Chapter 20
TWENTY
LEVI
Earlier that morning
The jet has WiFi.
This feels important to mention because I’ve spent the last two hours texting Delilah instead of preparing for my meeting, and that’s entirely the WiFi’s fault.
Levi: Harper keeps glaring at me.
Delilah: Maybe because you’re supposed to be working?
Levi: Working is overrated.
Delilah: Said the man on the private jet.
Levi: The private jet that’s taking me away from you. It’s basically a prison with leather seats.
Delilah: You’re ridiculous.
Levi: You like it.
Delilah: Unfortunately.
I’m grinning at my phone like an idiot when Harper clears her throat.
“We land in forty minutes,” she says, not looking up from her tablet. “The label wants you in the conference room by three. That gives you exactly enough time to check into the hotel, shower, and remember how to be a professional.”
“I’m always professional.”
“You’ve sent two dozen text messages since takeoff.”
“That’s professional. I’m maintaining important relationships.”
“You sent her a picture of the clouds shaped like a duck.”
“It was a very good duck.”
Harper sighs the sigh of someone who is dramatically underpaid.
I’ve known her for years, since she came on as my assistant right when things started taking off, and she’s been managing the chaos ever since.
She’s seen me at my worst: the year I toured so hard I collapsed backstage in Denver, the spiral after my second album went platinum and I realized success didn’t fix anything.
She’s earned the right to sigh at me.
“Just…please be ready,” she says. “This meeting is important. The label’s been patient, but their patience has limits.”
“I know.”
“Do you? Because you’ve been dodging their calls for months.”
“I haven’t been dodging. I’ve been…taking my time.”
“Levi.”
“Fine. I’ve been dodging.”
She’s not wrong. I have been avoiding this. The label wants decisions I’m not ready to make. They want commitments that feel like chains. They want me to be the Levi Cole who sold out stadiums, not the one who’s been hiding in a beach town trying to remember who he was before any of this started.
But I’m here now. That has to count for something.
Through the window, I can see the California coastline coming into view. It’s beautiful in that aggressive LA way, sunshine and palm trees and everything just a little too bright. I used to love it here, the energy and the possibility, the feeling that anything could happen.
Now it just feels far away from the place I actually want to be.
My phone buzzes.
Delilah: Just helped a man apologize for gambling away his vacation fund.
Levi: ...I need the full story.
Delilah: Lucky Susan. That’s all I’ll say.
Levi: I’m somehow more confused now.
I’m typing a response when Harper plucks the phone out of my hand.
“Hey!”
“You’ll get it back after the meeting.” She tucks it into her bag. “Consider it motivation.”
“Give that back.”
“After the meeting.”
The car service takes us straight from the airport to the hotel, one of those sleek downtown places where every surface is glass or marble and the lobby smells like money and eucalyptus.
The girl at the front desk recognizes me.
I can see it in the way her eyes widen slightly before she schools her expression into professional neutrality.
“Mr. Cole. Welcome back. Your suite is ready.”
“Thanks.”
“If you need anything during your stay, anything at all, please don’t hesitate to ask.”
There’s something in the way she says “anything at all” that makes me want to take three steps backward. I’ve gotten used to it over the years, the looks and the implications, the assumptions about what rock stars want. It never stops being uncomfortable.
“I’ll let you know,” I say, keeping my voice neutral.
Harper steers me toward the elevator before I can get trapped in conversation. It happens sometimes, fans who want to chat, or worse, people who want something like a selfie or an autograph, a piece of me they can take home and show their friends.
I don’t mind the fans, usually. They’re the reason I get to do what I do. But today I’m tired and distracted and all I want is to check in, shower, and get this meeting over with so I can go back to Twin Waves.
Twin Waves and Delilah.
When did that become home?
The suite is ridiculous. Two bedrooms, a living area bigger than my rental house, a view of the city that must cost more per night than most people’s monthly rent. There’s a fruit basket on the coffee table with a card from the label. “Looking forward to reconnecting!”
I toss the card in the trash. The fruit can stay.
“You’ve got forty-five minutes,” Harper says, checking her phone. “Shower. Change. Try to look like someone who wants to be here.”
“What if I don’t want to be here?”
“Then fake it. You’re good at that.”
She’s right. I am. Years of interviews and red carpets and performing when I felt empty inside have made me very good at pretending.
I just don’t want to pretend anymore.
