Page 57 of Harrison's Wedding

“Wait until you see the studio; it’s amazing,” I tell her, still desperately trying to ignore my arousal.

“How has the process been, now that you have the freedom to do whatever you want?”

“It’s been pretty epic,” I turn and smile at her as I say it, thinking about how brilliant it has been to be out here and making music together, “the other night, Gabriel woke up at two and went into the studio and wrote the most amazing song. We could never have gotten it the same without that flexibility to act on it in the moment.”

We reach the end of the hallway, and I hold open the door for Heather to walk through so she can head down the set of stairs that lead to the studio.

“Wait? Were you all up at two in the morning?” she asks me while laughing.

When we reach the bottom of the stairs, we continue down another corridor, lit with recessed lights in the ceiling above us and with official Cruise Control photos hanging on the walls.

“Yeah, Seb wasn’t thrilled when Gabriel went to wake him, but once we started working, he was just as excited as the rest of us.” I grin, remembering Sebastian swearing at Gabriel.

“You guys are crazy!”

“Because I’ve never woken up in the middle of the night to see you sketching whatever design came to you at the time?” I raise an eyebrow at her.

She pokes her tongue out at me and I have an image in my head of her using her tongue on my cock. I fight against my arousal again as I push open the door into the studio that’s about halfway down the hallway and let her walk through it in front of me.

Hayden’s sitting in front of the control panel, going through some of the stuff we’ve recorded so far. Through the glass window in front of him, we can see Gabriel and Sebastian sitting at the piano, side on to us. They’re laughing as Gabriel plays the same four bars of music over and over, each time singing an alternate line for the song, but every option is more stupid than the previous one, and Sebastian is laughing at him.

Hayden looks up as we enter the room, before coming over to give Heather a hug, “Hey, Heather.”

“Hi, darling. How have you been?”

“Great. You found the place okay, then?” Hayden asks her.

“It’s a bit hard to miss, isn’t it?” She gives him a wry grin.

“No kidding,” he laughs before leaning over to press a button in front of him and says, “they’re here, guys!”

Both the men in the booth look up, smile at us, and head out of the studio, into the control room.

“My lover is here!” Sebastian announces with a grin, coming over to give her a hug. “So glad to see your face, sexy.”

“Thanks, Seb.” She smiles at him. “How come nobody told me you’d built a fucking castle out here?”

“Only the best for you, princess. Ooh, is that better than ‘lover’?” he wonders aloud.

“You could just go with ‘Heather,’” Hayden suggests.

“Blasphemy!” Sebastian says dramatically.

He walks away, and Gabriel heads toward Heather. I can see her tense up slightly, and I realize this is the first time they’ve seen each other in person since the engagement party. It’s strange that it’s been so long, because normally we’d all be hanging out regularly, and that just hasn’t happened lately.

“Hi,Heather,” he directs this at Sebastian, and everyone laughs.

“Hey, darling. It’s so good to see you.” She steps forward and hugs him.

There doesn’t seem to be any animosity between them, and it gives me hope that we might all get back to normal soon. Ariana is coming out to Galena this week, and I’m only slightly worried about how Sebastian will treat her. Everything’s been so good out here, and I’d like to think that Ariana being here won’t stop us from making music.

“So, what are you guys working on?” Heather asks as she sits down next to Sebastian on the black leather sofa against the wall that backs on to the corridor behind the control room.

“Would you believe me if I said ‘music’?” Sebastian asks in a dry voice.

“No? ‘Music,’ you say?” She turns to him, a pensive look on her face, “Tell me more. Is this something you’ve just discovered?”

“Oh, yes,” he nods seriously at her, “so, it turns out there are these things called ‘instruments,’ and they make different sounds.”

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