The elevator doors slide open, revealing the same marble lobby I walked into. Only now, I’m seeing it with fresh eyes. As a potential artist who could be signed here. I told Kyle I needed to think about it and have his contract looked over. But at a glance it all looks legitimate.
It’s a dream.
It doesn’t seem real.
A familiar jean and rock band T-shirt clad form stands at the reception desk with his back to us, arguing with the guy there.
“Come on, man. I had personal stuff on my laptop. Can I just get it off? Then I’ll leave?”
“Sorry. It’s company property. Mr. Drayton said everything that belongs to you is in there.” He tips his head to a cardboard box sitting on top of the desk.
The guy curses and whacks the box, causing it to topple off and land on the floor.
“Fuck’s sake!” he spits, bending to throw pens and notebooks back inside. He clutches his side with a hiss like it hurts.
“Brandon?” I breathe, stalling and staring down at him.
Ashley stops beside me, folding her arms. He turns around, and I let out a gasp at the state of him. His face is bruised, and he has a fresh black eye.
The eye that isn’t swollen shut slides up and down meslowly, making my skin crawl by the suggestive way he licks his lips before he speaks.
“Tate. What are you doing here?”
“I came to get my song back.” I study the bruises on his face with a flicker of empathy. “What happened to your face?”
His expression shuts down and his top lip curls into a sneer. “I fell into a fucking door shaped like some asshole’s fist, what do you think?”
He takes a step toward me.
“Good luck, yeah? I’m sure the fans will love you.” He throws another leery eye crawl over my body.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
I shouldn’t have asked. The glint in his eye as he sniggers makes my stomach drop to my feet.
“You can sing your little heart out and ask yourself whether it’s your voice or your tits the guys come for.”
“Excuse me?”
“You heard.” He sneers.
I slap him across the face before I realize what I’m doing.
“And while you beg for someone to give you another job, which will never be in music, by the way, you can ask yourself whether all of this was worth it. Whether being an asshole was the only thing you’ll ever be good at in your measly existence.”
“Ouch. Slay,” Ashley sings beside me as Brandon throws me a parting glare and storms away.
He gets as far as the sidewalk outside before his box collapses, sending all of his stuff scattering across the concrete. His yelled ‘Fuck!’ reverberates through the glass doors as he bends to retrieve everything. But then he turns to the side and looks at something.
The next moment he takes off at a sprint.
“What do you think made him shit his pants?” Ashley asks as we step outside, weaving through the objects on the floor.
I look up and my eyes connect with brilliantblue, like two stormy seas, as Sullivan climbs out of his town car a little way up the street.
“I think it just arrived.”
Ashley follows my gaze to where Sullivan is striding toward us purposefully. “Do you think he did that to Brandon? If he did, then I like him even more now. You have my permission to marry him and pop out his cute dark-haired babies.”
