Halo (Fallen Angel, #1)(2)

“I guess” was my less-than-enthusiastic response.

A snort from across the room had my eyes landing on Slade, our drummer, who was sprawled on the red velvet couch twirling his drumsticks through his fingers. “Yeah, you sound real excited over there.”

“Eat me.”

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” Slade retorted, to which I shot the finger.

“The last three weren’t that bad,” Killian said, trying to make the most of the shit situation we were all in.

“‘Weren’t that bad’ isn’t gonna work for me, Kill,” I said. “As much as I hate to admit it, Trent was dynamite on the stage—”

“Fucker,” Slade grumbled, to which I nodded. Trent was a fucker, and I’d made sure to let everyone who asked me about him leaving know it.

But I was getting off track, something that happened a lot whenever I thought about the way my dream had come to a grinding halt because of one goddamn person. I walked over to Killian and said, “Whoever walks through that door needs to be able to match Trent. You know that and so do I. I’m not about to settle for less.” If anything, I wanted more. I wanted better if it existed. So we could shove it up Trent’s ass.

“You’re right.” Killian looked at Slade, and then to his watch. “Where’s Jagger?”

“Dude, I don’t know. Out getting his shoes shined? Picking up his dry cleaning? Take your pick. You know if you need him somewhere, he needs more warning than two hours to be presentable for the public.” Slade’s comment drew a chuckle from me but had Killian shaking his head.

Since our rise to fame, our keyboardist, Jagger, had developed quite an affinity for the finer things in life. Finer clothes, finer cars, and, as he would say, fine-ass women.

Whereas the only thing I liked finer these days was my alcohol. Right now I’d settle for a shot of whatever was on hand to get me through the next couple of hours of hearing some aspiring singer do covers of our hits.

“Text his ass and see where he’s at, would you?” Killian glanced at his phone, checking a message, and then added, “Halo should be here any minute now.”

Wait up… “The guy’s name is Halo? What kind of a fucking name is that?”

Killian aimed a pointed glare my way. “Okay, Viper.”

“You know what I mean. Halo doesn’t exactly make me think TBD. This ain’t no church choir.”

“Thanks for clearing that up for me. But right now, I wouldn’t care if he was a priest. As long as he can sing. You wanna sit here for another seven months?”

Letting out a sigh, I took up a spot by one of the windows. I crossed my arms and resigned myself to the fact there was no way I was getting out of this unless I quit—and I was not a quitter. But before this morning of monotony began, one thing needed to happen.

“You think I could get a drink sometime this century?”

“It’s nine in the morning,” Killian pointed out.

“It’s noon somewhere. And if you want me to sit through hours of some amateur chewing up and spitting out our songs, I need something to dull the pain. Okay?”

Killian held his palms up. “Whatever gets you through it.” Then he pulled open the door and called out for four whiskeys. Before he got an answer, Killian raised a hand and waved to someone down the hall, and it didn’t take a genius to know that Halo had obviously turned up.

“Hey there,” Killian said, while I braced myself for another torturous audition. “I see you found the place okay?”

The response was muffled but had Killian grinning, and when he looked inside the door to me, I could see the message in his eyes loud and clear—play nice. Killian should’ve known better, though. We’d been friends for nearly thirty years now, and one thing about me he knew damn well was that when I played, I certainly wasn’t nice.





Two





Halo





AM I REALLY doing this? I thought, not for the first or even tenth time, as I stepped inside the front doors of Electric Sound Studio. I’d been pinching myself since I’d gotten the call from Killian Michaels himself, telling me he’d seen my audition tape, and could I come in for a face-to-face with him and the rest of TBD?

Uh, meet one of the biggest rock bands in the world? To audition as their lead singer? It was surreal.

But as I signed in with the receptionist and she pointed down the hall to studio 1B, the initial excitement I’d felt when Killian called twelve hours earlier started to morph into full-on anxiety. What the hell had I been thinking when I sent that video in? Then again, someone had to step into Trent Knox’s shoes. Why couldn’t that be me?

My steps faltered, and I almost dropped my guitar case as I turned the corner and stared down the long corridor. The walls were lined with what looked like rich black velvet, chandeliers shimmered overhead every few feet, and at the end of the hall, behind the door with “1B” etched in silver, would be the guys of TBD. A band I’d listened to for a decade, through all my formative years, and now here I stood, on the brink of something that could change my life.

But I couldn’t make myself move. If I turned around and walked out the door now, they wouldn’t have a chance to reject me, and then I could live the rest of my life without the soul-crushing anguish that snub would bring.