Xander
FOURTEEN
The Hawthorne House is finally starting to sound like what we built it for. It’s alive. The kind of alive that gets under your skin.
I stand in the control room with one hand braced against the edge of the mixing desk, watching Studio A through the thick soundproof glass while the latest playback rolls through the monitors.
Drums first. Tight but a little rushed. Bass underneath, steadying it.
Guitar bleeding through with enough grit to matter.
Good.
Not finished. Not even close.
But good.
The room around me is all movement and tension.
Engineers shift between stations, trading clipped comments over levels and timing.
Cables snake across the floor in black coils, disappearing beneath racks of gear and reappearing near the wall like the whole place is wired straight into a pulse point.
Someone passes behind me carrying a fresh set of headphones.
Someone else swears under their breath when a track lags half a beat.
It should feel chaotic.
Instead, it feels right.
For the first time since we moved all of this here, since the renovations and the contractors and the endless delays and the constant noise of building something people kept insisting couldn’t work in a town like this, the compound finally feels like it belongs to us.
Like a label.
Like a home for artists.
Like a risk that might actually pay off.
Inside the booth, the band we brought in for a development session last month is clustered together around the microphones.
They’re one of six acts we’ve been testing since opening the studio wing. Nothing official yet. No contracts. No public announcements.
That’s intentional.
They’re young. Early twenties. Raw in a way that still feels dangerous instead of manufactured. Good enough to make it. Inexperienced enough to ruin themselves if they get pushed into the wrong hands too early.
Exactly the kind of musicians we built Redemption Records for.
The singer, Noah, runs a hand through his hair and glances toward the glass for the third time in as many minutes. He’s pretending not to look at me.
He keeps missing the first half second of the entry because of it.
I press the talkback button. “Stop looking in here.”
All four of them snap to attention.
Noah straightens. “Sorry.”
“If you’re sorry, stop doing it.”
A laugh comes through one of the engineer’s noses beside me. I ignore it.
I keep my eyes on the band. “You know the song. You know the structure. The only thing in your way right now is the fact that you’ve decided this room matters more than the music.”
Noah swallows. The drummer looks like he wants the floor to open up and take him. The guitarist, to his credit, squares his shoulders like he’d rather get called out than coddled.
Good.
I lean closer to the mic. “You’re not here to impress me. You’re here to make me believe you. There’s a difference.”
Silence in the booth.
Then Noah nods once. More settled this time. “Got it.”
I release the button and glance toward the engineer. “Take it back.”
The track rewinds.
To my left, Gabe is standing with a tablet in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other, looking like he was born in expensive rooms built for negotiation and control.
Tailored dark shirt. Sleeves rolled once.
Expression calm enough to fool most people into thinking he isn’t constantly calculating six moves ahead.
He glances at me. “Subtle.”
“They’re wasting time.”
“They’re scared.”
“That’s part of the job too.”
He takes a sip of coffee. “You enjoy making that point.”
“I enjoy results.”
His mouth twitches, but he doesn’t push it. He never wastes effort where it won’t get him anywhere.
Julian, on the other hand, wastes effort like it’s a personality trait.
He pushes through the control room door two seconds later, grinning at something that only exists in his own head, a guitar pick flipping over his knuckles as he moves.
“You know,” he says, drifting toward the back of the room, “most people ease new artists into confidence instead of glaring at them until they find God.”
“They don’t need confidence,” I say. “They need discipline.”
“They need therapy after that talkback button.”
Noah’s voice starts again over the speakers before I answer, rough around the edges but stronger now. Better. Less in his head. More in the song.
I nod once toward the glass. “That.”
Julian looks past me toward the booth and lifts a brow. “Okay, fair.”
He drops into the chair near the back wall, long legs stretched out in front of him, still carrying that restless energy he gets when the day’s gone well enough to leave him with too much charm and nowhere immediate to put it.
I know him too well not to notice it.
And I know Gabe notices, too, because his attention shifts there for half a second before returning to the live room.
That irritates me.
The take finishes. Better.
Not perfect, but close enough to build on.
I press the talkback again. “Again. Keep that entry. Lose the hesitation on the bridge.”
Noah nods. The band resets.
Gabe sets his coffee down. “I’m going to check on the contract revisions for Cicada before legal starts pretending they’re confused.”
Julian tips his head back against the chair. “Tell them I believe in them.”
“I won’t.”
Gabe leaves the room with that same unhurried, expensive composure he brings to everything, and then it’s just me, Julian, and the music bleeding through the monitors.
I don’t look at him right away.
I don’t need to.
I can feel his mood. It’s too loose. Too pleased with itself.
It gets under my skin.
Inside the booth, the band starts another take. The first verse lands cleaner this time. The drummer finally stops anticipating the fill. The guitarist digs in harder, finding a necessary meanness in the progression.
Julian spins the pick across his fingers once, twice. Then he says, too casually, “Saw Willow today.”
Every muscle in my body goes still, but I keep my eyes on the glass. “Did you?”
“Mmhmm.”
His tone alone is enough to bloom an ugliness inside me.
I don’t ask the next question. That would imply interest I have no intention of handing him.
Julian doesn’t need encouragement. He keeps going anyway. “Stopped by the diner.”
I lean one hand harder against the console. “For food?”
“For Willow,” he says lightly. “Food was the supporting act.”
I turn then.
