“Cerys, you shouldn’t be letting random strangers—”
“I’m twenty-seven. Mum taught me how to handle myself. I enjoyed myself in the end. If you were so worried about a guy paying for my dinner, you should have showed up. He made sure I got home safely and was the perfect gentleman.”
“Good.”
Cerys sighed. “What about the other stuff?”
“What stuff?”
“Learning? Mentoring? Trying?”
“Let me think it through and talk with a couple of the guys. You can start with getting Jase to take care of his voice. Kid’s vocals are great, but if he keeps abusing them the way he does, he’ll be toast in ten years.”
“Fine. I’ll do that.” Small steps, she’d take them.
Her father offered her the package. “Don’t forget your gift.”
She smiled and opened the bag, then the ribbon, then the box.
“Do you like them?”
“Them?” she asked, looking down at the spiral chain necklace with the Tiffany heart on the end.
“The. It. Whatever.”
Cerys closed the lid and looked at him suspiciously. “Do you actually know what’s in here?”
Jimmy nodded. “Your gift. I paid for it.”
“No, but what did you pick?”
Finally, he huffed. “Okay. You got me. I didn’t pick it up. I had Alicia pick it up.”
“Your assistant?”
“I was stuck in the studio, remember?” At least he had the wherewithal to look embarrassed.
Cerys rolled her eyes. While there had been some progress, they were back to that. His music and his life here would always be his priority, and she’d need to adjust.
And change her definition of what having a father would realistically be like.
Because as much as she hated to admit it, although being here was mostly about her studio, there was a small part of her . . . a tiny small bit buried really deep in her heart, that had hoped he might meet her, like her for who she was, and tell her that leaving her behind had been a stupid mistake.
Ben looked surprised when Jase walked in through the hotel room door Ben had left unlocked. “Come in. I ordered some breakfast shit to save us time. Help yourself.”
“What’s with the shocked face?” Jase asked as he helped himself to eggs and bacon from the hot plate.
Ben poured Jase a mug of coffee and handed it to him. “You’re here. You normally skip shit like this.”
Jase shrugged. “Was awake. Not sure why we need a meeting at the hotel when we’ve spent the last six days in one giant meeting at the recording studio. Like, don’t we spend enough time with each other on the regular without this?”
“We need to talk away from Bexter,” Matt said, walking into the room. “There’s always someone around us when we’re there, and I wanted to check-in before the week kicks off, that we’re all cool.”
“You’ve never been cool,” Jase said.
Ben smirked as he slapped Jase on the back. “Dude. It’s like seven in the morning on a Monday. Lay off.”
“Lay off what? He’s as cool as tepid bath water.”
“Let’s save it until everyone gets here,” Matt said as his phone rang. When he looked down at it, he smiled and bit down on his lip. “Hey, Iz. I missed you this morning.” He walked back into the hallway, his voice fading away.
Jase took a deep breath, waiting for an ache that appeared when he heard Iz’s name, but it never came. It felt weird.
Alex bounded into the room wearing what looked like a fucking kaftan. But after years of watching the guy walk around like a cross between Aerosmith’s Steven Tyler and Harry Styles, nothing he wore could surprise him anymore. It was black and silver, and Alex had black biker boots on and a shit ton of leather and silver bracelets.
Luke followed him in dark blue jeans and his Man City football shirt.
When he looked around the room, he thought about what Bexter had said, and it was true—their disparate looks didn’t exactly project a brand.
Not that he wanted to be one.
The idea of branding gave him nightmares.
They were all the same and yet so very different.
All proud Manchester lads. Messed up but loyal families. He and Matt with a missing mum and different dads. And he knew Ben and Alex were on the phone to their mum on the daily given it was the start of their dad’s two-week off-cycle from the offshore rigs. And Luke had never fully recovered from his father’s death, his bleary eyes and stubble saying last night had been a bender. Of women or booze, Jase wasn’t sure.
They understood the value of a pint with friends, and that family mattered.
The thought jarringly shook him as he looked over to Matt, who returned to the room with a smile on his face.
Family mattered.
Fuck.
Ben, with his laid-back approach to life and his clearly messed up, not-in-a-relationship with Chaya. Luke, who seemed to be edging towards no longer being able to take or leave the alcohol, drugs, or sex. Alex, who embraced anything, and anyone, of beauty, and who Jase would take a bullet for in a heartbeat. Matt, with his industrious approach to the band and his need for a buzz in his veins to get onstage, which he’d been battling. And himself, who . . . What the fuck did he do? Sing. Fuck around.
He shook his head, unwilling to answer the question seriously, because the answer might make him hate himself even more than he did already.
“Right,” Matt said as he perched on Ben’s unmade bed. “What’s working? What’s not? How do we set ourselves up for success this week?”
Jase huffed in spite of himself. “You’ll be wearing pleated chinos and a polo shirt next with all that kind of talk.”
Alex hid his smirk behind a napkin, and Matt just raised a single eyebrow of disapproval.
Luke shoulder checked him. “Doesn’t being a prick get exhausting?”
Jase laughed. “Not when he makes it so easy for me.”
“Fuck off,” Matt said. “I’m serious. Anyone got any concerns?”
“I’ve got something.” Ben topped up his coffee. “I’m worried that the vibe will be different on the songs where we’re recording pieces individually versus songs we’re recording together. Taking Luke off to lay down the drum track and then me playing to it later doesn’t feel as natural, and I wonder if you’ll be able to hear that in the songs.”
Alex nodded. “Yeah. I’d back that. I realised how much I watch you guys for cues when playing. It’s more inspiring that way.”
Matt made notes in his phone. “Okay, so we’ll talk to Bexter about that. Didn’t Cerys say they’d put us in that studio so we could play together?”
Jase thought about Cerys. In fact, if he was honest, he may have thought about Cerys a little more than he should. There was something so inherently good about her. Perpetually cheerful, insanely knowledgeable. He’d also woken up hard as a rock on Sunday morning from thoughts about her lips. Smiling at him, kissing him, wrapped around his cock. “Yeah, she did.”
“Anything else?”
“We need to keep an eye on how replicable playing these songs live is going to be,” Luke said. “It’s pretty cool that we have access to a shit ton of equipment right now. But if Alex layers piano onto a song, as well as percussion, we’re going to need a pianist to play the song completely live. I don’t like the idea of introducing some kind of backing track that we all need to play along to. So, costs and logistics start to rise.”