Hat Trick (Fake Boyfriend 5)

“Jay …”

“What?” I snap.

“You can’t kill him. You’re too pretty to go to prison, and sex is only fun when it’s consensual.”

“Damn my boyish good looks.”

Marty snorts.

“Maybe I could chop off all his hair? He won’t still be that good-looking with a shaved head.”

“Still considered assault,” Luce says. “Still risking prison time.”

I grunt. Maybe I should be thankful he’s working his way through a shit ton of songs for his album because the asshole took over our recording time in the studio. The sooner he’s done with his album, the sooner Radioactive can start on ours.

I turn to Luce. “Any word from the label about getting recording time at another studio?” I pitched the idea that we’d get an album out sooner in a familiar environment. Like New York where we were discovered. Yeah, they saw right through that one and shut it down. Recording studios are a dime a dozen in L.A. and therefore cheaper. The ones in New York are expensive, and the label heads refused. Apparently, we’re still not big enough to demand stuff.

“They’re still a firm no on that one,” Luce says.

“Damn it.”

Harley comes out of the recording booth smiling because he’s recorded yet another single. A single that’s not ours. “Sorry about that. I gotta go where the inspiration is, you know?”

“Yeah, and all your inspiration since you got here has been for other songs on your album and not our collab.”

The song he recorded the day after the announcement that Eleven was breaking up was released out into the world not a full thirty-six hours afterward. It’s already at number one.

He’s done the pushing part. He beat out the other guys in Eleven, and now he’s riding the number one wave while he gets his first solo album done.

“You said you’d only need me for a couple of weeks. We haven’t even started. What is it? What do you want from me?”

Even though I’m only yelling, Luce holds me back in case I follow through on my death threats.

“I want a number one hit from you. That’s what I want. What we’ve been writing … it’s … blergh.”

“Blergh? Blergh?” I turn to Luce. “Please tell me he did not just say my lyrics are blergh.”

“I’m staying out of this,” Luce mutters.

And if I’m honest, I can’t say I blame him. Or Harley.

I have been half-assing it when it comes to this collab. I’m throwing out words in hopes some will stick. I don’t know what the label is hoping for, but I’m pretty sure we can’t write about our relationship, so what does that leave us with? Love is off-limits, heartache is off-limits, and I don’t want my new boyfriend to have to listen to me sing that kind of song with my ex. That means everything coming out of me is shallow and weak.

“Can we have a minute, guys?” Harley asks Marty and Luce. “We don’t need babysitters.”

Luce raises an eyebrow at me.

“If you must, you can keep watch from out there.” I point toward the foyer of the recording studio. The big glass-paneled doors in this place don’t give much privacy, but I prefer that. For Soren’s sake. I know nothing will ever happen between Harley and me again, but I wouldn’t feel comfortable with Soren being in a room with his ex by himself, so why should Soren have to suck it up?

I respect that it makes him uneasy, and I don’t ever want doubt between us, so Marty and Luce keeping close doesn’t piss me off like it does Harley.

As soon as they’re out of the room and the audio engineer and his producer follow, Harley doesn’t hold back.

“Are they really necessary?”

“Well, one is my manager, and if you remember correctly, Radioactive is supposed to be using this space to record our next album, but a fucking boy band broke up, and now, someone has taken over the entire studio.”

“Okay, I get it, you’re pissed, but … Can we sit?”

We take opposite ends of the plush leather couch behind the mixing board.

“What happened with us?” He sounds so serious that I can’t help myself.

I laugh. “Hmm, let’s see, big white dress, a promise of forever, matching rings—”

“That can’t only be it. It’s a sham engagement.”

“That sham engagement meant that we could never have anything real. And that’s all I’ve ever wanted. Someone real. Someone honest. Someone who makes my day brighter just by being in it. Soren is that for me. What you and I had … We turned to each other when we were lonely and on the road. Maybe even the secrecy of it all added to the confusing feelings. Put two gay dudes on a music tour for eight months and tell them not to bang. It’s impossible.”

“Trust me when I say it’s entirely possible.”

My eyes widen. “Luce said not all you Eleven guys were straight, but I still can’t figure out who. And I don’t exactly want to ask because, you know, rude and stuff.”