Page 102 of A Country Kind Of Love

Peyton nods.

“You’re a songwriter, you write how you feel, the more life experience you have the more you can offer the world in terms of your music. I’m not a songwriter; I have tried, believe me, it’s not as easy as I’m sure you make it seem. I create what can’t be seen. I thrive on building a song and watching an artist like yourself come in and layer on top your passion in the form ofyour words.”

She’s mesmerising. Peyton can see why Shonda likes her. Knowledge and creativity seem to ooze from every fibre of her being. The way she manoeuvres her hands, her soft words, her tone, her demeanour reminds Peyton of a YouTube video she watched about motivational speeches.

“What I do, starting at the top: I manage your budget and schedule. I need you present, ready to work, prepped, and most importantly, on time.” It’s a dig. It’s deserved. Peytoncan take it.

“Our timelines are tight and it’s critical we finish on schedule. This will allow the rest of the components to fall into place. We are the start of a chain, but we have marketing, manufacturing, publicity schedules, etc. All of them depend on us meeting our deadline.”

Peyton gulps. “Publicity schedules?” She doesn’t like the sound of that.

“Of course, how else do we get your record tonumber one?”

“Number one—” Cleo adds. “Is that theintention?”

Shonda laughs out loud. “This is a major record label. Do you think we settle for Top 40? No, no, no—raise your expectations ladies.”

“Second, I am here to shapeyourmusic. It is and always will be your music, but I like to think I add a little flare. You have the basis of a great song; you have the lyrics and a melody, but how we translate raw talent into a finished recording that captures the emotional intent and reaches a wide audience; that’s whereI come in.”

She’s good.

“Thirdly, I need you to be positive, optimistic, confident, and most importantly... bring... the... vibe! Recording is a joy; it’s uplifting and inspiring. When you see a piece of music come together it’s exciting.”

Peyton looks at Shonda who raises her eyebrows in response. Which means,I told you she was good. She is, really good. Peyton isn’t fangirling or anything, well, maybe a little, but she does have a quality about her, a certainje ne sais quoi.

“How does allthat sound?”

“Perfect,” Peyton replies.

“Amazing,” Cleo adds.

She turns her attention to Jesse who is staring at her like he’s just discovered the treasures of Cleopatra’s tomb.

“Sounds really good,” he adds.

“You’re the manager?”Alisha asks.

Jesse uses his right hand to smooth out his T-shirt. Peyton has never seen him so nervous. “Yes, I’m Peyton’s manager.”

“You look familiar,”Alisha says.

Peyton reaches to her left to squeeze Cleo’s hand. The side-eye she gets in return indicates she also feels the energy in the room. If they were in a cartoon there’d be a giant illuminated speech bubble above Jesse’s head with a beating heart inside.

“I play around town a lot with my band,”Jesse says.

“What areyou called?”

“Southern Smooth.” He cringes at the name. He asked Peyton to help choose a new name a few weeks back, but after using a country name generator that took every country artist ever known and switched their names around, they came up short. “It’s not the best name, but we’re working on some other names and some merch too, so I’m looking forward to that.”

You are?Peyton wants to say, but she won’t embarrass him like that. Jesse attempted to sell merch online a year prior. He now wears the T-shirt to paint in, and the letters rubbed off the water bottle after he ignored the “not suitable for dishwasher” guidance.

“Wait—” Alisha starts. “Did you play at Luke’s 32 a couple ofmonths ago?”

“Erm... yeah, we did.”

“On the third floor, right?” Alisha smiles.

“Did you watch us play?”