Page 77 of Resonance
“How about me, what?”
“Would you sell a kidney?”
“God, the fame’s already going to your head. No. I guess I might sell the tip of my pinky toe? I can do without it.” He laughed, and then I filled him in on the session with Evan and Les. When I’d told him a few days back about the call and what I planned on doing with them, we ended up spending an hour going over what I’d record, debating different songs I’d played for him before, and then I played him a few that I’d been working on since he left.
“Les is gonna send a couple of the tracks we did today over to Soundhouse and see what they think.”
Dan mmm’d into the receiver. “Soundhouse is good. And if they’re not interested, there’s also Palladia and Mercury Group. I’ve still got contacts there.”
“Yeah…”
“Yeah, but what? I’m hearing a but in there.”
I fiddled with the bottom of my shirt, then stroked down Jez’s back until her purr rumbled against my chest. “I just… I have a hard time accepting help sometimes because I’m used to trying to do stuff on my own, you know?”
“You didn’t have trouble accepting it from Les.”
“It’s different with you.”
Dan got quiet, then said, “All right, I see. Offer’s on the table though if you need it. No strings. Even though, let me point out, all of Nashville is held together by strings. The whole damn music industry is. You pluck one and it ripples across the web of ’em.”
“I know.” I didn’t want to explain why it was so important to me that I try to accomplish shit on my own without the palm grease of a man I’d slept with and who was currently letting me stay in his home. But that he didn’t push it any further suggested he understood. Or at least respected it enough to let it go.
Thankfully, he changed the subject. “What else you got going on? Aiden behaving?”
“He’s not here much and…oh! I did reorganize your pantry. You wanna get on FaceTime and I’ll show you?”
“I can’t imagine anything more exciting, Owen,” he deadpanned.
We clicked over and my heart stuttered to see the smile lines around his eyes again.
Dan smoothed a hand over his hair and narrowed his gaze at the screen. “How’m I coming through? I’ve only done this with one other person ever. Feels weird.”
“Coming through fine.” I nudged Jez from my chest and sat up.
“What have you got on there?”
I glanced down at the black tank I was wearing. It was maybe a little small, but I’d had it forever. Earlier it’d been covered by a hoodie. “A leftover from a brief period of trying to be a skater boi. I’m sure you can imagine why that was short-lived.”
Dan grunted.
“What’s that mean?” I’d been expecting laughter.
“It means it looks good on you.” He seemed on the verge of saying something else, then inclined his chin. “Gonna show me that pantry, then?”
“Mm-hmm.” I hopped from the couch and headed into the kitchen, flipping the light on in the pantry to reveal the shelves I’d organized with extreme care powered by plenty of boredom.
“So, I’ve put all the soup cans here—God, you have a lot of soup. I didn’t really notice it until I started gathering up the cans. Do you really eat that much soup? Because I feel like that’s too much. No one needs twenty cans of tomato.”
“It’s easy,” he groused.
“Mm-hmm. Well, a third of them were expired, so I threw those away. Next”—I did a Vanna White flourish toward another shelf—“we have crackers. Crackers are also something you have in abundance, so I chose to arrange by tastiness.”
“Whose perception of tastiness?”
“Mine, but I feel confident that I can speak for the masses when I say these gluten-free whole-grain things are the weakest showing here. Saltines are right in the middle, as the marker of average.”
“The Cheez-Its should be leading the pack, then.”