As the two brothers quickly gained ground between the OtherWorld drummer and their sister, I pictured the entire room turning into a blood bath that would really screw up the peace of the upcoming tour. I bit my lip, suddenly wanting to hide under the table.
Dallas stood up so quickly I didn’t have time to blink. “Hey, Axton and I wanted to share our news with y’all,” she informed the room at large, practically yelling the words.
It worked because Shane and Drake paused to look at her. Even Devlin and Natalie were distracted by her so that they turned to face her. Dallas glanced around for Axton who was frowning at his wife. “We do?” he said as he sat down his glass of tea and crossed to her. “I thought we weren’t going to say anything right now.”
“Now’s as good as any, babe.” She gave him a tight smile. “It’s okay. We wouldn’t have been able to keep it a secret for much longer anyway.”
Axton rolled his hazel eyes. “Fine. Okay.”
“What’s going on?” Emmie demanded as she and Nik stepped forward, her son hanging off her hip once again. Jagger was such a momma’s boy. “What? Are you two..?” Her eyes widened as a look passed between her and Axton. “No. No way.”
“Yes.” Axton nodded, a huge smug grin splitting his face. “Dallas and I are pregnant again. Baby number two will be here the first week of December.”
The room erupted with cheers and congratulations. Nik shook Axton’s hand and Emmie hugged Dallas, both of them laughing. I was stunned because Dallas and Axton’s son had just been born in February. It was now the end of May. They hadn’t waited long to start back at it like rabbits, that was for sure. Laughing, I stood to hug the couple. Dallas’s arms tightened around me as she glanced at something over my shoulder, and I knew who she was looking at.
Harper.
When I turned I couldn’t help but bite my lip at the flash of pain that crossed Harper’s gorgeous face for a moment, only to be quickly replaced by a huge grin just before she tossed her arms around her best friend. “You dirty whore,” Harper said and laughed as she hugged Dallas tightly. “Did you even wait until the doctors gave the okay, or were you spreading your legs the first night you got home from the hospital?”
“Shut up, bitch,” Dallas snickered as the two danced around while continuing to hug each other for another moment. But then Dallas’s grin faltered and she stepped back from her friend. “I’m sorry, Harp.”
“Stop.” Harper shook her head, stopping whatever apology Dallas had been about to make. “Just because I can’t have a baby doesn’t mean that you need to feel bad about being pregnant. Don’t let my hang-ups put a damper on what should be a happy time for you and Axton. I’m so excited for you, Dallas… Do I get to be godmother again?”
“We wouldn’t want anyone else, Harper,” Axton assured her as he wrapped his arm around his wife’s still tiny waist.
I glanced away from them, blinking back tears. Harper Stevenson was truly the strongest person I knew. Bishop, who’d been sitting there watching the whole scene with guarded eyes, caught my gaze. Seeing my tears he grunted and handed me his napkin. I’d only met the grumpy-looking singer a few times, but he’d always been nice to me. He seemed like a private person, with little sign of a sense of humor. Bishop reminded me of Wroth in those regards, so it was little wonder that I found him curious.
“You okay?”
I offered him a small, teary smile. “Yeah, I’m good. Just get a little weepy from time to time.” I lifted my bottle of Voss to my lips and took a small sip of the water. “How have you been, Bishop?”
The man shrugged and I took a moment to glance over what I could see of him since we were sitting on opposite sides of the table. He wasn’t conventionally handsome; his face was more often than not expressionless, and his features were on the plain side. His body was lean—very lean—with only a few muscles here and there with little definition. But it wasn’t his looks that got him noticed. It was his freaking voice, and the way he brought a song to life with each word he sang.
I knew for a fact he wasn’t skinny because of drugs. Since Emmie had signed on as both Trance and Alchemy’s manager she did monthly drug tests. It was her stipulation for every member of every band she managed. I was pretty sure she did it so that it didn’t hurt Liam’s feelings so badly since she wanted to keep a close eye on his continued recovery, but also because she didn’t really know or trust the two new bands she was dealt with. Drug addicts were liabilities and Emmie had a new and quickly rising reputation to uphold.
“I can’t complain,” Bishop finally said after a moment or so of silence. “How about you, beautiful?”
I felt my cheeks fill with pink when he called me beautiful. I wasn’t used to men calling me that. At least not very often. Wroth had on a few occasions, but they had been so rare that each one of them had felt like a caress. At the thought of Wroth, my eyes unconsciously moved through the room until I found him standing against a wall with his hands thrust into his pockets. His dark gaze was glaring up at the ceiling, his jaw clenched as if he were still mad. No doubt he probably was. It was hard to get Wroth’s anger to completely evaporate unless I was there to soothe his ruffled feathers.
He must have felt my gaze on him because his gaze slowly lowered and then locked on me. My heart clenched and I boldly held his gaze for a moment before finally, out of self-preservation, lowered my eyes. Memories of a time when I thought my world couldn’t be more perfect flashed through my mind, pausing for a moment on one of my favorite memories…
The day after the Panama show, after the night I’d gotten the first true kiss of my adult life, found me exhausted. I hadn’t slept for more than a few hours on the bus. My mind had refused to shut down as I had gone over every last detail of that kiss a million times. Damn, but Wroth Niall had blown my mind with that kiss and every kiss that had quickly followed.
My mind was still on that kiss as I walked into my hotel room to discover it was a suite with two bedrooms. I hadn’t been paying attention when Natalie had passed out room keys, my mind still stuck on last night. But as soon as I realized that I was going to be sharing a room, I’d known who my roommate was going to be. Wroth wasn’t going to let anyone else bunk with me. He was too overprotective.
With my heart beat suddenly racing at the thought of sharing the suite with the man I could still taste on my tongue, I moved through the sitting area of the room and took a seat on the long couch in front of the flat screen. From one of the two bedrooms I could hear the water already running from Wroth’s shower. My exhaustion was surprisingly gone now and I felt wired, as if I’d drunk too much Monster.