Page 57 of Rock Bottom

I stepped inside, surprised to see his condo glaringly immaculate. It was usually a pigsty, so he’d changed more than just his party habits.

“Pizza just got here,” he said, leading me to the living room where he’d put it on the coffee table, along with some paper plates and napkins.

“I have soda or water,” he said. “You know I don’t do milk.”

“I don’t drink milk either,” I said. “Water’s good.”

We settled on his massive leather sectional and ate in silence for a few minutes.

“So, tell me about the kid.” He leaned back after eating only one piece, taking a pull from his water bottle.

“He’s pretty fucking cute.” I opened my phone to show him pictures, something I seemed to be doing a lot lately.

“Wow. Looks just like you. How old is he? A few months?”

“Four.”

“I can’t believe Aurora hid this from you.”

“And I can’t believe you fuckers wouldn’t let me fire her,” I muttered.

“It’s complicated, you know? She’s been with us since the beginning. One lapse of judgment shouldn’t—”

“Lapse of judgment?” I stared at him. “I missed Presley’s entire pregnancy and the first four months of my kid’s life. She had no business manipulating me like that.”

“You had no business getting in bed with her.” He gave me a look, his blue eyes shrewd. “We warned you she was bad news on a personal level.”

“I don’t want to do business with someone who isn’t a good person,” I said quietly. “It shouldn’t matter how good she is in business.”

“We’ve always been loyal to the people who started with us,” he said.

“But she hasn’t been loyal,” I said. “And I had a long chat with Lexi not that long ago. She pulled some shit with Nobody’s Fool, too. Shit we didn’t know about.”

“Like what?” he asked.

“She lied to them about how much space they could have on the stage, so on the first day of rehearsals they had to totally revamp their set-up. They wouldn’t have signed the contract if she’d told the truth.”

“Son of a bitch.” He made a face. “We told her not to give them too much when they first started with us. I thought she was protecting our interests, not lying about shit.”

“Yeah, and it was shady.” I was truly frustrated by everyone’s devotion to Aurora. She wasn’t that big of a deal. We were her first and only big client, so it wasn’t like she’d gotten us our deal. Back then, she’d been a brand-new manager. We’d needed someone to take the reins, and she’d needed experience. It had worked out well, but as far as I was concerned, it wasn’t working anymore.

“Talk to her,” he said quietly. “Maybe work things out. It doesn’t do you any good to be pissed off about it.”

“I’m not willing to work things out,” I said. “She did something unforgiveable, and she did it because we were sleeping together. On and off, but it never occurred to me she was looking for a ring.”

Carter chuckled. “Aren’t they all?”

Not Presley. Hell, she wasn’t even looking for friendship. Something I had to change.

“Yeah, well, that was never going to happen.”

“Did she know that?”

“She should have.” I wasn’t sure if I’d ever used those exact words, but I’d sure as hell told her I wasn’t interested in anything serious or long-term. “Anyway, I don’t want to talk about her. I’ve got a new song I want to show you.”

“What about the kid? You moving him and the mom to L.A.?”

“Presley doesn’t want to move to L.A. She barely even wants to talk to me. Mostly I deal with her aunt. Aunt Meg is cool. You’d like her.”

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