Page 10 of Songbird: Black Kite
“Quitting before you come, Lewis?” she purred, and I smirked as Lewis quickly shoved his dick back into his pants, his face a mottled red as he obviously avoided making eye contact with Victoria. “That’s a first. You feeling alright?”
“I’m good, Tori,” he said, accepting the beer one of the roadies handed him. “Just realizing my tastes are a little more discerning these days.” He leaned back on the couch, trying to look cool, but I saw through his act.
Lewis wanted to fuck her. He had always wanted to fuck her, but unfortunately for Lewis...Victoria wanted to fuck me.
“Well,” Victoria said, laughing lightly. “Here’s hoping you find something more to your liking in Arizona tomorrow night, hey?” With that, she dismissed him, seating herself at the table across from me and leaning forward, allowing me to see directly down the low-cut top of her too-tight dress.
“Hey, Hawk,” she cooed, licking her blood-red lips. “You gonna offer me a drink, or what?”
Oh, yeah. Victoria Castor wanted to fuck me, alright.
I just had to decide if fucking her was worth risking our record deal.
Chapter seven
Hawk
Present
Ithadbeenaweek.
An entire week of reading letters and sorting boxes, and I’d barely scratched the surface of the fan mail that was piled up in my attic. The amount of stuff fans had sent us over the years was astonishing. There were cards and photos, poems and lyrics, and more than a few pairs of panties.
Those went right in the trash.
But it was the demos that had been keeping me up lately. Dozens and dozens of submissions, first on CDs—took me a fucking minute to locate something to play those on—then on flash drives, some of which held entire albums’ worth of material.
Most of it was shit, kids dicking around in their parents’ garages like we used to do, dreaming big and rocking hard, even if they stunk.
But there were a fair number of songs that were pretty fuckin’ good.
And a few that were great.
I was playing one of the great ones, leaned back in my office chair, eyes closed as I listened to a killer song by a band that called themselvesStrap-On,when someone knocked on my open office door. Looking up, I saw Gavin and Alex standing there, looking confused as fuck.
“What the hell is this?” Alex asked, gesturing to the air vaguely.
“Strap-On,” I responded with a wry grin.
“I asked what the song was, not what your latest kink is, you asshole.”
“Fuck off,” I said lightly, pausing the song as the guys dropped into the seats across from my desk. “The band is calledStrap-On. Or at least they were. I think this demo is over a decade old.”
“So how the hell did you get it?” Gavin asked, his fingers drumming lightly on his thighs.
“Dude, there are so fucking many. Here, look.” Rising from my chair, I headed for the far side of the study where Harry and I had lined up all the bins of mail, lifting the one we’d set aside for all the demos. “Look. There are, like, thirty in here right now, but I still have so many boxes to go through. Oh, shit!” Setting down the demo bin, I pointed at the others. “There is a bunch of stuff for you guys here, too. I’ve been meaning to call you, I’ve just been—”
“Losing your fuckin’ mind?” Alex asked, and Gavin nodded sagely. “Hawk, man, I’ve been calling you for two days. I finally had to call the house. Do you have any idea how long it’s been since I used a land line? Harry told me you were working on a ‘special project,’ so Gav and I headed right over.” He paused, his eyebrows scrunching together before he went on. “I had hoped you were working on some new music.”
His words hit me like a punch to the gut, and I frowned, turning to look out the French doors to the pool to keep myself from saying something I would likely regret.
No, I hadn’t been working on new music.
No, I didn’t think I’d be working on new music anytime soon.
Or ever again.
But I couldn’t tell that to the guys; not when they’d already been more than patient.