I shower, change into clothes that Harper probably pre-selected for exactly this meeting, dark jeans and a button-down that says “I take this seriously but I’m still a rock star,” and stare at myself in the mirror.
I look tired. The kind of tired that doesn’t go away with sleep.
But when I think about Delilah, her laugh, her terrible car, the way she looked at me on the pier, some of the tiredness lifts.
I can get through this. One meeting, one conversation, then I go home.
The label’s LA headquarters is exactly what you’d expect. Glass and chrome and people who look like they’ve never eaten a carbohydrate. Everyone moves fast, talks fast, smiles fast. It’s exhausting just walking through the lobby.
I used to fit in here. Or at least I thought I did. Now I feel like an imposter in my own career, a guy pretending to be Levi Cole while the real version of me is sitting on a pier somewhere, watching the waves.
The elevator takes forever. The receptionist on the top floor offers me water, sparkling or still, and a selection of beverages that includes something called “activated charcoal lemonade.” I decline everything.
The conference room has floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the city, a table long enough to land a small plane on, and approximately fifteen people I don’t recognize sitting around it.
And two people I do.
Diane is seated near the head of the table, power suit perfectly pressed, looking like she’s been waiting for this moment for months.
She gives me a tight smile when I walk in. The kind that says “finally” and “don’t mess this up” at the same time.
Mia Monroe is perched at the far end of the table, surrounded by her own team of handlers. She’s wearing white, and everything about her is calculated, from her posture to her lip gloss. When she looks up as I walk in, her face breaks into a smile that probably costs her a fortune to maintain.
“Levi!” She stands, arms outstretched like we’re old friends instead of two people who met exactly once at a meeting just like this one. “So good to see you again.”
She hugs me before I can react. It’s the kind of hug that lingers too long, her perfume overwhelming, her hand resting on my back a beat past comfortable.
“Mia.” I step back. Create distance. “Didn’t know you’d be here.”
“Surprise!” She does jazz hands. Actual jazz hands. “The label thought we should reconnect. Talk about that duet idea.”
The duet idea. Right. Last time I was here, someone floated the concept of me doing a song with Mia Monroe. A rock-pop crossover. “Historic,” they called it. “Career-defining.”
I called it a hard pass, but apparently no one wrote that down.
“Have a seat, Levi.” That’s Richard Stein, the head of the label. He’s got silver hair, a tan that suggests he’s never seen a cloudy day, and the demeanor of someone who’s used to getting what he wants. “We’ve got a lot to discuss.”
I sit. As far from Mia as the table allows.
She notices. Her smile doesn’t waver, but something flickers in her eyes.
Good. Message received.
The meeting is exactly as painful as I expected.
Richard talks about numbers. Streaming figures. Social media engagement. My “brand trajectory,” which is apparently not trajectoring the way they’d like.
“You’ve been quiet,” he says, and it’s not a compliment. “The industry moves fast. If you’re not putting out content, you’re being forgotten.”
“I’ve been writing.”
“Writing doesn’t pay the bills. Recording pays the bills. Touring pays the bills.” He leans back in his chair. “We’ve been patient, Levi. But patience has limits.”
There’s that phrase again. Harper must’ve gotten it from him.
“I’m working on new material,” I say. “It’s different from my old stuff. More personal.”
“Personal is great. Personal sells. But you need to actually release it.” Richard slides a folder across the table. “Here’s what we’re proposing. A new album by end of year. A tour starting in January. And,” he gestures toward Mia, “a collaboration single to generate buzz before the album drops.”
I don’t touch the folder.
“The single with Mia would be huge,” one of the other suits chimes in. “Her fanbase, your fanbase, there’s almost no overlap. We could pull in a whole new demographic.”
“I’m a rock artist,” I say. “She’s pop.”
“Exactly! Crossover appeal!”
Another suit leans forward, a guy who looks like he was born in a boardroom, wearing a tie that probably costs more than my first guitar.
“We’ve done the market research. A Levi Cole-Mia Monroe collaboration would generate approximately three hundred percent more media coverage than a solo release. The streaming projections alone...”
“I don’t care about streaming projections.”
The room goes quiet.
Richard’s smile tightens. “Everyone cares about streaming projections, Levi. That’s how the industry works now.”
“Then maybe I’m tired of how the industry works.”
More silence. Someone coughs. Mia is watching me with an expression I can’t quite read, curiosity maybe, or calculation.