Page 8 of One Day Like This (Excess All Areas 1)

But she can’t be mine.

No amount of time.

Will erase the visions that I see.

As choruses went, it would be a good one. But did he want to be reminded of Izabel Bryson every time Jase opened his mouth to sing Matt’s own words?

He glanced at the time on his phone. Fuckers. It had been an hour. Matt closed his notebook and shoved it into his backpack. “I’ll go round them up,” he said to Ben who was dozing in the front seat.

“Sure. Whatever,” he mumbled, not even opening his eyes.

Matt stepped out of the van into the loading bay of the arena. Given the sound proofing of the building, music mutely drifted into the empty space. He felt like a kid who desperately wanted to be inside but didn’t have the right credentials.

For the first time in his life, he allowed himself to consider what it might feel like to concede they were never going to make it big. That no amount of effort on their part was ever going to net them more than a modest income.

The thought pissed him off, a brutal comedown as his high dissipated.

The door burst open, a crescendo of noise filling the space.

“You’re just freaking jealous,” Alex muttered as Luke and Jase grinned at him.

“I’d have made everyone wait ... the tits on her were a masterpiece,” Jase said.

“Her?” Matt asked. “What happened to the guy?”

Alex smirked. “Don’t ask questions you don’t want the answer to.”

Jase tipped his head in Alex’s direction. “Our resident equal opportunities lover getting hit up on the way out by a ten.”

“She was an eight,” Alex said. “You were blinded by the tits.”

They were jostling and laughing, like they did when Luke was drunk or high enough to forget what Jase had done, and Jase was spent enough to not rile Luke.

“I don’t care if she was a twenty out of ten. Can we get moving?” he said.

Jase swaggered past him. “If she was a twenty, Alex would already be topping her.”

Alex laughed. “True story.”

“Just get in the van.”

Jase flipped the bird at Matt.

In childish retaliation, Matt shoved him into the van using the door, smirking at the loudoofhe heard from inside.

Without Jase, he and Izabel might have had a future. And if he hadn’t been such a dick, if he’d called Luke out on his stupid rules, he’d be driving home to her right now.

Except he’d not.

Hell, he couldn’t do anything about it now. There was room in his life for only one love.

And it was music.

2

“Why are you drinking my coffee?” Gemma asked, walking over to the yoga studio’s coffee bar.

Izabel grinned at her best friend. “First, I happen to have a membership because my best friend owns this place. Second, it’s free.” She lifted her espresso cup in Gemma’s direction before taking a sip. “Third, I needed a boost for courage.”

---