Page 63 of Songbird: Black Kite
I was fucked.
Which brought me to Lewis, and the look of utter hatred he was firing my way. I had known he’d be pissed, as his long-held torch for Victoria was a poorly kept secret, but if the expression on his face was any indication, Lewis might actually try to murder me if I wasn’t careful. I’d known the guy for a decade, and I’d never seen him so angry, not even the first time he caught me fucking Tori in that club.
No, this moment—Tori pressed up against me, looking happier than she’d ever looked—was officially the end of any hope Lewis and I had of ever fixing our relationship. The arrangement I had just agreed to had taken whatever was left between us and lit the fucking thing on fire.
“Victoria! Can you show us the ring?”
I cringed at the question, the reporter fromHigh Notes Magazinesmiling wide, as Tori held up the hand she had pressed to my chest.
“Isn’t it absolutely gorgeous?” Tori gushed, doing a little dance as she spoke. “I’m so lucky. It’s exactly what I’d always pictured.”
Of course it was. She’d bought it herself, pulling it out of her bag and sliding it on when I’d finally agreed to be the fucking dog in this dog and pony show. The thing was hideous, a massive pink monstrosity that looked like it weighed about as much as a baseball, and I had no idea how she’d even function with it on her hand, but what the fuck ever.
Not my fucking problem.
Cameras clicked, snapping photo after photo, and Tori posed and shifted, moving me and turning us to get the exact look she wanted.
Through it all, I just fucking stood there, staring into space and wondering how the fuck my life had wound up here.
“Hawk,” called a voice, and I stared around until I found the face that went with it. Seth Shipley, a freelance reporter we’d interviewed with on more than one occasion. Seth was a good guy, a straight shooter who asked pointed questions about the music, not the stupid gossipy stuff that so many of the journalists had allowed themselves to become slave to in the last few years.
But Seth was also really intelligent,and I could see that of all the people in the room, he was still skeptical. He was too smart to buy the bullshit Castor was shoveling, and if I wanted this to work, Seth was the one I was going to have to convince.
Shaking my hair out of my eyes, I put on my best shit-eating grin and offered Seth a chin lift.
“Hey, Seth,” I said amicably. “What’s up, my man. You good?”
“Yeah, Hawk. I’m good.” Seth pushed his glasses higher on the bridge of his nose before he spoke again. And just like I’d expected, he pulled no punches.
“Hawk, I have to say, I’m a little surprised by this turn of events. There’s been no indication that you and Miss Castor had been seeing each other outside the workplace, not even in the last several years that you’ve worked together.” Smart bastard. He paused, still eyeing me, before he asked his question. “Can you tell me, in your own words, how you and Miss Castor found your way to each other?”
The room was silent as a tomb, every single person waiting with bated breath for my answer. Once I spoke, there would be no taking it back. My words would be delivered at the speed of light to every website, every music channel and radio station around the globe. It would be played and printed and quoted until people everywhere grew sick of hearing about it, and even then, it would continue. Because that was what this industry did to people, it broke them down into sound bites and snap shots and convinced itself that those microscopic glimpses into someone’s life were enough to paint a complete picture. That by reading the headlines and watching the playback, you could know everything there was to know about Hawk Jameson and then you could pass judgment like some sort of benevolent god, ready to offer mercy or condemnation with the stroke of a key and the sharing of a Tweet.
In that moment, I had never hated the entertainment industry more.
Lifting my eyes, I looked again at my band, each of them handling the news they were being given—with no advanced warning—in different ways, and I knew, with everything that I had within me, that protecting them was the right decision.
Even fucking Lewis.
So I turned my head, offering Tori what I hoped was an indulgent,couple-ylook, before I smiled for the cameras and did my part.
“You know how it is, Seth,” I said, my tone belying the pure rage coursing through my veins. “You spend enough time with someone, and you really get to know who they are. At their core, I mean. You give someone enough time, and they will show you who they are as a person. That was when I knew. Because when it came down to it, Victoria showed me exactly who she was, and at that point...what else could I do but marry her?”
The crowd cheered, their excitement over the quote I had just given them palpable, but it was the look in Victoria’s eyes that really pleased me. Because she read every ounce of subtext in my words, and she knew that she may have won this battle, but that somehow, someway, I would win the fucking war.
Chapter thirty-seven
Hawk
Present
Myphonewentoff,letting me know that the front gate had been activated, and I glanced at the screen, recognizing Charlie’s plain black SUV as it wound its way up the driveway. He was early, but I knew he would be. Spend twenty-five years shoulder to shoulder with a man, and you learned a little something about him.
What I knew about Charlie could be boiled down to essentially three things: he was always early, he was meticulous about absolutely everything, and there was no one else in the world I’d trust with my life.
Sliding my feet into my shoes, I left my bedroom and headed downstairs, opening the front door a crack on my way past before I entered the kitchen. Charlie had a key, but I knew that my leaving the door open would piss him off, and after all these years, that was something that Charlie should have known aboutme.
“Damn it, Hawk,” I heard him mutter, causing me to smile behind my coffee mug. When he rounded the corner, joining me in the kitchen, he huffed in annoyance, but I saw his cheek twitch just the same.
