by Harper Sloan
He shrugs. “Of course, I knew.”
“Then what was all that shit this morning?”
“Me making sure my little sister finally gets over the things that kept holding her back from happiness. All you needed was a little nudge.”
“You shouldn’t have played me, Wes. I love you, but you could have accomplished the same thing without doing that.”
“I asked him not to mention it,” Chance voices softly, and when I move my eyes to his face, his expression pleads with me to understand him. “Wren, it wouldn’t have made a difference if you had known—not to me—but I asked him not to mention the refund. Hell, you were already doing everything possible to avoid me, but regardless, I’d been fighting a losing battle since day one. Even if nothing would have come to fruition with the connection we share, I wasn’t leaving until I knew you were safe, or you had a properly trained team on you at all times. Since the label had made that impossible, it was moot. I intended to stay strong in denying this thing between us. Probably would have killed me to walk away, but I would have, and I think you understand why that is now after everything we’ve talked about. That being said, I don’t regret it because of where we are now, but I didn’t feel right at the time being paid for something that I knew I had to do. I couldn’t even be away from you without feeling a physical pain right here in my chest.” He slams his open hand against his chest, right over his heart. I almost melt on the spot.
I think about our time together so far. Him telling me we couldn’t do anything about our attraction, warning me to protect myself from him, and everything that had happened between us since. Now that I know the things he had held inside, allowing them to keep his distance from something we both clearly craved because of his fear that letting someone in meant they would be taken from him—I get it. That doesn’t mean I wouldn’t have liked to be in the know about him refusing to be paid to be here, but the Chance that he showed me—the one who no one else knows—doesn’t need me to give him bullshit for doing what he felt was right.
“No more secrets,” I request softly.
“Never,” he agrees.
Closing my eyes, I hold out the note, listening to the rhythm of the music in my headphones as it guides me to the end of the song we’ve been working on all day. We had just added Jamison’s huge drum solo to the track earlier this afternoon, making it ready for me to lay down the vocals.
“That’s great, Wren. I knew you would rock this.” My brother’s voice cuts in to the last few beats of the song.
“Do you need me to go over the chorus again? I wasn’t sure if I wobbled over that middle hook either.”
I hear a click in my ears before he speaks again. “No, it was great. We’ll do a playback later to be sure, though. Come on out for a second.”
Pulling off the headphones, I hook them on the mic stand in front of me and nab my bottle of water off the small stool next to where I’m standing. It acts as a table of sorts when I’m in the sound booth since I usually never come out of here without my throat letting me know how hard I work.
I step out of the soundproof box built in the corner of our studio space. The guys’ guitars and two of Jamison’s kits are set up in the massive space. I glance through the large window that allows the people in the control room to look slightly down into our space. Usually, when we are working in the studio, we take turns putting everything down, and then Wes works his magic. Since we’ve always loved making our own shit, aside from what Brighthouse puts out, we’ve all learned how to do the technical end of mixing, recording, and putting together the final product. We have so many songs fully recorded that we could probably pull them all together and put out an album a month for the whole year.
Which, now that we’re leaving Brighthouse officially, might be an option.
“What’s up?” I ask, coming into the control room and moving to the couch where Chance is relaxing—the same spot he’s been in since we started early this morning—completely transfixed on seeing the process of birthing a song. I settle on his lap with a kiss to his jaw.
He smiles, and I feel the familiar buzz hit me. Luckily, I’ve gotten better over the last three days of being on the receiving end of it constantly. He still seems to reserve them for me and me alone, but since we haven’t spent a second apart since our ‘unioning,’ I get them a lot. It’s hard to believe that it’s been two weeks since he walked into our hotel room back in New York. It feels like I’ve known him for so much longer.
“I just took a call from Don,” Wes tells the room, drawing my attention from dreamy Chance thoughts.
Shifting my weight in Chance’s lap so that I can lean back and rest my body against his strong hold, I briefly glance at Jamison as he messes around on his new phone before I look at where Wes is sitting at the control panel, and Luke lounges in the chair next to him. “And?”
“At the end of the tour, we will officially be done with Brighthouse Records. We still have the rest of the promotional obligations as outlined in our contract for each album. That will be no issue since all that’s left is radio interviews at this point, and we can do those while we’re on the road. Basically, we’re lucky that Don is so good at his job because he said they tried to pitch a fit, but he shot that shit down real quick. We only signed for five albums, and they got them without sucking us into a hole of debt. They didn’t count on us selling so well, hoping to fall back on that normally occurred debt to saddle us into more albums to pay them back. Old trick of the recording industry that we’re fucking lucky we escaped.”
I feel a weight I didn’t realize I had been holding on my shoulders ease up. You can almost feel the relief dissipate in the air. “So what now?”
Wes rubs the back of his neck. “That depends on us now. We can choose to sign with another label, making sure we are happy with them and what they offer us this time.”
“Or run the risk that they sell a bunch of lies hidden in a contract so thick it would take years to understand how many loopholes they have in there,” Jamison adds, not looking up from his phone.
“I heard that EWP was accepting new artists,” Luke puts in.
