Page 62

While Danny and Connor are busy, Tobias and John are at the dining table, discussing the security for Club FF with Dante.

A soft ping from my phone has me smiling. Lyric’s text message says that he’s twenty minutes away. Since no one needs me, I leave, heading to the bar that’s adjacent to the hotel entrance. It will give me a better vantage point to see Lyric walk in.

After I order a coke, I plant my ass in the chair that faces the lobby. There, I watch people coming in and out of the hotel. It’s funny, but nobody knows who I am—or who Warrior Black is.

As much as I like this quiet interlude, however, I much prefer the chaos of crowds screaming our names, and the words from our music on their lips. It’s a fucking rush, being on stage and performing.

Then I think of Bobby, and of all the years I’ve known him. All the shit we have gotten into. How my family brought him into the fold. And his family did the same for me—on days when his father wasn’t dead drunk. His father battled alcoholism for years. I never thought Bobby would fall into that same trap. In the beginning, when we were trying to launch Warrior Black and shit got stressful, he’d imbibed, but he never let it go too far.

Then Tobias and the security team came into the picture, and something shifted in Bobby. He stopped drinking, turning to sweets instead. Now I wonder, though, if he ever really stopped drinking and just hid his addiction from us—from me.

Finding out he loves me is a blow. I never saw him that way. Even now, I think of him as a brother from another mother. So for him to be angry at me for going after Lyric is nothing but selfishness on his part. But it could also be the alcohol talking.

I glance out the window and see Lyric getting out of the passenger side of a car. “Who’s driving?” I mutter to myself.

Please, don’t let it be Eun.

Then I spot a short woman rounding the front of the car, and taking a ticket from the valet. That must be Lyric’s sister, He Sook.

I stand, forgetting the coke entirely and meet Lyric by the door. The second our eyes meet, we both smile. The moment he’s through the door, I have him in my arms and I’m kissing him, totally ignoring his sister.

“Rafe, please not here,” he pleads against my lips.

I missed him so damn much, but I do as he asks. “I missed you.”

“I get it,” He Sook says with a smirk. “Oppa, he’s hotter in person than in the pictures you showed me.

I pull back, and eye her. “What’s Oppa?”

“I’m Oppa. Brother.”

He Sook leans against Lyric and side hugs her brother, then releases him and bows slightly to me. “You are Rafe. I’m He Sook, beloved sister of Yeong.”

“She’s my only sister,” Lyric says, smiling at her.

“Well, it’s nice to meet you. Why don’t we head upstairs and you can meet the rest of the band,” I suggest, taking Lyric’s hand and lending an arm to his sister.

“What a charmer. I can see why you like him,” she says with a wink and takes my offered arm.

“Is everyone here?” Lyric asks nervously.

“Everyone but Bobby.”

“Why?”

“Because he’s angry. He needs time, and if he needs that moment to be now, then we have to give it to him,” I say, without going into the details of our fight.

“Then who’s going to play the keyboard?” Lyric’s voice cracks.

“Don’t worry, we have two days to figure it out,” I say, infusing calm into my tone.

“You can play, Yeong,” He Sook says nonchalantly.

“Me? No. I play piano. Bobby plays electric keyboard. They are two different instruments.”

“Do you know how to read music?” I ask, pushing the up arrow button to call for an elevator. “Do you?”

“Yes. But⁠—”