Chapter 11
Chapter eleven
Drake - Miami
I needed about five more cups of coffee to get through the day. I did not sleep well the night before and didn’t feel like dealing with anything at all. In the breakroom of the studio, I filled my mug again.
“Whoa, big guy. That’s like your sixth cup already.” Finn moved to take my mug.
I slid out of the way so he couldn’t grab it. “You’re not my mom, what the fuck do you care?”
“Just trying to help. You’re going to be a fucking mess before lunch with all that caffeine.”
“Fuck right off, Finn.”
“Fuck you too, grumpy-ass dickhead.”
Everything he said was true, but I simply didn’t care. I was ready to go home and back to bed, and we’d only just arrived.
Wolf tapped on the door jamb. “Hey. We need everyone in the booth for today’s rundown.”
“Fuck.” This was going to be a long ass day, but I followed Finn down the hall to meet up with the others. We’d pretty much already reworked all the songs we wanted to include, but now we needed something new, but I didn’t know what that would be.
Wolf handed out music and lyrics as soon as we were in the room.
“I took some of the notes I got from Drake and Finn and poured through it. I like some of it, though a lot of it was fragments. One thing on beaches…some other shit. Some, well, I couldn’t read your fucking handwriting.
” He glared at Finn, who held his hands up in an over-dramatic shrug.
“But I put some of it together here.” He tapped the pages I was holding.
“Interesting.” I took it in for a few minutes, then ran it through my head, then tried to sing it.
Knocked down
Burned Out
Something about it; Brooklyn never even knew
Stomp down; turn it around
Brooklyn mother fucking who?
I need
Palm trees
Sandy knees
Come on give me a go
I just need sand between my toes
The pole is slick. Never better than my—
“Oh, come on. Maybe we can cut that line. I’m not singing about my dick.”
Finn laughed hard. “Mother fucker, Wolf…”
Of course, Tank snorted. And it rubbed me the wrong way.
“You have anything better to contribute, man?” I threw my papers at him. “Fuck this.” It wasn’t very grown-up to storm out, but I needed space. Some distance, maybe.
I stomped blindly down the hall, ending up in the breakroom. I went for the coffee pot, then thought better of it and took a deep breath before opening the fridge and pulling out a bottle of water. It was refreshing and cold. Hit the spot.
“Hey, man.” Jinx pulled out a chair and sat.
“What’s going on with you today?” If it had been anyone else, I probably would have flipped them off and left.
But not Jinx. First, he was too cool and laid back.
Second, all of this was because of him. Because he came to our show and liked what he saw.
He knew we had potential and was willing to reach out and make shit happen. No way would I disrespect that.
“Fuck. I don’t know.” I was a fucking mess. “This is Matty’s fault.”
“How so?” he scoffed.
I needed to put what I was thinking and feeling into words that I didn’t have. Me, the wordsmith, huh. Well, jotting down lyrics was different than talking about real feelings. Wasn’t it? Maybe I should be channeling this aggression into a song.
“Drake? Come on, give me something.” He stretched a hand toward me.
“So, I guess…” I cleared my throat to give myself another second to think about my words. “Now that I know what it’s like to have him with me, I hate not having him here.” Sending him back to Vegas was necessary, but it did not make me happy in any way.
“Thought so. Maybe go get him, surprise him and bring him back.”
“We have to do this.” I waved toward the sound booth. We needed to finish.
Jinx waved me off. “We’re ahead of schedule. Y’all are killing it. But you’re not going to get any quality work like this.”
That surprised the shit out of me. “I can just go then?”
“I don’t see why not. We can lay down guitar and drums and shit while you’re gone.”
“Fuck, yeah. Let me go make arrangements.”
Jinx stood and put his arm around my shoulder, shaking me with his other hand. “You’re with us now. Let me make arrangements…”