Chapter 29
LOU
We do breakfast in the big suite because none of us wants the hotel restaurant today.
Room service trays, coffee, a pile of toast Houston keeps buttering like it’s his job.
Salem looks like he slept hard for once.
Pretty sure I wore him out last night. Knox is in a black tee and jeans, already on his second cup.
I sit on the end of the couch with my laptop closed.
They look at each other the way people do when someone has to start.
Salem starts. “We fired Quincy. Last night.”
I set the napkin down. “What happened?”
Knox answers. “We have evidence he was colluding with Troy. Pushing him to use a threat to break us up. Calling it good for the album. He used Troy to steal the masters for the label, so we’ll be suing them too.
He said he’s done the breakup thing before when someone ‘clung.’ So, he’s fired.
And probably facing criminal prosecution when all of this is said and done. ”
My stomach goes tight. “He said that to your faces?”
“Yes,” Houston says. “He said it like it was just business. And then he tried to make me feel bad for him.”
Knox adds, “Oh, and at least some of your death threats were fake.”
I nearly spit my water. “What?”
“He hired a troll farm to scare you into dumping us.”
“Holy shit.” My mouth goes dry. Then I hear Talia in my head, that easy little “mm” when she doesn’t like someone. “Your mother never liked him. She said there was too much math in his smile. If you’re smart, you’ll let her help pick the next one. She’s seen every kind of manager three times.”
“Agreed,” Knox says. “We’ll sit with her this week. No rush hires. Counsel has interim covered for contracts in the meantime.”
“Good.”
They watch me like they’re trying to gauge the hit. I check myself for cracks. I feel steady and angry in an old way. I pour coffee and doctor it like I always do, so I don’t wreck my hands. “I’m glad he’s gone. Not just for me. But for you guys too. That’s fucked up.”
“There’s more,” Salem says, softer. “Police picked Troy up. Extortion and the break-in. We have the file he was waving around. It’s in evidence, but I made a copy.”
“What extortion?”
He swallows. “Troy made a sex tape of you. Threatened to leak it.”
My hand shakes, jiggling my coffee. I set it down with both hands. “Oh.”
“Based on what I saw, it looks like you didn’t know it was being filmed—”
“I did not. In fact, I told him never to film us.”
“I’m not asking you to deal with it today. Or ever, if you don’t want to. We’ll handle it, and the court will handle it. I’m telling you because I won’t keep things from you.”
I sit still for a beat because I don’t want to vomit information back at him. “Okay. Thank you. I’m not talking about it now. I need to not think about that for a while.”
“Understood.”
We go quiet. It’s not uncomfortable. It’s a block of silence we can stand on. They keep eating. I sip coffee and let my brain sort files.
Quincy is gone. Police have Troy. The studio is ours with new glass. The work is moving. I have the credit I deserve and men I’ll keep trying to deserve because they keep trying to deserve me too.
They start to chatter, and I check out of the conversation a little, even as they keep talking about interim managers and radio spins and rehearsal blocks. I look at the string of choices behind me and the one ahead.
I have what I wanted, and I didn’t notice it arrive: a home. Not a street, not an apartment, not a ring. A place where I can set a pencil down and know it will be there when I reach for it. A place in a family, even if it’s only temporary.
But it doesn’t feel temporary. This feels like the real thing.
I hate that I let a man talk me out of my career once. I hate that I abandoned my career to orbit his. That I liked the feeling of belonging so much that I let him take the rest of me. That I called it love when it was convenience and a way to stop being scared.
Now I have three men who handed me back my hands, my voice. Knox, who shares the load and thinks out loud with me and doesn’t pretend he knows things he doesn’t. He respects me and listens when I say the line is crooked.
Houston, who checks locks and records guide tracks and keeps asking where support turns into weight. He finds the song under whatever noise the day is making and brings me into it without turning me into a prop.
Salem, who hands me the wheel and means it. He lets me steer without sulking and takes my notes without turning them into a fight. He is chaos on a leash that he’s finally holding, and he gives me the leash when I ask.
I’ve never had any of that. Not from a man. Not from anyone.
There’s mutual trust. There is respect. It’s simple. I’ve never had simple. It makes me greedy. I want it to last.
But they are about to go on tour. Tours kill things. I know because last time I chased a musician onto a bus, my life fell apart. My inbox went stale. My clients slid away. My identity turned into someone’s plus-one. I don’t want to repeat a loop just because it’s familiar.