“Is that the label that Shaft put together when they left theirs?” I question the boys. Everyone knows the story of how Evil Wiener Productions got its start. I’ll admit I was skeptical about such a large band leaving a major label, but you can’t argue with their success.
“What if we follow their lead?” I muse out loud.
“You want to jump into the independent pool?” Wes asks with a look of shock. I’m surprised we didn’t think about this earlier.
I shrug. “Why not? Those guys are a huge inspiration. I’ve always looked up to them on the music end, but after they had branched out on their own, they proved that an artist didn’t need a major label to succeed anymore. We don’t have to put up with their shit, no one is taking a huge cut of our profits anymore, and most importantly, we are in charge of where we want our music to go. We answer only to ourselves.”
Silence greets me when I finish talking. Even Jamison has stopped whatever was so fascinating on his phone to look at me with wide eyes.
“You know we could do it. The whole reason we learned how to run our own studio is to be in control of the music we produced outside of Brighthouse. Hell, we can put together an album better than some of the best engineers and producers out there can, but if we want to bring someone in to do it for us, we know enough people who freelance in the industry to make it happen. Either way, it’s on our terms. Dyllan’s been looking for a reason to leave her job and start on her own; we could hire her as our exclusive stylist but also take advantage of her degree in art to design our covers, tour merch, etcetera. We have the bones for the beginning of our own team, and you know it.”
“What about the rest of it, Wren?” Wes asks, leaning forward in his seat to give me his undivided attention. I can tell he’s already on board, even if he doesn’t realize it fully yet.
“We keep Tabby on as our agent
since she wasn’t affiliated with Brighthouse and, to be honest, probably hates them as much, if not more, than we do. She has a PR team in place with her agency, so we have her make that connection. We’ll need to hire a booking agent and a few other key players, but we can figure those out later. And”—I smile, hooking my thumb over my shoulder to point at Chance— “we already know someone we can hire to handle security of our caliber both while we’re here and while we’re on the road for appearances or tours.”
“We need to hire a lot more than that,” Luke adds. “But you’re right; we do know how to handle building our own team. We have the capital for it too. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but the idea is a good one.”
“I’m in,” Jamison grunts, shifting in his seat. “Can I get a secretary?” he adds, almost as an afterthought.
“What the hell do you need a secretary for? To hand you fresh sticks when you let the ones you have go flying in the back of Wren’s head again?” Wes jokes.
“No. And that only happened twice anyway. For roleplay, fucker. Do you even watch any of the links I sent you?” Jamison leans forward in his seat and waves his phone in the air between him and Wes.
“I can find my own porn, asshole. I swear something isn’t right in your head.”
“Hey! I would expect the same porn love from you. If you were to find a kickass video of the sexiest chick ever doing a human taco begging for uno mas, I would want to see it. What if you find one we haven’t seen yet with that one chick who could bend herself in all those fucking crazy positions? Would you really keep that from me? Keep bendy girl all to yourself?!” Jamison looks seconds away from making a PowerPoint on why porn sharing means your friend loves you when he stops talking, spearing my brother with a look that just dares for him to disagree.
I stifle a giggle, leaning back into Chance’s embrace.
“The last link you sent me was for a porn called Umpa-Loving,” Wes complains. “The last thing I want when watching porn is for someone to ruin Willy Wonka for me. That film is a classic, man.”
Jamison throws his head back and bellows a deep belly laugh.
“Can we be serious?” Luke interjects before they can continue their argument.
“I say we do it. Even if you guys won’t let me have a secretary,” Jamison expresses with complete seriousness. I think he might actually have been serious about that secretary too, freaking weirdo.
“I’m in,” Luke agrees instantly.
“Wes?” I question, the excitement of a new beginning taking over my system.
He looks beyond me, and I have a feeling Chance is meeting his gaze since I feel him tense up slightly. “What about you?”
I hold my breath. He’s made it clear that he doesn’t want payment but refuses to let us look into hiring someone else to handle security who we can pay. It doesn’t feel right to let him do all the work and not actually be paid for it. I’m not sure why he’s holding firm on his adamant desire of not being compensated, especially since he won’t let anyone else do it—but I’m beginning to think there’s more to it than him not wanting to start something with me while being paid to be here. In the three days since I learned about him refusing our money, I’ve been trying to get him to agree to a wage, with no luck.
Knowing he isn’t going to give in without me speaking up, I turn in his lap and look into his beautiful eyes. “You know I don’t agree with you doing all this work to keep us safe without being paid. I get what you think is right, but no one is going to think differently of you because we’re employing you as security. Hell, no one would even have to know.”
“I would know, Wrenlee.”
“Oh, the full name! That means someone’s gonna get a spanking later, you defiant little girl,” Jamison jabs.
Ignoring him, I do my best ‘I mean business’ face and try to reason with my hardheaded man. “You need to give this a break, Chance? You’ve said that you don’t trust anyone more than yourself. Other than these three boneheads, I don’t trust anyone else more than I trust you. So please say yes. We aren’t asking you to be paid to keep us safe yourself anymore. It isn’t the same thing as what originally brought you to us. We’re asking you to be in charge of hiring a security team and organizing our travel and tour security. Like it or not, you’re part of Loaded Replay because you’re part of me. It’s not like I’m asking you to accept paying for being fantastic in bed.”
