Date: 6/4/2440 Time: 7:00 AM
Matt padded into the kitchen with little hope that his hangover would go unnoticed. Spotting Kinsey, Angelina, MJ, Alexandra, and L’tani already seated, he downgraded his odds from unlikely to snowball’s chance in hell.
Still, he made the rounds. A kiss to the tops of Kinsey’s and MJ’s heads. A gentle squeeze of Angelina’s shoulder. Then, without ceremony, he staggered toward the coffee pot.
He reached for his usual—the If You’re Happy and You Know It… mug, featuring a cartoon T-Rex whose arms were too short to clap.
“So,” he muttered to the room, not quite looking at anyone, sipping the hot brew with suspicion. Why had Angelina switched from liberica to excelsa?
“I didn’t get a kiss,” Alexandra said, smirking over her plate.
“You’re not my daughter. I’ll remember tomorrow,” Matt replied.
“They aren’t your daughters either,” Angelina said with a chuckle.
“Sorry, girls—no more Christmas presents,” Matt sighed.
“We are his daughters!” Kinsey and MJ howled in unison, mock-offended and entirely sincere.
“See?” Matt said, sinking his face deeper into the mug instead of trying to move his very sore shoulders. Too much drinking. Too much strumming. Too much dancing—with more women last night than he’d danced with in the last nine years combined. All of them in this room.
He looked at MJ and Kinsey and wondered if they had slept there, maybe even together for the first time in weeks. He was betting on MJ—on her near-obsessive need to comfort others and her equal craving for female companionship when it was available. The grapevine would tell him soon enough, if his own observations didn’t.
“Eat,” Angelina ordered, shoving a bacon sandwich and her own plate in front of him. “MJ, go get a tray from the staff kitchen.”
L’tani sipped her own coffee, observing the man who had asked her to be at breakfast so they could spend the day together. This morning, it seemed, had brought something else—the reality of access to excess. It had been a fun night.
Unfortunately for him, humans required far more sleep than V’ren. She’d been awake for two hours already. And by the look of him, he needed at least two more.
“So who went viral last night?” Matt finally asked.
“Everyone,” Alexandra laughed. By agreement, they had all quickly and quietly shut up when he started down the stairs. “I went from 100 subscribers yesterday morning to 5,000 before the party to 500,000 this morning—and I am a nobody.”
“Not a nobody,” Matt said around bites of his sandwich. “Anymore,” he added, swallowing, and went back to the coffee.
“Unless you are backing out of getting a morning kiss while at his table, you have declared yourself one of his adopted daughters,” Angelina chuckled, peeling an orange. “Rolling Stone and Entertainment Tonight have already called about interviews. Guitar Magazine wants to talk promo. There’s talk about a High Lord version of Guitar Hero. Apple Security also announced that the terrorist you called out the other day died resisting arrest.”
“Took them long enough,” Matt said with a grumble, then saw MJ standing there. “Not you,” he added, waving her and the giant tray toward the counter. “Apple decided to kill the guy threatening terrorism against the V’ren once my concert got them worried about my fan base.”
“Weren’t they going to extradite him?” MJ asked.
“That’s what they said, but handing him over was never in their plans—and I’m just as grateful for the way it worked out. I would have had to go through the process of a trial and then shoving him off the bridge while zip-tied under the watchful eye of the media,” Matt said, draining the last of his coffee and moving to the counter, giving her a squeeze as he examined the contents.
“Is this it for the breakfast crowd, or are we throwing in extra guests as a mid-show challenge in today’s episode of Iron Chef Freehold Edition?” Matt asked, pulling out a cutting board and knife.
“It is 7:00 a.m. You have rounds to make with L’tani and those units in the south range need to be repaired by midday or there’ll be hell to pay,” Angelina laughed, knowing—hungover or not—he was really starting to become himself again. It had been years since he gave an impromptu concert. Maybe, just maybe, she could get him to restart Saturday movie night again.
“All right, sous-chef MJ, start getting the longganisa out of the casing,” he said, and began working on an annatto batter.
“Alfred,” he called to the House AI, “play me some music.”
“Yes, Master Bruce,” the crisply accented voice replied, and the guitars and drums of the Wilburys kicked in.
Angelina grabbed L’tani’s wrist and shook her head as she started to stand, whispering, “Just watch and listen during this song. You can pee in a moment,” as Handle With Care played on and Matt sang along with his back to the table.
Thirty-seven minutes later, Angelina was impressed with the table Matt and MJ had set for them. She was less impressed as he slid the batter-dipped and deep-fried tocino onto the table in front of her—singing the “old and gray” verse from End of the Line right into her ear.
She had found her first gray hair less than two weeks ago. He was the one who’d noticed it, earning unmerciful commentary from her eldest daughter in the process.
Matt, of course, would probably be like his father—thick, coarse black hair that stayed that way into his eighties.
The fucker.