So I don’t wait to see what they’ll offer. I cut into their conversation, because I don’t wait for answers anymore. “What do you want me to do when you go on tour?”
Three heads turn. Knox sets his fork down. “Come with us. Be on the road. Be in the rooms. We work better with you near.”
“But I can’t work on the road in a busy tour bus or plane.” I breathe in slow. “Last time I followed a musician, I lost my life. I can’t be the tagalong who waits in a green room. I need space and bandwidth and a door that locks that isn’t someone else’s door.”
“Okay,” he says, not defensive. “That’s fair.”
Salem leans forward. “Then don’t follow. Fly out every couple of cities. Come for three days, go home for seven. Ping-pong. You keep your life and still see us. We get you without derailing you.”
“As much as I’d love that, dropping into your process mid-run yanks you off your track. It would yank me off mine. You hate interruptions in the middle of a build. So do I. It sounds romantic, but it’s not stable.”
“True,” he says, conceding cleanly.
Houston taps the edge of the table, thinking the way he does with his hand.
“Tour with us. But not on our bus. Take your own. A small bus if you want wheels. A plane, when we jump across the country. You have your own desk, your own bed, your own call sheet. You can come see us when you want to. You can shut your door when you need to. You can do your job and still be with us.”
I don’t answer right away because my brain goes to budgets and logistics and whether I’m going to turn into that person who requires a private anything. “That’s expensive.”
Salem shrugs. “We pay you. You’re our Creative Director. You do the visuals and the mapping and the behind-the-scenes cadence and the merch drops and the venue looks. You’re not a guest.”
Knox nods. “And you’re our advisor. You’re good at listening, and at telling us when we’re being dumb. That’s a job.”
Houston adds, “And our backup singer, since you worked on ‘Locket’ and I used your vocals on a couple of other tracks without making a fuss about it until now.” He gives me the small guilty smile he uses when he knows I’m going to call him out and love him anyway.
I sit back. Flabbergasted is a dumb word. It fits. I think out loud because I don’t want to build a fantasy in my head before the facts are out on the table.
“It’s one thing to be the girlfriend who tags along and waits while you do the real work.
It’s another to be a full participant on a tour.
If I’m going to have a bus, I’m not going to pretend it’s because I’m delicate.
It would be because I have a job. Several jobs.
Creative Director. Advisor. Backup singer.
That is a lot of hats and more than one paycheck. ” I smirk. Can’t help it.
They snicker, not unkind. “We are not paying you in pizza and vibes,” Salem says. “We pay you for every job you do. We should have formalized it earlier.”
Knox is already in his head making a list. “Creative Director retainer monthly. Per-deliverable fees for assets. Advisor fee baked into the retainer. Performance fee per show for backup vocals. Per diem. Travel. Crew pass for your assistant if you hire one. Bus lease is billed to us through management if we go that route.”
Houston adds, “And a clause that you can go home when you want to without penalty. This only works if you’re not trapped by our calendar.”
I laugh once because it’s insane. It’s big and simple and exactly what would have saved me five years ago. “You’re offering a whole life.”
“A whole life with us. If you want it,” Knox says.
My throat catches. I drink coffee to make it stop. It doesn’t.
“Tell me the other side. Tell me the part where this goes wrong.”
Knox doesn’t sugarcoat. “We travel. We get tired. We get short with each other. You’ll hear us fight.
You’ll be in rooms that aren’t made for your work.
You’ll be bored sometimes. You’ll be overbooked other times.
The bus will break. A projector will die.
A venue will say no to your request because they hate being told what to do by someone who isn’t on their payroll. ”
“Fans will talk,” Salem says. “You know that part. They’ll DM you dumb and worse. They’ll assume things. They’ll call you names. They already do.”
Houston says the thing I need someone to say out loud. “And we have to keep doing the work we promised each other. No barking. No minimizing. Halt means halt. You say you’re not safe, we stop. You say you’re fine, we believe you. We mess up, we fix it. Not in public. In our room.”
I look at them. Three men who didn’t ask me to be less. Three men who keep asking me to be more. Who keep expecting more of me. Who don’t see me as a liability, but an advantage.
“Okay. Here’s what I want if I say yes.”
Knox straightens like he’s in class. Salem sits up. Houston smiles, small.