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“Maze.”
“Cool,” Brodie replied as he walked beside me. “You play?”
“Guitar and piano.”
“You sing?”
“Sometimes.”
“You married?”
“Fuck no.”
Brodie’s bark of laughter stunned me. It was welcome, though, and the mood between us shifted and became a little less hostile. Not entirely, but I didn’t expect to win him over in one conversation.
But I did as promised. I took them to the best barbeque place in the city, and we bonded over our mutual love of smoked meat, beer, and, of course, music.
Brodie and I bantered back and forth, with the rest of the band chiming in here and there.
Later that night, I reviewed their demo again. After meeting them in person, I knew this was the start of something special.
Wayward Lane was going to go all the way, and I would make sure of it.
Their lives would never be the same.
Turns out, neither would mine.
BRODIE
There were very few people I liked on sight.
Lusted after? Sure. Lots and lots of men, that is.
Respected? That was a whole different thing. That took time.
Was curious about? That was rare, too.
Until Ivan Cross. Or Van, as he preferred.
Van ticked every fucking box and then some.
Most people in the music biz I’d met over the past seven years were either conceited assholes, like Greg Haddley, or predatory pricks.
Either way, I was always on guard.
Dealing with people like Greg was a necessary evil if you wanted to make it big. His talent roster spoke for itself, but that didn’t mean I trusted him.
But Van? He didn’t try to charm me, and I didn’t sense any ulterior motives.
I don’t know what I’d been expecting in Bandit’s head office that day, but it sure as shit wasn’t Van.
I’d nearly drooled at the first glimpse of him. The rolling swagger of his walk, the confident air when he returned my sass, the denim blue eyes…
Fuck me, those eyes.
In my mind, I was anticipating some creepy dude with a bad combover who wanted to mold us into the next boy band. Not a hot-as-fuck fortysomething who knew more about rock music than I did. A guy as cool as we were.
We were rockers from up north—wild, know-it-all, snarky, twenty-five-year-olds.
