Page 24 of A Daddy for Christmas 3: Matty

Chapter eleven

Drake - Miami

I needed about five more cups of coffee to get through the day. I did not sleep well the night before and didn’t feel like dealing with anything at all. In the breakroom of the studio, I filled my mug again.

“Whoa, big guy. That’s like your sixth cup already.” Finn moved to take my mug.

I slid out of the way so he couldn’t grab it. “You’re not my mom, what the fuck do you care?”

“Just trying to help. You’re going to be a fucking mess before lunch with all that caffeine.”

“Fuck right off, Finn.”

“Fuck you too, grumpy-ass dickhead.”

Everything he said was true, but I simply didn’t care. I was ready to go home and back to bed, and we’d only just arrived.

Wolf tapped on the door jamb. “Hey. We need everyone in the booth for today’s rundown.”

“Fuck.” This was going to be a long ass day, but I followed Finn down the hall to meet up with the others. We’d pretty muchalready reworked all the songs we wanted to include, but now we needed something new, but I didn’t know what that would be.

Wolf handed out music and lyrics as soon as we were in the room. “I took some of the notes I got from Drake and Finn and poured through it. I like some of it, though a lot of it was fragments. One thing on beaches…some other shit. Some, well, I couldn’t read your fucking handwriting.” He glared at Finn, who held his hands up in an over-dramatic shrug.

“But I put some of it together here.” He tapped the pages I was holding.

“Interesting.” I took it in for a few minutes, then ran it through my head, then tried to sing it.

Knocked down

Burned Out

Something about it; Brooklyn never even knew

Stomp down; turn it around

Brooklyn mother fucking who?

I need

Palm trees

Sandy knees

Come on give me a go

I just need sand between my toes

The pole is slick. Never better than my—

“Oh, come on. Maybe we can cut that line. I’m not singing about my dick.”

Finn laughed hard. “Mother fucker, Wolf…”

Of course, Tank snorted. And it rubbed me the wrong way.

“You have anything better to contribute, man?” I threw my papers at him. “Fuck this.” It wasn’t very grown-up to storm out, but I needed space. Some distance, maybe.

I stomped blindly down the hall, ending up in the breakroom. I went for the coffee pot, then thought better of it and took a deep breath before opening the fridge and pulling out a bottle of water. It was refreshing and cold. Hit the spot.