Page 43 of Code Word (The Atrous #3)

ONE YEAR LATER

I signed the papers for the Malibu sale a week later, and Luke sold his house two weeks after that.

It was perfect.

Steve insisted on upgrading the security system and Jeremy told us not to argue. Not that either of us was stupid enough to argue with Steve, even if the guy had mellowed some over the last year or so, now that Jeremy wasn’t under the scrutiny of Atrous’s spotlight.

And it was closer to Wes’s house.

I meant it when I’d promised to hang out more and to be a bigger part of his life. That included Amy and Benny, of course, but I was clearly her favorite uncle, so it was my duty to spoil that kid rotten.

And Maddox... well, Maddox had been a huge help.

Point-Four was Luke’s and my production company. We wrote and produced songs for other artists and produced our own songs, and we couldn’t have done it without Maddox’s help. And Jeremy’s and Wes’s too; we each brought something different to the table.

Even Roscoe’s management skills and Steve’s analytical skills were invaluable. And the biggest asset was Becca.

Yep.

Becca fell into the role of personal assistant/manager with the sale of our houses.

She’d come with us to the Malibu house as planned to take whatever furniture she’d wanted and ended up organizing the realtor appointments on our behalf.

Then she did the same with Luke’s house and the move into the new house.

And then with the production studio downtown.

She managed our calendars, appointments, and well, pretty much everything.

The thing was, she knew us. She knew how hopeless we were with the day to day stuff, and she knew everyone in our Atrous circle. And probably most importantly, she was not fazed by anyone who came to our studio, no matter how famous they thought they were.

She took no shit from anyone.

Least of all from Luke and me. Especially me.

It wasn’t awkward at all. In fact, she was one of my closest friends.

“Your fly’s down,” she said.

Instinctively, Luke and I both checked our zippers. They weren’t, but she wanted us to check.

“We’ve done this a few times, Bec,” Luke tried.

“You walk out there with your fly down and no amount of PR savvy will save you,” she said, and I snorted.

The stage manager interrupted. “You’re up in four, three,” two fingers, one, and go.

We walked on stage to a huge round of applause. It was our first scheduled, official interview in three years. Funnily enough, it was on this very stage on LA Nights Live.

We took our seats across from the host’s desk and the applause quieted down.

“Welcome back,” the host said. “It’s been a while.”

Luke took the lead. “It has. We’re excited to be here.”

“For any of our viewers who have been living under a rock, you were both part of Atrous, the multi-multi-platinum, award-winning, biggest band in the world. And that’s been what, three years now?”

I nodded. “Yep.”

“But you’ve hardly been living the quiet life. You’ve started your own production company called Point-Four.”

Luke grinned. “That’s right.”

“Point-Four,” the host repeated. “The name is a tribute, of sorts, to Atrous.”

I explained it. “Atrous was always the five of us. And point-four is two-fifths; we are two of the five.”

The audience loved this.

“And you’ve both settled into a ‘normal’ life after Atrous announced its end. How does one do that? You were the pinnacle of superstardom and all the craziness that went with that. How does someone adjust to everyday life after that?”

“It’s actually great,” Luke said, and the audience laughed.

“But all jokes aside, it’s great now, but it wasn’t easy.

We took about a year off. I don’t think we realized how burned-out we were until we came out the other side of it.

I don’t think any of us picked up an instrument at all in that time.

But then I missed it, ya know? Music had always been such an integral part of our lives, and that part of me was missing.

So, I picked up a guitar and started to write again. ”

The host waited for the audience to stop cheering. “But this time there’re no tours, no album, just purely digital, streaming, and social media platforms. And you’re killing it. Smashed records on TikTok and YouTube. ”

Yeah, we’d been killing it. Making our music purely digital had cut our workload down considerably. We knew it was a testament to a constantly evolving industry, but I had to wonder where we’d be right now if we could have done this as Atrous.

“It’s been a nice surprise,” I said. “We’re older now, in a different industry than what it was when we first started.

But we’ve done all that hard stuff. We’ve sold out stadiums, upward of a hundred thousand people all around the world, sold multi-platinum, won more awards than we ever thought possible.

We’ve accomplished all there is to be done, and somewhere along the way during that time, it wasn’t fun anymore.

So when we started playing again, we were like ‘Wouldn’t it be fun to just play music like we used to before the craziness started?

