“Probably a few hundred a week.”
He shrugged. “Possibly, but the amount she brings to us”—his chin jerked in the direction of the door—“is less than a handful. Only non-tour performances she thinks will help the band level up. Headlining major festivals, televised events, things like that, except for this one. She didn’t give us the hard sell, but she did bring it to the group conversation.” He stared at the closed door with a contemplative look. “I’ll agree to this under one condition.”
I shot up straighter in my chair, leaning forward. “What do you need? Anything.” Calling in every favor I had would be worth it for this.
“Help me figure out how to get Maddy and her ex, Everest, in a room together. She pretends like whatever happened between them is in the past, but none of us believe her.”
My mouth hung open. Of all the things I’d anticipated that wasn’t it. “You think she’s going to go for that?”
Camden laughed, his eyes glittering in the dim studio lights. “Hell no, she’d rip my balls off and feed them to us for brunch if she knew. But that’s my condition.”
I licked my lips, not believing I was so close. “You don’t need to talk it over with the rest of the band?”
“No, they’re in full agreement with me on this. You help me get them in a room for as long as they need to finally hash all this shit out and we’re in.” He extended his hand. His trust in me at pulling this off and getting them together was all that stood between me and three months of hell. A conversation between Everest and Maddy seemed less unthinkable against that—barely.
I clasped it, pumping it twice. “You’ve got a deal.”
Everyone returned to the studio, and after signing an NDA, which Maddy had at the ready like a gunslinger, they let me listen to one of the new songs they’d been working on.
A little after midnight, I got back to the apartment.
I gingerly unlocked the door, prepared to quietly get to my room without disturbing Sabrina, when music flooded through the open door. Her love of boy bands knew no bounds and the songs were on repeat so often that I could probably sing a whole damn concert’s worth of them. Not that I ever would. There were a lot of things I could pull off, but singing sure as hell wasn’t one of them.
On alert, I followed the sound. It wasn’t coming from Sabrina’s room but the dining room.
I poked my head in the door and stopped in the doorway.
She sat in the far chair on her knees, leaned over a new unfinished puzzle spread out on the table. One arm was braced under her breasts, pushing them up even higher under her long-sleeve t-shirt. She had a puzzle piece in her hand and scanned up and down one edge of the unfinished picture. Her hair was down, falling over her shoulders, every shade of brown highlighted in the bright overhead light.
I should go to my room and not disturb her. Hadn’t I just made a pact with myself to not get involved with her?
She caught her bottom lip between her teeth, plumping it up even more. The pink fullness glistened when she released it and let out a breath, going back to the top of the puzzle and starting her scan all over again.
“Can’t find it?”
She yelped and pitched backward.
I shot around the table and caught her in full flail, locking one arm around her. “We have to stop meeting this way.”
Her eyes widened, and heavy breaths shook her chest. Her fingers clung to my shirt. “Yeah, we do. If you weren’t always so stealthy it wouldn’t be a problem. I swear, you’re a hazard waiting to happen.”
“I’ll try marching into the room next time.” I wanted to hold her chin between my fingers and crush my lips to hers again. To explore every inch of her. My fingers tensed against her ribs, right under the curve of her breast. A soft brush was enough to send my blood into overdrive.
“Thanks for catching me,” she whispered.
“It’s only fair since I made you fall in the first place.”
“True.” The corner of her mouth quirked up.
I cleared my throat and shifted myself to right her in the chair. “You’re up late.”
“It seems I’ve gotten used to sleeping with a full concert going on in the room next to me, so I couldn’t fall asleep.”
That hit like a mallet to my chest.
She smiled and released her grip on me, righting herself in her chair and putting both feet on the floor. “Looks like we’ve been screwing with each other’s heads all along.” Pushing her hair behind her ear, she peered up at me.
Her gaze mesmerized me, shoving me headlong into a fast and furious recounting of how responsive she’d been against me earlier this week.
Leave, Hunter. Say good night and walk into your bedroom, close the door, crank up the music, and crawl into your tub that smells less and less like her every night and try to get some sleep.
I ripped my gaze from hers and focused on the puzzle pieces on the table. Picking up one of the pieces lined up along the side, I flipped it over. I spotted the matching pattern, analyzing the partially formed image as much as I’d been riveted to Sabrina, and slid the piece into place.
“No way!” She shot forward, leaning against the table. “I’ve been looking for spots for those for the past hour!” Her body sagged back into her chair. “I swore those pieces were going to kill me. But I can’t not finish it. I’m a completist.” She glared at the puzzle. This time I wasn’t on the receiving end of the withering look.
The music shifted. A ballad. Damn Harry Styles and his insightful lyrics about turning into someone you swore you’d never be, falling whether in love or in a freefall after it goes south and fears of never being with the person he truly cared about. In the same room with her, his words hit me harder than ever. “Would you like some help?”
She sighed, sat back in her chair, and waved me off. “You don’t have to. It’s late and I don’t want to infect you with my obsessive hatred for this thing.”
“It’s been years since I’ve done one. And it’s not that late.” I took my jacket off and set it on the back of the chair.
“Was this puzzle yours?” She stared at the puzzle with flickering glances toward me.
“My mom and I spent a lot of time doing them once she got sick. I got a light-weight card-playing table that would fit over her hospital bed. I’d sit with her for hours while she got her treatments.” I spun the piece between my fingers. Those were bittersweet times. Happiness clouded by the shooting pain of loss.
“That must’ve been hard.”
“It wasn’t easy. But GiGi hired the best care she could find. Nurses, home aids, transportation to and from the hospital and doctor’s appointments.”
“Still—you were a kid. That had to be rough on you.”
“Not as rough as it was on her.” I dropped a three-piece combo into their spot along the edge of the puzzle. The impressionist watercolor painting came more into focus. “But I did what I could to help. I tried to surprise her and make her smile.” Sadness tinged the memories of coming home from school to her and spending hours together watching movies, working on puzzles, or going out on the days she felt up to it.
“What kind of things did you do?”