Page 69 of Resonance

“Oh good,” he continued, sounding pleased. “I kept the sales receipt you gave me your number on a few months back”—it was more like many, many months back, but who was counting, and they’d cut an album and gone on tour since I’d given him the paper with my number and some links to my songs—“but one of the numbers got a little blurred and I wasn’t sure.”

Do not hyperventilate.

“Oh, no worries. Glad to hear from you.” Ecstatic, shuddery, shivery with joy. And shit, I did accidentally “eep” there at the end. I was proud of myself for sounding so mellow up until that point, though. Les’s chuckle was like melted chocolate. I wanted to lick it up.No, stop, brain. He had a fiancé now. A very sexy one. Who could kick my ass in a heartbeat.

“Hey, listen, I’m sorry it took me so long to get around to listening to your stuff. A lot of shit went down and…”

“Oh yeah, I saw. I mean I heard. Well, I heardandI saw. Ru and I were actually watching your Facebook live thing while we were in the shop, and I’m pretty sure my heart melted right out of the toes of my shoes, which was great, because I’d been wondering what the hell happened since when you two were in the store in Gatlinburg, it was all verygrrrrrand then…”Jesus, take the wheel and put on the brakes. I sucked in a breath. “Anyway, I’m glad it worked out.” I’d clearly had a rambling relapse. No one was ever gonna wanna put me on a stage at this rate. I was a disaster. When Les had been in the shop in Gatlinburg, I’d repeated myself incessantly upon meeting him for the first time and then slapped myself in the face a little too hard.

“Owen?” He paused, I think sensing I needed that break to collect myself. I dragged in another breath and let it sit in my lungs, hoping it’d soak up some of the word napalm. Then he continued. “I think your stuff’s pretty damn good. Ev listened to it, too, and agrees. Do you know what you want to do with it?”

A tiny beam of starlight broke through the heavy cloud cover gathered in my chest and twinkled. “I hadn’t really planned ahead that far, I just saw the opportunity while you were in the store and took it.” And made an idiot out of myself. But we didn’t need to rehash that in verbal technicolor.

“All right, good to know. And that’s no problem, okay? I’m gonna be honest, though, the sound quality is utter garbage.”

The hopeful twinkle winked out, but I shouldn’t have been surprised. “Yeah, I know.” I hated the whispery tone that leaked into my voice. “I recorded it myself on my computer, and I don’t have Pro Tools or anything close to professional, just this crappy recording app I downloaded.”

“Yeah, and it sounds like it. But again, that’s all right. Hang on—” I heard some static like he was trying to muffle the phone, then a few wisps of conversation…babe… Owen… yeah.Then more static.

“Owen.” Evan’s voice boomed through the speaker, and oh god, I was in aural heaven, two of the sexiest men in music coming through the airwaves directly into my ear. Inexplicably, my dick gave a celebratory twitch. I had no idea adrenaline boners were actually a real thing until that moment. “Is he tearing off your wings?”

I laughed. “Kinda. No, not really. He’s right. The sound quality sucks.”

“See?” That was Les. “I’m not tearing off anything…” More muffling, then a dark chuckle from Evan. Les cleared his throat. “Anyway, we were thinking you should rerecord some of those songs with better equipment.”

I wondered if there was a bottom somewhere my heart could rest against. So far it seemed to be sinking into an infinite abyss. “Yeah, I know. I’m saving up for some studio time, but it’s definitely gonna be another few months before I’m there.”

Evan again. “Actually, we could help you with that. We’ve got recording capabilities at our place. Notallthe bells and whistles you’d find in the pro studios, but we can help you get some clean cuts if you want.”

The abyss vanished and my heart squeezed anew. It was getting a full workout today. “Really? That’d be amazing. Um… how much does something like that run?”

“Your—” Les started, but Evan cut him off.

“Don’t fuck with him, dude.” And then he addressed me. “No charge.”

“Are you shitting me?”

“Nope.”

And I was back in the clouds again, soaring in a diamond sky of starlight.

“We’ve got some downtime right now. We could schedule some time soon, sound good?”

“Sounds amazing.” My eyes welled up, and it was all I could do to keep my voice from becoming quavery. I was not gonna cry on the phone with the legends that were Porter & Graves. No fucking way.

I’d probably just do it in person.

* * *

I’d started doingthis thing when I’d get back to Dan’s at the end of the day, and I guess it was kind of weird because I was used to living by myself at my old place, but at Dan’s the solitude was such a stark highlighter of his absence that I found myself making as much noise as possible when I got there.

I’d toss the keys up and down or jangle them in my hands once I walked through the door, make a lot of noise setting my things down, or coo overly loudly at Jezebel until her ears pricked and she looked at me disparagingly for my transparent affection. In the kitchen, I turned on the radio and rattled pots and pans indiscriminately as I made dinner. But somehow filling the sense of emptiness with sound worked. For the most part. Kinda.

Jezebel weaved between my legs as I made mini meatloaves, and I fed her tiny meaty bits as I sat in Dan’s den with the TV on and ate. Afterward, I dragged out my guitar and notebooks, flipping through songs and trying to decide which ones to record with Les and Evan versus any newer stuff I had that might be worth adding in.

Around 10:00 p.m., a knock yanked me out of the zone, and I listened with my guitar resting on my lap, head cocked, to be sure.

But it didn’t come again. Instead, I heard the creak of Dan’s front door and then a booming “hello” that shook me.