His lips twitch.
“Seriously, Chance. As my not husband, I want you by my side at all times, but I don’t want you there because you’re protecting that side. I want you there because I’m the happiest I’ve ever been since you took that position.”
“For argument’s sake, I should point out that as your not husband, it’s my responsibility to be at your side, protecting you—not my job.”
I raise my brow. “And I’m asking you to do something that would keep you in the same spot, but also give you the responsibility of putting together a team who would be at your side as well as mine—keeping both of us safe, together.”
His jaw clenches, and for a brief second, I wonder if he’s going to say no. I mean it; I want him here by my side, but I also don’t want him to resent me down the road if he regrets leaving his job. Chance isn’t the type of man who would be happy being idle. He needs to feel like he’s contributing; something he’s proved each day that he’s been here, and I need to feel like he’s appreciated for doing so. I also know that he is damn good at what he does, and no one else should be in charge of hiring the people who will protect us. If he’s so dead set on being the one who keeps me safe, then so be it, but I want to know a qualified team keeps all the people I love covered—him included.
Jesus, did I just lump Chance into that category? It’s too early for all of that, right? I know our relationship is unconventional and moving at a quicker speed than normal. Even if he hadn’t entered this as my fake whatever, we would never have been able to date like normal people, and it’s because of that our relationship will always age at a speed others would take years to reach. Even if it seems fast, it feels right.
“If I say yes to this, no one else aside from me will be in charge of your protection, Wren.”
“Agreed.” Did he really think I would say no to that? As if.
“I think we should probably talk more about this when we’re … alone.” He pauses, and I frown, wondering why we need to talk about this alone. It involves all of us. Unless he’s having second thoughts about us. “Get those doubts out of your head, Wren. We need to talk so you can make sure this is really what you want. You’re asking me to sign on to something that would mean you would have me in your face, at your side, constantly. I would always be here, and we would be taking our relationship from the early stages straight to moved in and picking out china patterns. I want you to think about this before it’s offered again.”
“How many times do I need to remind you that you’re already my not husband? Maybe I should be more upset that you haven’t taken me to pick out china.”
“Think about it. Really think about it.” He continues, ignoring my attempt to lighten the mood.
My shoulders drop, feeling oddly upset. “We can talk tonight,” I concede.
“Do you mean talk to him with your south mouth?” Jamison butts in.
“Shut up, Jami!” everyone in the room yells at the same time.
It’s been a long as fuck day.
Everyone’s been gearing up to hit the road in the morning, so the mood in the house is almost manic. These guys have been on the road for so long with no break, they almost don’t know how to reorganize their thoughts and prepare to head back out. They’ve also been unsure about how to move forward until they knew where things with Brighthouse stood.
I think a little part of it is the bittersweet feeling they have knowing this will be their last guaranteed tour. Sure, if they decide not to go back to a major label after it’s over, they can still tour—but it would be a lot easier and certain if they had
the bigwigs handling all the bullshit details for them.
I’ve been uneasy ever since our meeting earlier today in the recording studio. I can’t put a finger on exactly why I feel that way, but I know it all stems around their offer for me to leave Corps Security—officially—and let them hire me as their lead for all things security.
Would it be hard for me to accept this offer, knowing it would keep me with Wren? Of course, it fucking wouldn’t be. But it’s important to me that I don’t give her any ammunition to doubt my desire to be here. I knew from the jump that if I were here, being paid, it wouldn’t feel right to start something with her while I was being compensated by them to do a job. I almost didn’t even accept the job because the attraction between us had been so strong. It had been that way since I went to one of their shows a few years prior and locked eyes with her in the middle of the concert. In the end, though, I figured I could stay strong at the same time as protecting someone I felt some sort of connection to. That all changed before we even left New York, and I knew I was fighting a losing battle. It was the easiest decision ever at that point to end their contract with Corps Security.
I will never regret that decision because now that I have her, I can move forward without her ever doubting why I’m here.
Of course, it wasn’t until she revealed her fear of people being close to them for the right reasons that I realized I made the right call.
“You look deep in thought,” Wren calls from the end of the bed. I had been so lost in my thoughts that I didn’t even hear her enter the bedroom.
“Rightfully so, don’t you think?”
Her shoulders fall, and I feel bad for not just conceding to what they offered me, but there’s no way I can without having this talk with her.
“Talk to me, Chance,” she implores, moving to sit on the bed at my side and placing her hand on my chest.
“You get that I care about you, right?” Her eyes flash happiness, but other than that, she just nods, giving me the time to finish and hear me out. “I care about you a whole fucking lot more than a man should after only knowing you two weeks. I’m already close to getting lost in you, Wren, and I’m not even the least bit upset about that. But I know you have doubts about people getting close to you and the guys. I even understand why you feel that way. I don’t want you to ever doubt the reason I’m here.”
