Theo groaned.
Liam raised his glass. “Here’s to lust, lungs, and apparently… leather trousers.”
The others clinked their glasses against his, Theo included. “I can see we’re going to regret this,” he muttered.
Julian caught it and smirked. “Speak for yourself. I’ve never looked bad in leather.”
Laughter burst around the table, jagged and warm. For a moment, they weren’t strangers anymore—they were already a group, rough and ridiculous, sparks flying in every direction.
Theo sat back, watching them all with a practiced detachment he knew was already fraying. Each man was a variable: Sebastian’s fragility, Julian’s bravado, Oliver’s restraint, Milo’s shadows, Elliott’s shield, Liam’s steady spark.
He should have been cataloguing strengths and weaknesses, thinking blend, balance, stagecraft. Instead, he was listening to the heat of their laughter, watching how they leaned toward each other, how their raw edges were already sparking into something alive.
A system he couldn’t control.
Theo lifted his glass but didn’t drink. Max caught his eye across the table, gave a slow grin that said he saw it too—and that he wasn’t going to stop it.
Theo’s chest tightened. These men weren’t just singers. They were friction. They were heat.
And God help him, he wanted more.
From behind him came laughter, low, warm, unmistakable laughter that made Theo’s stomach clench. Conversation followed, audible above the noise of the bar, and Theo froze.
It can’t be.
He twisted in his chair, and saw?—
Cameron Walters.
Theo hadn’t seen him in four years, and most of that had been through choice.
He recalled Cameron at fourteen and fifteen, all elbows and enthusiasm. At sixteen, visiting his older brother Gary, tagging along in their wake. His best friend’s baby brother.
The last time he’d seen Cameron, he’d been eighteen, and the memory of that hot afternoon still lingered in Theo’s mind, bursting free now and then, only for Theo to push it back into the drawer where he kept it. Something had shifted, however, enough for Theo to force himself not to think about Cameron.
The man standing in front of him now wasnotthat kid.
Cameron was broad-shouldered, his longish wavy hair pushed back carelessly, his jawline so sharp Theo felt a ridiculous urge to tune a string against it. His eyes were that same shade of piercing blue Theo remembered so well. And his voice—low, playful, carrying a flirt he probably didn’t even mean—slid under Theo’s skin like a bow across a cello.
What is he now? Twenty-two?
Cameron was all grown up and set to break hearts.
Then Cameron caught sight of him, and his eyes widened in shock. A moment later, however, he grinned, as if he had no idea of the storm he’d just walked into. “Hey, Theo.” He touched the arm of the guy he was talking to, said something in a low voice, then came toward their table.
Theo’s throat tightened. His pulse quickened.
This wasnoton the schedule.
Cameron Walters wasn’t supposed to be here, not in Theo’s carefully ordered life. He was supposed to remain in the past: Gary’s kid brother, the one Theo had once taught to play simple harmonies during choir camp afternoons. The one he had noticed far too much, back when Cameron was eighteen and Theo was already buried deep under rules and self-control.
Now Cameron leaned against the table with the ease of a man who belonged in his skin, his laughter sliding as smooth as whisky over ice. Theo’s body remembered before his mind allowed permission.
No. Absolutely not. He’s Gary’s brother. He’s off-limits.
A heartbeat later….
He’s dangerous.