’ So that’s what we’re doing. Just playing, putting our music out there, singing what we want, without the pressure or the stress. ”

“Except, Blake,” the host said “when you decide to do a pop-up concert in an airport, mall, or on the pier.”

He ran some YouTube footage of the few times I’d done that, belting out a song at some random piano, and the studio audience ate it up. Especially the time I dragged Luke with me, giving all the late-night Christmas shoppers a three-song concert on the carolers’ stage in Santa Monica.

“Any more impromptu appearances planned that we should know about?” the host asked slyly.

“No,” Luke said quickly, and I laughed and nodded, but when Luke looked at me, I shook my head.

Of course, everyone laughed.

The host looked between us. “Any other news to share?” He was totally vying for gossip that the internet and whole damn fandom were dying to know. “There’s been a lot of speculation online about you guys.”

If we were together. If Bluke was real.

The thing was, we’d decided they didn’t need to know. We didn’t want to give this part of us away and decided we weren’t going to tell the public shit. If we were photographed together, let them draw their own conclusions. But details about our personal lives? We didn’t owe them a damn thing.

“Yes,” Luke said, and the audience went wild. Someone squealed. Luke grinned and waited for the audience to quiet down as the host leaned in, excited. Luke grinned. “We’d like to share our newest song with you.”

The audience laughed and cheered, so we walked to the performance stage. There were two stools, two guitars, and we took our places.

Luke spoke into the mic. “We haven’t sung this live yet, so you guys get to hear it first. It’s a song that means a lot to us. It’s called ‘Code Word.’ I hope you like it.”

He grinned at me, and as the entire studio went silent, we began to play.

“Hola, hola,” I said, opening the door. “Por favor, pasen. Come in, come in.”

Maddox and Roscoe were the last to arrive, walking in to join Jeremy and Steve on the patio, watching Wes and a very pregnant Amy on the beach with Benny.

“Well, this is terrible,” Maddox said, taking in the view.

“Yeah, abysmal,” Jer said. “I can’t see why you wanted to live here at all.”

I snorted because this place was stunning.

Nothing but clean sand and blue skies directly overlooking the Pacific Ocean.

Alma didn’t want to sell her place, but she let us know when a house two doors up went on the market.

It was bigger than her place but still cozy.

We could have bought some massive mansion, but that wasn’t what we wanted. We didn’t want Hollywood in Mexico.

We wanted unassuming and personal with an authentic, honest feel. We wanted downsized with a wooden patio, thatched villa vibes, and that was exactly what we got.

“There’s a bar at the end of the beach,” Luke said. “Their pizzas are wood-fired and amazing. Tacos like you’ve never had.”

“Are those your mopeds parked out front?” Roscoe asked.

“Yep. We ride into town every couple of days,” I answered. “Go to the markets. And I’m telling you, no one here gives one fuck who we are.”

“Well,” Luke amended. “They know who we are, but they don’t care. We buy local, support local businesses, that kind of thing. So they leave us alone.”

Maddox looked around. “It’s kinda like the cabins but better.”

I laughed. “No, the cabins are awesome but totally secluded, which is perfect for that. This is just... different. We can spend a coupla weeks here. It’s a total vacay lifestyle.” I shrugged. “Then we go back to LA for reality.”

“Speaking of the cabins,” Luke said. “Did you get the approval through?”

Maddox grinned. “Yep.”

“Yes!” I clapped Maddox on the shoulder. “Great news.”

He wanted to run a music camp, of sorts, for up-and-coming artists who had a stack of talent but no means, no opportunities. He’d host them at the cabins, they could use the barn studio to jam and record, then they’d produce the finished product at the Point-Four studio.

Maddox had wanted to give something back and maybe help them navigate the first few steps of the music industry. It was going to be filmed for a Netflix special, and it was going to be awesome.

“Yeah, I can’t wait,” he said, grinning. “Callouts and audition processes start next month.”

“We saw your interview on TV,” Roscoe said. “You guys were great. ”

“Felt kinda weird being interviewed by him with just us two,” Luke said. “Normally we bounce shit off the five of us. It’s different with just two.”

“Aww, do you miss us?” Jer said.

“I did,” I deadpanned. “Until you got here.”

He shoved me. “Thanks, dickbag.”

“I take it you haven’t seen anything online since the interview,” Steve asked.

“Nope. We did the interview, played our song, drove straight to the airport, and came here. Haven’t seen a thing because I deleted those apps off my phone.”