“Morning,” I murmured before taking my first sip of rich coffee.
“Tonight’s the night,” he informed me as he set a dozen eggs, a whole tomato, onion, mushrooms and spinach on the counter by the stove where a pan was already sprayed and waiting for him to make a mammoth omelet. “Are you ready?”
Instead of answering him, I took a bigger gulp of coffee to give myself a moment to decide if I was ready for tonight or not. Last week my brother had asked me to have dinner with everyone tonight. Everyone being all the members of OtherWorld, the members of Demon’s Wings and their families, and the two new bands that would be touring with them over the summer. A tour that would start in three days. A tour that I didn’t want to go on, but foresaw my brother asking me to join him on anyway.
Liam had begged and pleaded for me to join him on the fall tour, not wanting me to be alone in New York for two months since both my roommates would be gone. But I hadn’t been able to face another tour. Not when the wounds of the last tour had been so fresh. This tour was going to be considerably longer than the fall tour. Fourteen weeks long actually, so I knew that Liam wasn’t going to deal well with me staying in New York alone for that long.
I didn’t want to worry my brother. He was doing so great with his recovery not only from the accident that had nearly killed him last year, but also with his drug addiction. He had been clean for nineteen months now, the longest he has ever been clean since he had started using when he was in his teens. But I always worried that he would eventually fall back into old habits, was terrified that he would turn to the drugs if I stressed him out. After watching his struggle with heroin back when I had been so sick with cancer, I couldn’t help but worry that I was one of the reasons he had needed the drugs in the first place.
Still, I didn’t want to go on a stupid tour with stupid rockers… Grimacing, I shook my head. Okay, so only one of them was stupid. So stupid that I wanted to kick him in the head a few times in the hopes of fixing his stupid problem.
I was definitely conflicted about tonight. Unsure if I could say no to my brother, but knowing that I needed to. I couldn’t handle being that close to Wroth Niall again. I’d moved from Tennessee to New York City to get away from him. Made sure I was busy when he was in town, and had even gone so far as staying in a hotel when he’d camped out in the apartment for an entire weekend waiting for me to come home. The closest I’ve been to him was on Valentine’s Day for Austin Bradshaw’s wedding and then the after party which had taken place in a maternity ward waiting room where the reception had ended up being because Dallas had gone into labor.
Even then I had avoided him, going as far as boxing myself into a corner with some of Dallas’s family members. It wouldn’t be any different tonight. I didn’t want to be near Wroth. I didn’t want to see his handsome face, or smell his spicy scent. I didn’t want to look at him and worry if he’d been getting enough sleep, been eating enough, or was dealing with his demons—all the things I’d made sure of and worried about when I’d lived in the same house with him.
“I’m sure it will be fun,” I finally told him with a smile that hurt my cheeks because it was so forced.
Linc raised a brow at me, letting me know that he didn’t believe me, but didn’t call me on it. Instead he started putting together two omelets. I topped off my coffee and took my seat at the kitchen table. When Linc put my omelet in front of me I nodded my thanks and devoured the deliciousness. Linc went to put some clothes on and by the time he returned, I was half finished. When my plate was empty, I sat back to finish my coffee and waited for Natalie to join us.
Natalie wasn’t working this morning, but I knew she would have things to do before tonight’s dinner. As Emmie Armstrong’s right hand, Natalie worked her ass off. Emmie demanded a hundred and ten percent effort from all her employees and Nat gave her a hundred and fifty, going above and beyond for her boss.
When the beautiful girl walked into the kitchen, she was dressed for the day, but her face was clenched and I knew it was because she was just as reluctant to see certain rockers as I was. Unfortunately for her, she had to deal with those rockers on a regular basis. She didn’t have the luxury of ignoring them because she worked for them—him.
Moving to the fridge, Natalie pulled out a cup of Greek yogurt and a bottle of water. Standing by the sink, she ate her small breakfast in silence. The way her eyes stared into nothingness I knew she was in a world of her own so I let her stay there, sipping at my coffee while Linc finished up his breakfast.
Linc took both our plates to the sink and rinsed them off. Dropping a kiss on top of Natalie’s head before grabbing a bottle of water from the fridge, he gave me a small, tight smile. “Well, I gotta go wake your brother up. His lazy ass has had long enough to sleep in.”
A glance at the clock on the microwave showed that it was just now after seven. I grinned, because until his accident and Linc had taken over as his PT and then his personal trainer, Liam had slept until two in the afternoon every day. Since Linc had been helping him get into shape, Liam’s whole personality had changed. He wasn’t as moody, wasn’t as scary quiet, and was a lot more outgoing. He also had about thirty pounds of muscle on him, when before he’d been practically skin and bones. It had done nothing but make skank groupies drool over him all the more. Yuck!
“Have fun,” I told Linc.
Linc’s eyes turned mischievous. Linc was into pretty boys, and they didn’t get more pretty boy looking than my brother with the exception of the Stevenson brothers. Liam had a face that, despite all his years of heavy drug use, was still young looking. I knew that Linc would never put the moves on Liam, but I was sure that he was more than happy to scream and yell at my brother every morning when he worked out with him. “I will, but he probably won’t.”
Laughing, I stood to refill my mug and watched as he left the kitchen. At the sound of the front door shutting behind him, I finally turned to Natalie, figuring she’d had enough time stewing over whatever was going through her head. “What are you doing this morning?”
“Shaving my head,” she informed me matter-of-factly before tossing the now empty cup of yogurt in the trashcan.
“What?” I was sure that I had heard her wrong. Natalie had hair that was past her shoulders. It was thick, glossy and freaking perfect in my opinion. It only added to her beauty and I would consider it a travesty to shave all of that glorious hair off.