Page 4 of Louder Than Words

Then, just as quickly, she returns to her seat and leans into Lydia. “Told you he’d come,” she says proudly.

The second they slip back into play mode, my phone buzzes in my pocket, making my stomach flip. If she’s calling already, it means one of two things. Either she’s worried about leaving me alone with the girls... or it went badly. Really badly.

I grab the phone and answer quickly, my words tumbling out. “Hey! Everything’s good, don’t worry. The girls and I are just having a little tea party.”

Laughter explodes on the other end—way too loud, and way too deep to be Allie. My brow furrows as I pull the phone away and check the screen.

Pookie James.

Ah, for fuck’s sake.

I pinch the bridge of my nose, chuckling as I rest the phone against my chest. “You gonna be okay if I step out for a minute?” I ask Charlotte softly.

She nods. “Yup! But don’t be long, or your tea will be cold and yucky.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” I say, already pushing myself up from the chair.

My knees creak like they should be on a ninety-year-old, and not attached to my twenty-six-year-old body. But the way both girls lit up the second I sat down? Worth every second of feeling like my ligaments are disintegrating.

I slip into the hallway and lift the phone back to my ear. “What’s up, man? And when the hell did you change your name to ‘Pookie James’ in my contacts?”

His laugh bursts through the speaker again. “Mate, that was ages ago. Just shows how little you call me.”

“You’re my bassist, not my father.” I shift the phone to my other ear. “Plus, we live together. I shouldn’tneedto call you. Anyway, I’m with Charlotte and Lydia right now. What’s up?”

“Wait, like... by yourself?”

“Yeah. Allie’s got mediation with Trevor today,” I say quietly, just in case the girls are within earshot.

“Oh, right. How’s it going over there?”

I sneak a glance into the bedroom. Thankfully, the girls are still wrapped up in their tea party, without a care in the world.

“They’re perfect,” I admit with a smile.

“That’s great, man. Really glad to hear it.”

A long pause follows. Nothing but the faint hum of background noise on his end. I shift, leaning against the wall and turning my back to the door. “Alright. What is it?”

“So, Desmond… total beast on the drums, yeah?”

“Yeah, he’s great,” I say, though my tone probably doesn’t sound thrilled. It’s buried under the confusion over why this even warranted a phone call.

When James pauses again, I sigh. “Alright, wha—”

“We’ve finished all the recording,” he finally blurts.

I can practically hear the grin in his voice before the words even sink in. Then a cold ripple moves through my chest—a weird mix of adrenaline and anxiety crashing into each other. Because if they’re done recording, there’s only one thing that comes next.

“Gerald said he can master the entire thing within a week,” James says, practically buzzing. “We could release the record in two bloody weeks, Jax!”

My mouth falls open.

Two weeks?

I was expectingsix. Minimum. That would’ve given us plenty of time. Time for Allie to sort everything out with Trevor and the girls. Maybe even leave us a little time for us to breathe, and find our normal again. Because the plan was for us to ride the hightogether, not have the band’s big moment land right in the middle of all this shit. The timing just isn’t right. If anything, it’s the literal worst.

But damn it…we fucking did it.