Page 48 of Resonance
“I figured he could wonder for a minute or two, and I still need to think through it a little more.” I had no doubt Ru could oversee the shops while I was gone, but there were other logistics involved. And other factors involved that had nothing to do with logistics.
Owen’s gaze went thoughtful. “Well, it really will be awesome. And if it would help the shop… that’ll be good.” He trailed off and flashed me a brief smile. “Yeah.” That last word sounded oddly finite.
* * *
Owen was back again later asthe sun abandoned the sky. I’d wasted a few hours lost in thought, retracing the events in my life that’d led me to a squeaky-ass desk chair in a building full of other people’s music careers.
I’d finally managed to finish payroll and tax paperwork as he stuck his head in a little after seven.
“You hanging around here for a while?”
“Yeah, gonna finish this up. You set the alarm already?” I’d not been paying attention and didn’t remember hearing the beeps.
“No, I figured if you were staying…”
“Do it when you walk out.” Nashville had grown enormously since I’d opened Grim’s, and the area had undergone several revitalization efforts, but this part of town could still be sketchy at night.
“I had an idea for the next podcast. Wanna hear it, or are you in the zone?”
“Let’s hear it.” Ru and Owen knew far more about what they were doing on the technical side than I did. The only thing I looked forward to about the podcasts was… I stopped myself before theahamoment could unfurl fully.
Owen dropped into the chair in front of my desk that Ryder had occupied mere hours before and kicked his feet up on the surface.
I reached out and shoved them off. “You raised in a barn?”
“Worse.” He smiled sweetly, though I thought I detected a little flush to his cheeks as he straightened in the seat and tucked one leg under. “Now, what if next time we picked some new local artists. Like the guys busking downtown. I’ve been paying attention to them lately.”
“Yeah, been down there yourself?” I knew the answer; on several other occasions when I’d taken the downtown route in, I’d spotted Owen playing on various corners of lower Broadway.
“Yeah, some.” And when he didn’t offer any more than that, I figured I’d leave it alone.
“So what, bring them here and do a show?” Thus far, we’d mostly covered new album releases or revisited old hits. “We don’t have the equipment to do a live show on a podcast.”
“No, but maybe just an interview and we could play some of their songs if they have them available to download.”
I mulled that. “All right, sure. That’s not bad. You gonna be in charge of rounding them up?”
“Umm… sure? I mean, I don’t exactly scream clout.” Owen glanced down at himself demonstratively. His hair flopped over one side of his face; the collar of his Megadeth tee was stretched out and hung loose. Another thrift store find, I imagined. One kneecap poked out of a hole in his jeans. There was a smaller hole the size of a dime on one side of his Chucks.
“Think that’s gonna matter to anyone busking on a corner? It’s publicity. If you’re worried about it, put on a suit and slick your hair back or something.” My lips twitched toward a smile. I couldn’t even imagine Owen in a suit, but I was sure he’d worn one at some point. Probably looked nice in it, too.
“Are you imagining me with my hair slicked back?”
“Do they even make a gel strong enough to tame that haystack?” Owen grinned and shook his head. “Actually, it was the suit that was throwing me off.”
“I could say the same.”
“Well, we’re not talking about me.” I hated suits. They were the modern equivalent of a straightjacket in my opinion. Fancy trappings that you had to be cautious of spills or dirt or, shit, pollen in a spring breeze. One more thing I didn’t miss about my old career. Events that required suits.
“I wore a suit to prom. Ugh.” Owen pulled a dramatically mortified face. “It was horrifying. Prom, not me. I looked pretty good. Someone set off smoke bombs in the bathrooms, though, and ruined the whole thing. We all ended up outside the concert hall, shuffling around until someone decided it’d be a great idea to go to IHOP instead. It wasn’t. Their griddle was broken. And then I wore a suit to a friend’s wedding, once to a job interview, like two weeks before I applied to Grim’s Gatlinburg. That was a laugh.”
“What were you applying for?”
“Administrative assistant at Dollywood. I can type pretty fast, but I got nervous during the interview and bombed it. So I ended up here.”
“Where admin assistant dreams go to die.”
“I’m just building myself up right now,” he quipped.