AllFreeNovel
Share Us
The bell above the door at The Sub Club chimes as I head inside.
“Welcome to—oh it’s you,” Kira says, adjusting her hat. “Are you here to see Mia or get food?”
“Both, preferably.Iwanted to pick up food from my favorite place in the world—Waffle House, but I was out-voted, so here I am.”
She cracks a smile. “I’ll send Mia out.”
She heads into the back and I wait, hands stuffed into the pockets of my jeans.
“Hey,” she greets with a small smile. Little pieces of hair escape her uniform’s baseball cap and she looks frazzled.
“Hi,” I say awkwardly. “I volunteered to pick up lunch for everyone,” I explain.
“Face it, you wanted to see me.” She smiles, pulling on a pair of gloves.
“That too.”
I start giving her the order, because Idohave to return with sandwiches, chips, and soda.
“You wanted Waffle House, huh?” she jokes, putting the first sub in the toaster oven.
“Kira told you?” I laugh when she nods. “What can I say, I love me some Waffle House. We haven’t been back in too long.”
“Yeah, because we rarely have time in the mornings,” she reminds me, taking the sub out of the toaster. She starts adding the toppings before I can tell her—having already memorized what each of us orders.
“True, but Waffle House is an any time of the day kind of place. We should go tonight.”
She raises a brow. “Are you asking me on a date?”
“Shit,” I curse. “We’ve never been on an actual date, have we?”
“No, and I don’t need one.”
“I should probably take you somewhere fancier than Waffle House.”
“I love Waffle House,” she retorts. “I don’t need fancy, Hollis. I never have and I never will.”
“Okay—so Waffle House tonight then?”
“Yes, as long as you promise we never have to say Waffle House this many times in a conversation ever again.”
I grin. “Deal.”
She finishes the sandwiches and fifteen minutes later I head out into the cold. I borrowed Cannon’s car since my bike is useless in this frigid weather.
I wish I could’ve stayed longer, but she’s working and Hayes will wonder what’s taking so fucking long if I don’t get back soon.
I don’t bother driving back to the hotel garage and walking over to the studio. Instead, I park in the small lot in the back beside Hayes’s Range Rover.
We sit down in the front area since there’s more room to spread out than in the recording studio. Hayes joins us. It was awkward at first, spending time with him like this, especially after the way he found us in D.C. He’s an icon, but a father figure nonetheless. I feel the need to watch what I say around him, wanting his approval of me as a person. I wanted that before I even had anything going on with Mia. Hayes is the kind of man who despite what he may have done in his past is agoodperson. You’d be an idiot not to want him to like you.
He’ll never like you once he finds out what you’ve been up to with his daughter.
“How are you guys feeling about the album?” Hayes asks, grabbing one of the bags of sour cream and onion chips.
“It’s the best music we’ve ever made,” Rush says honestly. “You can tell how well we work together and the lyrics flow.”
“Yeah,” I chime in, pushing away the sudden sickness in my stomach. “The singles we’ve released previously … none of those compare to what we’re doing here. I think we’ve really nailed our sound down and it’s perfect.”
