Page 59 of Reverb
Her smile was slow and sexy as if she saw right through him—and maybe she did.
Luckily, Ray stepped into his line of sight. “Going old school?” He gestured at David’s laptop.
That was all he needed to recover, to drag his sorry mental ass back to being a goddamned professional. “Figured a bigger screen would be better, you know?”
“A man after my own heart,” Adrian said. He sat on the couch with Dom, both wearing what David recognized as their casual clothes. For Adrian, that was jeans and an old, worn T-shirt. For Dom, it meant jeans and a button-down that pretty much covered all his ink. He leaned against Adrian.
Damn, David wanted Mish in his arms like that.
He shook the thought away. “Where’s the best place to put this?”
“Coffee table.” That came from Zavier, who was lounging against the door to the bedroom. “But we’ll need to rearrange the furniture, or some of us will have to sit on the floor.”
Marcella shrugged. “I’m limber enough.”
David eyed the huge TV. “Damn shame I didn’t think to bring an HDMI cable.”
“I have one.” Adrian made to rise.
“Guys!” The strangled quality of Mish’s voice stopped them all in their tracks. “I don’t want my stalker’s emails on a huge fucking monitor. I just want to—read them. Not go over them in detail.”
David breathed out. “Okay. Yeah. That was...” The only consolation was that everyone in the room sans Mish also looked sheepish. “Why don’t I...give this to you?” He held out the laptop to Mish.
She took it and placed it on the coffee table. “You and Adrian have seen these, yes?”
David nodded, his mind still churning in embarrassment.
“Okay. That leaves Dom, Ray, Zavier, and Marcella.”
“I’ve seen most of them,” Marcella said. “I can catch up on the rest later.” She wandered over to a table that contained a fruit basket, bottled water, and a carafe, poured herself some coffee, and took a seat there.
Dom moved to sit on Mish’s one side. Ray took the other, and Zavier came around to the back of the couch.
“This okay?” Zavier’s voice was a concerned murmur over Mish’s shoulder. Not feigned, either. David doubted he feigned anything with the band. There was an open honesty about the man despite the sharp control that lay there.
“Yeah.” A quiet reply from Mish.
The four of them settled in, and David resisted the urge to pace. He took a seat in one of the very white chairs. Adrian glanced his way, expression mirroring David’s own inner turmoil.
Mish had seen many of the emails, but not all.
“Fuck,” murmured Dom at one point. “Is that your...”
“Yeah. My hair.”
Silence fell again, except for their breathing. David wanted to drop his head into his hands. Close his eyes against Mish’s hardening expression and the revulsion in both Zavier’s and Dom’s eyes.
“And my ring,” Mish said.
Ray was focused but shuttered. Tiny twinges snuck through in the flicker of his eye, a twitch in his cheek, or the way he scowled, but David couldn’t put a finger on the emotion. Wasn’t anger. Or maybe it was far deeper than that.
After a while, Ray sat back and met David’s gaze, his own grave. “Now I’m even more glad I convinced you to stay.”
A mix of shame and pride and worry punched into David. His gaze flicked to Mish’s, but she wasn’t looking at him.
No, her focus was on Ray, and she was pale and a tightness had gathered in her whole body. “And why’s that?”
Ray shook out his neck. “Not because you can’t take care of yourself, Mish. I met you in a bar that scared the pants off gay old me, and you had the whole place by its ear. Literally and figuratively.”
