Page 65 of Dedicated
Byron winced in sympathy. “Yeah. It puts me in a weird position, because I represent you both, and for you, this deal is good, and if you’re telling me you’re not going to work with him again, I have to advise you to take it. I’ll do what I can for him.”
I looked at him sidelong. “They underestimate him. They always have.”
“Agreed.” He nodded. “But they’re the ones with the bank account, so that’s on them. I’ll do my best to get him set up elsewhere if he wants, or if he wants out of the limelight, there’s serious loot he could make just writing.”
I knew Les, though, and he loved performing as much as he loved writing.
I launched from the chair and started pacing, staring out the window at the tiny parking lot and the row of buildings that made up the heart of Music Row, remembering when we’d first walked into Byron’s office, the thrill of knowing we were on the cusp of something good. Les had made me take a picture of him at the entrance, smiling so big and bright that even the stupid face he tried to make as I snapped the photo couldn’t overshadow his evident joy. “Fuck. These are great options. I’ve basically been given carte blanche to do whatever the fuck I want, so why don’t any of them feel right?”
I got the impression that Byron was choosing his words carefully when he replied. “The two of you have been working together on a deep level for years. Any change is going to be uncomfortable and feel drastic after that kind of partnership. It’s something of a rarity, whether you fully understand that or not, to have the kind of partnership you and Les have. So think about it. Whatever route you go, I’ll support you fully. And I do think you should meet with Amanda and see what kind of vibe is there so you’ll know.”
I put my head in my hands and stared down at the contract on the table. I’d told Byron the gist of what had gone down at the cabin. Not the nitty-gritty, but he got it. I thought that was why I felt his hand on my shoulder a handful of seconds later as he said, “I think you need to take more time. Only you understand the true scale of a decision like that.”
* * *
I metwith Amanda the following week in a funky recording studio tucked away in Berry Hill behind a vintage shop. She was talented, smart, organized to a degree I could appreciate, and ambitious as hell, just as Byron had said. And she had that same enigmatic quality Les had that demanded your attention.
Right away, she filled me in on how she’d been building her following through targeted efforts that only appeared organic from the outside. Behind the scenes, she and her manager were busting ass. She’d followed our rise, taking cues from what worked and noting what didn’t, slowly positioning herself in the industry. Unlike us, when the big labels came calling, she refused them outright, and they’d been chasing her ever since. It was a good tactic, and she had a huge following on every social media platform she’d dipped her fingers into so far.
She was everything I’d heard she was and more. Her songs were incredible, and her voice was amazing. We tooled around for a couple of hours, kicking some song ideas back and forth, before I finally got around to asking, “If you’re so hell-bent on being stubborn, why’d you agree to meet with me?”
She leaned back in her chair and smiled, combing a strand of hair behind her ear. She was pretty in a haunting way, not classically, but a beauty with an echo that’d stick with you long after you walked away.
“Your show at Grim’s Gatlinburg. Someone posted a video of it, and that song—” Before she even said it, I knew the one she meant.
“That was actually Les’s idea. I’d never heard it before. Ever.”
“I could tell.” She paused. “There was this tiny moment when a flicker of panic passed over your face. I bet no one noticed it but me, but then you just locked into the song and it was phenomenal, and I thought, I want to write with somebody like that. I want to make music with somebody like that—somebody who gets me and what I’m about so instinctively that it doesn’t matter what the song is or what goes wrong, you can be relied on to pull it off every time. And it would take time, I know, to get to that level, but I think we could. It gets lonely sometimes, you know?”
I knew. Busking on Second Avenue, scorching under the sun, then playing the bar circuit that night before crashing in bed and doing it all over again, week after week, had been lonesome business. I understood completely, but I couldn’t help thinking of Les. What we had, what we’d built, and fuck if my heart didn’t start aching all over again.
I might be the voice and the sound, but Les was the soul of our music, and I didn’t know if I could just cut him out and replace him with Amanda. It felt like cheating, somehow, and I left the meeting with no more clue of what I was going to do than I’d walked in with.
Chapter 37
Istood in line for breakfast behind Mason, a twenty-three-year-old trust fund baby with an oxy habit who was on a shower strike for some reason. He smelled like a dumpster left out in the middle of a desert for a month, and as he pushed his tray down the line, stabbing his finger in the direction of whatever he wanted, he canted a look over his shoulder and sneered at me.
“You’re ripe, dude,” I sneered back, and accepted a bowl of eggs from one of the line servers.
“Write a song about it, pretty boy.”
I chuckled bitterly at his glare. Mostly, we all got along. Everyone was too busy with the demons breathing down their own necks to bother being a dick. That didn’t mean there wasn’t drama every day—someone breaking down, threatening to leave, or actually leaving. I kept my breakdowns locked up tight, but Mason had singled me out in our first group session my first day. We’d gone around the circle introducing ourselves by our first names, followed by the line, “And I’m an addict.”
“You’re that swishy singer,”Mason had snapped out, giving me one of those false smiles that I thought was meant to make me feel like I was an infectious disease. It was clear he was usingswishyas a slur, but was too much of a wimp to use something outright hateful.
“Mason,”Warren, our group counselor, had warned him with a sigh.“Check the judgment calls.”
“Bi.”I’d been hard into my hangover then, and my nerves were shot, nausea roiling like a whirlpool in my stomach. I was sweating buckets, but fuck if I was going to let some asshole sitting next to me in a rehab tear me down.“And for fuck’s sake, do you know how many douches like you have said the same shit to me and then begged me for my attention when we were out of earshot of everyone else? Get a new fucking game.”
I’d gotten the warning that time.
There were some decent folks here, though, like Mike and James, who I joined at a table after getting my breakfast. James was a producer. Mike did something in technology in Silicon Valley that didn’t make sense to me, and when I’d given him a confused look as he’d tried to explain, he said, “Just think robots.”
The days moved in predictable patterns, and we shuffled from group meetings to classes to individual therapists with three meals in between. I missed Evan constantly.
The first five days there, I focused solely on not cutting out through one of the side doors and calling an Uber to come get me and take me to the nearest airport. Or back to Vegas. I could live without drugs, but the prospect of never drinking again was unimaginable. Who wanted to live a life like that? I felt as if I’d joined a monastery.
I kept mostly to myself. I recognized a few other people in there. Showbiz types, musicians who’d suspiciously vanished off the scene, but I didn’t want anything to do with them. I just didn’t care. About anything.