Once Upon a Sure Thing (Heartbreakers #2)(12)

There.

I’m leaving something to the imagination.

There’s something else that needs to go. This red lipstick is too look-at-me-I’m-Sandra-Dee. I grab a tissue, wipe it off, and slick on some pink lip gloss instead.

I pull on jeans and ankle boots and consider my reflection one more time. I don’t look like Honey. I don’t look like Ally. I look like a mash-up, and that’s what has always served me well: mashing up songs. Today, I’m going to attempt to mash my style with Miller’s.

“Wish me luck,” I say to my reflection, then I call Campbell and tell him I need a teeny favor in about an hour.

He laughs. “Consider it done.”

I leave and head to the studio, telling all these fidgety nerves to get the hell away from me, and don’t go near Honey either.





Chapter 7





Miller



The eight singers so far have been solid. Some have even bordered on good. The trouble is when you hear a voice that haunts you, and it’s a good kind of haunting, nothing else comes close.

“Thanks so much. I’ll be in touch,” I say to the redheaded alto, Angelica, as she leaves the studio.

I turn to my brothers and Jackson, who asked if he could watch the auditions too, since he’s off from school today. Miles dropped off his son, Ben, with our parents for the day. “What do we think, gentlemen?”

Miles shrugs and scratches his stubble-lined jaw. He’s working the scruff look hard these days. “I could have taken a nap during that last one.” He yawns majestically. “There was no snap, crackle, or pop. No spark that became a fire. No electric—”

“I get it. No chemistry.”

“But maybe there will be gobs of it when the next woman comes in,” Jackson says.

I stand a little taller. “That’s Honey, right?”

Miles scans the list of names then nods. “She’s the last one.”

Campbell taps his watch then meets my gaze. “Looks like she should be here any minute. Any chance you could grab me a bottle of water?”

I shoot him a look. Campbell isn’t usually a can-you-grab-me-a-bottle-of-water type of guy. “Would you like me to order you dinner and set your table too?”

“That sounds nice. Please put me down for a full meal service, as well.”

Miles rolls his blue eyes. “I’ll go with you, Miller. Our big brother is so lazy sometimes.”

I look at Campbell meaningfully, clapping my hand on Miles’s shoulder. “See? Dodgeball wants to help me.” That’s what we’ve always called Miles, due to his ability to get out of trouble every single time our parents came down on us.

Campbell shoos us out. “I bet those water bottles are so terribly heavy. It’s a good thing you have assistance.”

Miles and I leave the studio suite and head down the hall.

“You enjoying the break, or are you itching to get back on the road?” I ask him.

“Actually,” he says, taking his time answering, “not as much as I thought.”

I jerk my gaze toward him. “Touring was always your favorite part of this whole thing.”

“It was, and I made it work for a long time, but Ben is starting school soon.”

I nod, understanding completely. Miles has hired babysitters and nannies galore for Ben, so his son could be with him on the job in the early years. “You can always tour in summers though.”

“That’s the plan. Pretty sure I’ll go crazy if I don’t tour.”

“I know the going-crazy feeling well, Dodgeball,” I say as I turn into the snack room and grab a couple bottles from the fridge.

“You do know that I have a nickname and you don’t, and that’s because you’re the middle child, and therefore totally unloved.”

“I do suffer without love and a nickname,” I say wryly as we make our way back to the booth.

I toss a bottle of cold water to Campbell, and he catches it easily then tips his chin toward the glass. “She’s in there.”

A laser beam of excitement zips through me. “She just arrived?”

“I was a big boy and let her in by myself. She’s waiting for you.”

I peer through the glass, but she’s looking away. Bright blonde hair hits her jaw, showing off the sexy curve of her neck.

Don’t think of her neck as sexy, you jackass.

Her neck is functional. It holds up her head.

I uncap the water, take a deep swig, and head into the recording studio.

The second I step inside, I’m walloped by music. There isn’t even a moment to extend a hand and say hello. Campbell has already started playing the music track to Lady Antebellum’s “Need You Now.”

He doesn’t usually start it that quickly, so I snap my gaze in his direction, but his head’s down. In a split second, Honey launches into the duet, the sweet and sexy notes filling my head like decadent perfume.

I regard her in profile, trying to figure out this blonde in painted-on jeans and boots. She swivels around, and I blink.

The world slows.

My brain blurs.

One of these things is not like the other.

Because there’s no way Honey is my best friend.

There’s no way that’s Ally holding the mic and singing in a tone I’ve never heard come from her pipes before.