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Sputtering in surprise, I shake my head. Same old Ahearn brothers.
“I didn’t realize I was the one with my knickers in a wad,” I snicker.
“Meh, Finn is still a bit sore, but we’re good if you are,”he reassures me.
“How good?” I ask with a small wince. “I kind of fell into a business proposition.”
“You sound like you’re clenching,”he says.“It’s best to use lube before you take it up the ass, or at least that’s what I hear.”
I shake my head.I just can’t with him, but I really have missed Ronan.
“I didn’t fall onto a cock, I said a business proposition,” I remind him.
“Sometimes that’s the same thing,”Sean chimes in, making me realize that I’m on speakerphone.
Son of a bitch.
“Are you done?” I ask. “My girlfriend’s uncle hired my services for their music label. Network security, IT services, troubleshooting. The issue is, I’ll be on tour with her for?—”
There’s a request for a video chat and I sigh.
It’s going to be one of those calls. Great.
Accepting that it is my fate to face the Ahearn brothers today, I click the button so that a video call will begin. The unhelpfully good looking brothers make faces at me, squishing their faces against the phone and making me chuckle.
“You have a girlfriend?”Finn crows once they move back a little. I guess he was listening the entire time. He may still lay me out the next time I see him in person, but I figure I’m safe enough for now.
“Layla Campbell,” I chuckle, pushing my hand through my brown hair as I think about her. “She is a musician and we’ve been together for five years. Her uncle is offering an obscene amount of money to work with their label. They need people who are local to do the hands-on tasks, and you’re the first intelligent knuckleheads I thought of.”
“That’s an oxymoron,”Sean says helpfully, making my lips twitch.
We could go around and around like this for hours, but I need to get packed.
“So noted. Do you want the details? I know that your company is doing really well?—”
“I’m touched. You’re cyber stalking us,”Ronan teases.“We are, but we just ended a pretty big contract we were working with, so we have some time on our hands.”
“Did you end on good terms?” I ask, interested.
“Oh, yes, but it was a two-year contract, and they don’t need as much maintenance for their servers anymore. Plus, the government contracts that they were concerned about people hacking information from also ended, and we scrubbed their servers,”Ronan explains.“We ended amicably with the understanding that they could reach back out if needed.”
Nodding, I decide that all makes sense. “I’m not a stalker,” I scoff, returning to a past comment he made. “My new contract is, though. He’s currently checking into you after I mentioned that you may be able to take onMusic Horde Recordsfor their IT needs. Like I said before I was so rudely interrupted, I’ll be remote, so I won’t be able to go into the office if there are troubleshooting issues that I can’t fix over the phone.”
“So hand holding,”Finn says. The way he says it could be taken as a sneer, but there’s not a hint of it on his face or tone. Sometimes, you need to walk someone through a computer issue, or show them a new skill for people who are visual. Other times, it feels like the computer is possessed by a demon that likes to spit out error codes for no damn reason.
“Pretty much.” I shrug. “The money is really good, the record label is clean, and the opportunities are endless.”
“You’re selling this hard,”Sean snorts.“What’s the deal with you traveling with the girlfriend. Is she a stage-four clinger or something?”
“Not at all,” I scoff. “She’s had some very shady bandmates, and I beat the shit out of one recently because he kept coming onto her bus when she was supposed to be sleeping. Fortunately, I was with Layla the last time. Unfortunately, we weren’t wearing many clothes. It didn’t keep her from kicking him in his balls, though.”
“Fucker,”Finn snarls, surprising me.“Are they still on tour with her? What the hell kind of record label is this?”
“Calm down,” I tell him. “They’re actually really invested in her safety, and recommended that I start touring with her full time. That’s kind of how this all came about today. Her bandmates all over indulged when it came to drugs, and Zeke kept blaming that along with the sleepwalking. The three of them walked off the tour. So now, she’s meeting with potential new people to see if they’re a good fit.”
“Damn,”Ronan mutters.“Has she had any other issues with bandmates?”
“Yeah,” I sigh. “A couple of older guys who had no business messing with Layla when they weren’t serious about her. She was barely twenty-one, I think? Her uncle and the other exec guys want to make sure she has a good support system when she meets these new band members. I don’t think they’d let her even consider them if they were dangerous, but she’s had enough issues that they’re being cautious.”
