Halo (Fallen Angel, #1)(21)

Slade shrugged. “I mean, that’d suck, yeah, but if he walks, we could always find someone else.”

“Someone else? Have you forgotten how long it took us to find Halo? And he was by far our best shot.” Killian gripped the back of his neck. “That guy has one of the best voices I’ve ever heard, and if we don’t get our heads out of our asses, he’s gonna peace out on us before we can blink.”

“My head isn’t up anyone’s ass,” I muttered. “And with what happened tonight, I’m not going to be getting any ass anytime soon. How’s your bed looking tonight, Kill? I don’t see anyone waiting outside for you like they usually do.”

“Fuck you.”

“No, thanks. I don’t dip my dick where I work.” As soon as the words left my mouth, I wanted to take them back, and if Killian had been half the asshole I was, he would’ve taken the clear shot he had—but Killian didn’t work like that.

“Watch yourself,” Killian said in a tone I knew well. It was the warning he gave before he was done playing the peacemaker. The signal that you were a step away from him not giving a shit one way or another about how you were feeling. And if you pushed him there, well, the only way to get back was to grovel like a motherfucker.

Me, I didn’t like to grovel. So I backed up a step.

“I don’t know, Kill.” Jagger ran a hand over his chin. “Maybe it would be better if he did walk. Then we could find someone who looks a little more like Trent? Or who’s the same age? Maybe Halo is too…different.”

The words made something inside my gut twist and revolt. It felt wrong to be talking about Halo like this when he wasn’t there to defend himself, but I was hardly the one to be making any decisions tonight, not when I was three sheets to the wind. So instead of saying anything, I twisted the cap off the bottle of alcohol and tossed it on the ground.

“I’m not trying to be an asshole here,” Jagger said. “But just because Halo is talented doesn’t mean shit—obviously. He’s not what our fans want. They want Trent.”

And that was it right fucking there, wasn’t it?

The fans wanted Trent.

The record company wanted Trent.

Bastard wouldn’t get the fuck out of our way, even though he’d walked out.

“Well, that’s too damn bad,” Killian said. “Trent is gone. And he ain’t coming back. We all have to deal with it, or this, this band we all love, we might as well kiss it the fuck goodbye.”

I didn’t want to acknowledge how the truth of Killian’s words chafed my ego. After all, it had been the three of us—Killian, Trent, and me—who’d started TBD over a decade ago, and the fact that the rest of us couldn’t sustain the band without Trent made me want to hurl the bottle in my hand across the room instead of finishing it off.

“Then what’s the solution?” Slade asked as he dropped into the couch beside Jagger. “Where do we go from here?”

With his hands pulling at his dark hair, Killian got to his feet and paced the floor. All the rest of us could do was watch, because what was the answer here? If there was no Trent, there was no TBD. And there was no way in hell I was giving up what we’d worked so hard for because that asshole had walked.

With a sigh, Killian dropped his hands. “We pivot.”

“We what?” Jagger said.

“We pivot. Change directions. Start over.”

“Start over?” Slade’s voice went high. “We’ve got half an album of new songs recorded—”

“That MGA’s already trashed and burned by now,” Killian finished. “We can’t use ’em. We can’t write songs for someone who’s no longer here.”

Shit. Was he kidding? That meant months of work gone.

“I think it’s time we faced the inevitable.” Killian shrugged. “We’ve got to bury TBD—”

“What? We’re not fucking quitting—” I started, but Killian put his hand up.

“And rise again.”

Rise again? And here I thought I was the one who’d had too much to drink. What the hell did that even mean?

“Like a zombie?” Slade said.

“Nah, man, like Jesus.” Jagger nodded along. “Yeah.”

I glanced between them, my lip curled up. “Why the fuck are you two talking about zombies and Jesus?”

“We’re talking about rising from the ashes,” Jagger said. “TBD’s dead. Tonight made that pretty damn clear. We’ve got to start over.”

“Dead?” I shook my head. “We’re not dead. We just need to—”

“Change,” Killian said firmly. “No one is gonna be able to take Trent’s place; Halo was our best shot. So something’s gotta change.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know.” Killian’s eyes swept over the three of us. “I need time to think about it more, but this…this makes sense.”

Did it? I wasn’t so sure about that. Start over? Change? Throw away ten years of what we’d built? This was all becoming way too much for my brain to handle.

“I need to get outta here.” Shoving up to my feet, I kept a tight grip on my bottle, as I went to walk past Killian to the door.