Chapter 13 Lou
LOU
Building the deck takes time. The suite dining table is big enough to spread everything out, and the light from the window is good for color checks. I name the file and drop a title slide with today’s date so no one can argue about versions later.
Album title options first. I put them in a grid so they look like choices, not a fight. Static & Honey. Back to the Drawing Board. Sage and Spark. Work Lights. Lost & Found. Under each, I leave notes on tone, mood, and what the words promise.
Color next. I pull a palette from Sagebrush: the walnut console, sun-stained pine trim, the faded orange of the door, the steel of old stands, the cotton white where the paint never stuck.
I add the gold of Talia’s old session laminate and the soft blue from the tape box labels.
I mock up each color as a full bleed and then as small chips next to a photo of the room.
I do the same for font. Logos. Motif slide.
It’s all about family, craft, and second chances.
For family, there’s hands on instruments, Talia’s cue notes, the studio scuffs we grew up on, the doorframe pencil marks where someone tracked height a decade ago.
For craft, I have clips of tape splices, the old patch bay, pencils, and grease china marker, the ribbon mic silhouette that flatters nobody and tells the truth.
For second chances, there are repairs visible on purpose—frankensteined mic stands, restitched amp covers, a chalked X where we stopped a rattle.
We show the scars and keep moving.
I add a slide for working titles we shouldn’t use, so we stop ourselves before we waste a day. We are not telling the press they were right. We are not making the fans parent us.
I build a board for physical texture so the assets don’t turn into flat screens.
There are gaffer tape veins, console wood grain, the nick in the piano lid, a cue sheet corner torn and taped back.
I drop in a hand-lettered alphabet where the letters waver like they were written after midnight.
Hero assets always carry a trace of hand.
The point is to look touched, not polished.
I add merch mock-ups because everyone always forgets merch till the last day.
A black tee with the album mark high left, not billboard center.
Tote with the studio silhouette and a single line of copy, Album name here.
A cap with the ribbon mic and no text. Laminates with the grid baked in, so backstage doesn’t look like a different company. Fewer items, better blanks.
Suspicion taps a knuckle while I work. This is too easy, says the part of me that learned to expect nothing and like it.
Men don’t ask for my rate and mean it. Men don’t bring coffee and not expect something in return. Men don’t say yes without adding “but.” I list every reason I should brace. I don’t know how not to prepare for the worst.
But then Houston cleans the French press because he used it. Salem is putting the cap back on the marker someone left uncapped. Knox numbers the file versions correctly in a shared drive.
Basic shit for any woman. But for guys? Well, I wish it didn’t impress me so much, but sadly, it does.
The bar for men is in hell.
Still, it disarms me a little. I don’t trust it yet, and I like that I don’t have to push them to act right for it to be true.
It’s not like being around Troy, who needed someone to follow him around to pick up after him.
Or my ex-boyfriend, Charlie, who suddenly didn’t know what a toothbrush was for after we’d been dating for two months.
Or Miguel, who said, “You know I could always date someone hotter,” any time I mentioned going to a nice restaurant.
Houston brings coffee while I’m kerning a slide. He doesn’t ask if I want it. He knows I do. Black, hot, cup set where I can reach without breaking my train of thought. “Thank you.”
“Keep going.” He checks the colors, nods, and steps back to give me space. I like that about him.
Salem wanders out, steals the pen from behind my ear, and tucks it behind his. “Tax,” he says, then sets another pen by my hand like he planned the bit to be generous at the end.
“That was my favorite pen.”
“This is your new favorite pen,” he says. He takes a fry from a room service plate that somehow exists and drifts to the balcony to look at the strip of sky, as if it owes him a verse.
I roll my eyes and give the pen a shot. Son of a bitch, it’s good.
Knox sits across from me with his laptop and the budget I sent him. He doesn’t say, “Are you sure?” He says, “Line items.”
We go through everything, and he asks smart questions about dates and deliverables. I’m having a work conversation with a guy I like, and his eyes aren’t glazing over.
“I can hit Tuesday,” I say.
“We’ll wire the budget to the account today, so you don’t have to stress.”
Everything with them is easy.
Which makes it uncomfortable.
Before the presentation with the guys, I build a test plan so approvals don’t turn into taste arguments.
We’ll preview titles on the venue screens at fifty, seventy-five, and one hundred feet and shoot from the floor and balcony.
There are a thousand details to hit before the meeting, and not a moment to waste, but all I can think of is how nice it is to work with professionals.
And Salem.
I present at four, because that’s when they can all sit still. I mirror my screen to the TV and stand so I don’t start shrinking without noticing. I go slide by slide. I don’t sell. I explain.
And they’re listening. They look at each other and then at me.
Houston nods. Salem smirks. Knox says, “This is it. This is the plan.”
I sit. My hands shake. I didn’t realize I was so nervous. But their opinions matter to me more than any other client I’ve had. I want them to like this.
To like me.
Houston tops off my coffee and leaves his hand a breath away from mine without needing to touch.
His version of affection is proximity and supply chain.
It works on me. Salem puts my stolen pen back behind my ear like a magician and flicks the clip so it taps once, light.
Knox centers the budget doc and asks if I want to build a buffer for a surprise vendor.
I do. He adds it without making it a lecture.
“You’re treating me like a peer,” I say, and I hear how small my voice gets at the end of the sentence.
“Good,” Salem says, “because I don’t flirt with interns.”
Houston smiles into his cup. “You are our peer, Lou.”
Knox says nothing. Of the three of them, I think he understands what I mean the most.
When the file goes to them and Quincy, I sit there and wait for the old results. Dismissal, deflection, the “we’ll run this by my friend who dabbles in Photoshop.”
None of it comes. What arrives instead is the soft sound of being left alone to do the job I just said I would do.
When the quiet stretches, my brain tries to ruin it with memory. But I don’t need to replay old hurts. Not with new opportunities in front of me. I open my notes and finish the social post I drafted days ago. Simple. Calm. Direct.
I’m okay. I’m moving on. Please don’t speculate on my private life or send hate to anyone on my behalf. I’ll share work when I have work to share. Thanks to the people who checked in with kindness. To everyone else, I wish you peace and something better to do with your time.
I don’t mention anyone. No names. No timeline. No bait. I swap in a quiet photo from the suite—a corner of my sketchbook on the table, a coffee cup in frame, the window light soft on the page. No face. No ring light. No fonts trying to be brave.
“Do I post this?” I ask.
“Do you want to?” Houston cocks his head to the side.
“Yes.” I pause, thinking. “I also want to delete the internet.”
“Post,” Knox says. “Then close the app.”
“Post, post, post,” Salem chants.
I read it one more time, looking for land mines. It still feels like me. It doesn’t feel like bait. “Okay.” I hit post.
I set the phone face down and breathe. It feels right. I’m moving on. If the threats come, they come.