He’s smiling. Not smug, exactly. Not yet. But pleased. Amused. Carrying the bright, careless look he gets when he’s walked straight into a situation he knows he shouldn’t enjoy this much.
A dark flicker immediately moves through me.
I keep my expression flat. “Amazing. A house full of musicians and you’re still the loudest thing in it.”
He laughs under his breath. “Touchy.”
I say nothing.
His gaze narrows a little. Enough to tell me he’s aware he’s hit me hard. Not enough to make him stop.
“She was in a mood,” he says. “Actually, no. That’s not fair. She’s always in a mood. It’s kind of the appeal.”
My jaw tightens.
I look back toward the booth before I put my fist through something expensive.
The next take starts, but now the music is background noise to the image that’s already forming whether I want it to or not.
Willow behind the diner counter, dark hair tied up, painted mouth, those hazel eyes flat with irritation right until they catch on something that matters. Curves wrapped in denim and cotton and defiance. Looking at Julian.
Laughing at something he says.
Letting him stand too close.
The thought hits.
Mine.
It comes in hard enough to make me grip the edge of the desk.
I hate the word the second it arrives. Not because it’s wrong, because of how right it feels.
Julian is still talking, too unaware or too entertained to recognize the line he’s brushing up against. “We ended up going to the bookstore where her sister works.”
I turn my head. “The bookstore?”
He shrugs, still sprawled in the chair like this is harmless. “It’s not as exciting as you’re making it sound.”
“That depends on what happened there.”
That gets his attention.
He tilts his head, watching me.
“We talked,” he says. “I annoyed her. Grace and Nina had a field day. Standard small-town drama.”
I hold his gaze. “And?”
“And she was cute when she was pissed off.”
The room goes very, very still.
Even with the music running. Even with the engineers moving in the hallway outside.
Julian’s smile fades a notch. Not fear. He knows me too well for that. But caution, maybe. Enough to make him sit up a little.
I keep my voice level because anything else would say too much. “Careful.”
His brows lift. “About what?”
About her.
About the fact that I still think about the night at The Lamb after she walked out on me.
About the way she looked across my table with all that suspicion and edge like she’d rather set herself on fire than give me an easy inch.
About how she stood in my house like she belonged there and made every room feel too small after she left it.
About the fact that she walked out of my date and somehow that only made me want her more.
Instead, I say, “About confusing entertainment with judgment.”
Julian studies me. There’s too much intelligence in his eyes for the loose grin he usually wears. He knows exactly what this is now. Maybe he knew before. Maybe I just confirmed it.
“That’s not what this is,” he says.
I believe him.
That doesn’t make it better.
Because if Julian’s interested, he’s interested for real. He doesn’t always know what to do with real, but he knows when he’s found it.
And Gabe…
I think of the way Gabe looked at her in the kitchen. Too controlled to be innocent. Of the way he asked after her at Bennett’s. Of the tension that settled around him every time she spoke.
A fresh wave of irritation hits me.
Not irritation. Jealousy.
I straighten away from the desk and roll my shoulders once, trying to bleed some of it off before it shows in a way I can’t take back.
Julian stands. “Xander…”
I ignore that, too.
He takes a step closer. “I’m not doing anything to you.”
A bitter laugh almost breaks loose from my chest.
No. He isn’t.
That’s the problem.
He isn’t doing anything wrong. Neither of them is.
And still, every instinct I have is pushing hard against the idea of either of them touching what I haven’t even had the right to claim myself.
The thought’s ugly enough to sober me right through.
I finally look at him fully. “Good.”
He holds my stare. “We’re talking about a woman, not territory.”
A flash of heat moves through me so fast it almost feels like violence.
Because I know he’s right.
And because some brutal, primitive part of me doesn’t care.
I step closer instead of away, not enough to be a threat, just enough to make the point land between us. “I know exactly what we’re talking about.”
Julian doesn’t move.
He’s not reckless the way people think he is. He knows when a room has shifted. Knows when I’m holding too much in my teeth to let it out clean.
“What do you want me to say?” he asks.
Nothing.
Everything.
Stay away from her.
I say none of it.
Because Willow isn’t mine. Because she’d skin me alive if she heard me think that sentence in her direction.
Because the thing dragging through my chest right now has more to do with instinct than fairness, and I know the difference, even if I don’t like it.
I step back and break the line before it becomes more.
The take ends again in the booth. A muffled cheer comes through the glass from the drummer this time.
Neither of us looks over.
I say, “I’m heading into town.”
Julian’s brows pull together. “Now?”
“Yes.”
“For what?”
I hold his gaze for half a beat.
He knows.
His mouth kicks at one corner, but he’s smart enough not to make a joke out of it. “Right.”
I turn for the door.
“Xander.”
I pause with my hand on the frame.
Behind me, his voice loses the last of its humor. “Don’t start a fight because you’re in one with yourself.”
This is stupid.
I don’t do this. I don’t chase, I don’t compete, and I sure as hell don’t get territorial over a woman I barely know.
My hand tightens around the handle as I open the door.
But Willow is different than anyone I’ve known. She doesn’t bend, doesn’t fawn, doesn’t look at me as a man to want, and that’s the problem.
I slide into the driver’s seat and start the engine, the rumble calming the restlessness under my skin.
Julian can flirt, Gabe can analyze, but I saw her first. And I’m not stepping back just because they’ve decided to take an interest.
She’s mine.