorry that happened.”

I leaned my head into his hand for a second—and I didn’t care who saw. “It’s not your fault, Con. It’s mine.”

Reaching past me, he shoved open my door. “I’m inviting myself in for a drink. There’s actually a can of Guinness in the mini bar, but Rhys already stole mine.”

I walked into the room and tossed my bag onto the desk. “I could use a drink...or 25. Why would she do that?”

“We both know why. It suited her.” Conor crouched before the mini bar and whistled. “You still have your Guinness.”

“Who else is gonna drink that shite? I hate it. Did I ever tell you that?”

He emerged from the little fridge with a smile on his face, holding the can of Guinness in one hand and a bottle of white wine in the other. “This okay, or do you need something stronger?”

“The wine’s okay. I’ll chug it from the bottle.”

He cranked open the twist cap and held it out to me. “Let’s sit on the balcony. I love those butte things out there. They look other-worldly.”

“They are beautiful in a weird way.” I opened the sliding door to the balcony and settled into a chair with my wine.

Conor dragged his chair close to mine and cracked open his can. Closing his eyes, he took a sip. “Can’t beat a pint at the pub, but it’ll do in a crisis.”

“This is a crisis, isn’t it?” I squinted at the label on my bottle and took a sip, the wine pooling on my tongue with a surprisingly crisp taste for a twist cap bottle in a mini bar. “Have you ever been booed before?”

“Well, some wankers booed me and the lads one time at an awards show for winning best song for something. I dunno. We thought it was kind of hilarious at the time—well, Charlie and I did—the others were pissed, mortified, and worried. I’ll let you guess who was who.”

“Let’s see.” I raised my eyes. “Javeed was pissed, Sam was mortified, and IP was worried and took it personally. Did I get it?”

“You know the boys as well as I do. They haven’t changed much.”

“But that was a group boo—easier to stomach, especially with Charlie by your side cracking jokes.”

Conor raised his can. “Fans booed me for not doing a Five2Go song in a concert. You know, at the end for the encore after I’ve made them sit through all my solo stuff and they’re screaming their lungs out for Baby Oh and all the other hits, and I wave and walk off the stage...to boos.”

“Yeah, I know that, too.” I shrugged. “The fans get over that pretty quickly. They have to know by now that you guys might not perform a Five2 song, especially at the beginning of your solo careers. All of you avoided those songs like a skunk in heat.”

“We did, didn’t we? I suppose we grew up and realized what we had. Those songs belong to us.”

“Ian added quite a few at his concerts in South America—even with all those hits from his number one album last year. He has his eye on the reunion, doesn’t he?”

“We all do now—except Jay, but you can work on him.”

“You have an unfounded belief in my abilities.” I gulped back more wine. Especially now. Apparently, my abilities sucked. I couldn’t even oversee a six-week summer tour where each act had his and her own manager.

“Always, except it’s not undeserved.” Conor squeezed my knee. “In fact, I was thinking...”

Conor’s phone on the table between us pinged.

I pointed to the phone. “Better get that. Mine’s in my bag in the room, and it could be Jermaine with some tour news.”

He swept the phone from the table and tapped the screen. His eyes widened as he swiped the display.

Then he clasped the phone to his chest as he jumped from his seat. “Holy shit!”

“What? What?”

His expression shifted from shock to something darker. “Everything just fucking changed.”