Page 6 of Aaron
FOUR
The halls were familiar, bland and white, with beige carpet. The sort of office building that could have been almost anywhere in the world, but they were finally starting to feel like home to Brad. Like he had a place here. People recognized him, nodding politely, and that sort of recognition felt good.
Of course, it was quite possible that all of those people were just waiting to see if he failed and ran the band into the ground or not. It was even possible that they wanted him to fail, but if so, he intended to disappoint them.
Aaron was at his side, but, of course, Brad didn’t care about that. Aaron had made it pretty clear that he wasn’t the sort of person to get cozy with someone he was working with. Even if Brad was interested, which he wasn’t, damn it, and even if he was willing to risk his job, which he also wasn’t, Aaron wouldn’t go for it. It was one of those minor tragedies in life, but not the end of the world.
Still, they were together when they pushed open the door to Brad’s office, where he’d told the boys to all meet. And because of the traffic, and how the ride over had seemed to last forever, they were the last ones there, something which Brad found humiliating.
Though that had nothing on the knowing smile that the pretty redhead who Brad was fairly sure was named Jamie shot their way when they walked in together. His smirk turned knowing, teasing.
“Oh, look who made a friend,” he purred, his eyes alight with mischief. Aaron just rolled his eyes, and Brad didn’t deign to comment, just going to sit behind his desk as he looked them all over.
There was a look that he didn’t like which passed from Jamie to Lance, who were married and utterly, sickeningly, in love. Jamie’s might have been teasing, but Lance’s was deeply thoughtful, and Brad had to wonder if he had some sort of sign over his head, announcing to the world that he was far too erotically and sexually attracted to Aaron.
There were always eyes watching, that was what Brad had realized. And he had to be above reproach, more even than most people would be in his situation, because of Lester. So he cleared his throat and hardened his eyes and looked them each in the face, even Aaron. It would look more suspicious if he avoided him, probably.
“Okay. Here’s the situation.” Brad laid it all out for them, for all of them. Maybe some would question his decision, but honestly, Brad figured that they deserved to know. It was their band, their show, and Lester had all but ruined their careers.
When he was done, he was grimly pleased to note that no one was giving him any sort of knowing, teasing looks anymore. The bad news had hit them all pretty hard, and silence reigned in the room for quite a while as they all struggled to deal with it.
“So we fix it.” It was the energetic Ken who spoke, which sort of made sense, actually. Brad didn’t know any of them very well, but he had noticed that Ken was pretty much always talking, and nearly always moving in some way. Even now, he was fidgeting with something in his pockets, like he found it a challenge to sit still.
In sharp contrast to Aaron, who seemed bored by the whole thing. The young man was sitting and staring at the floor, and Brad couldn’t even be sure that the guy had been listening at all. Not his problem, only, well, unfortunately, it was.
“That’s the plan,” Brad agreed with Ken. “A big tour. Worldwide. We’ll push the hell out of the new album, and see if that fixes it. If not, I have some other ideas.”
He waited to see if anyone had anything to say, but none of them did, not even Ken. Truthfully, none of them seemed all that surprised, and that made sense because it wasn’t like this was an unusual step to take. They had probably already been expecting to go on tour, and only the scope of it was a bit strange.
“With this last album, you have all fulfilled your contracts,” Brad pointed out bluntly. “So I’m going to want to meet with you, one at a time, to discuss new ones. I know that most of you will probably want to talk to your lawyers before signing anything, so this will just be to talk.”
“When?” Lance asked, and Brad shrugged and gave a tight little smile. Actually, this was going better than he’d hoped. Part of him had thought that these boys would never be able to give him any respect, that they wouldn’t listen to him, but that wasn’t the case. They seemed willing enough to take his lead.
Except for the beautiful, remote Aaron. Brad hated himself for it, but he couldn’t seem to stop gazing over at him, as though he could somehow force him to say something, to do something, through force of will. But every time Brad looked, Aaron was gazing at the same spot on the floor, his brows slightly furrowed as though he was deeply concentrating. And Brad was pretty sure it wasn’t on the carpet, or on the thrilling subject of contract renegotiation.
“No time like the present,” Brad pointed out, and the boys all looked at each other and shrugged. Even Aaron finally glanced up, but not to look at Brad, as he would have hoped. Instead, Aaron turned to his friends, and then Jamie spoke up again.
“Lance and I will go first.”
Brad shook his head immediately, looking right into Jamie’s eyes until the young man dropped his gaze, though he didn’t exactly look happy about it.
“No,” Brad said firmly. He knew that he was probably coming off as too much of a hardass, but this was their first official meeting. His first chance to assert himself as their leader, to tell them without using so many words that he was in control of official business. Surely it was better to start things out the way that he wanted them to continue? “One at a time. Jamie. You come in.”
“We don’t have any secrets from each other,” Jamie protested, fingers still curled around his husband’s. “You might as well just see us together.”
“You and Lance have separate contracts,” Brad told the redhead, his eyes focused right on him, gazing into his crystal blue eyes. “So you will renegotiate them separately. You may stay. Everyone else, wait outside. I’ll see you after.”
Lance didn’t like it, and neither did Jamie, that much was clear. Even Ken was giving Brad a disbelieving look, but that probably meant that it was even more crucial that Brad do this.
So he just waited calmly, arms crossed over his chest. He wasn’t here to make friends with anyone. He was here to be their boss, and the sooner that they all knew that, the better. Slowly, one by one, they filed out.
Aaron, Brad very carefully didn’t notice, was the first one to leave. The one who seemed to care the least. But then, from what Brad had seen, Aaron didn’t care about much of anything, and that was something that would be very, very good for Brad to keep very firmly in the forefront of his mind.
* * *
The meetings went smoothly enough. Jamie and Lance were both willing to sign on for as long as Brad wanted them, which gave him a lot of room to work with. It was convenient, but he supposed that was the advantage of having both halves of a couple in the same band.
Of course, when it came down to it, they would both always choose each other. So he probably shouldn’t count on them. For now, though, they were around, and that was going to have to be good enough.
