24. Easton
24
EASTON
I almost backed out of the sale of Sacrifice Nothing. After all, Beatrice threatened her grandfather, and it worked. The video died, the board calmed down.
Things could’ve gone back to how they were.
Sometimes, though, the change that’s forced on us is precisely the one we need. I decide to go through with it. Rid myself of my parents’ involvement. Eliminate the misery of answering to a board, and start over.
It’s a pretty clean break.
With the way our companies align, I have confidence that the acquisition will be a relatively seamless integration, even if they’re mostly located in France and we’re mostly headquartered here. I’m stuck doing as much as twenty hours a week of consulting for a full year, but I’ll be paid well enough that I hope they won’t need me too often.
I haven’t found my next market latency yet, though I’m looking, but I have found an interim project I deem worthy of my time and investment. Shortly after the catastrophic miscarriage of justice they called an album contest—that song gave every single person in the entire auditorium chills in the best way—Jake came to me with a proposal.
“I’m going to take this to Bea, but my producer’s worried that our investors might object. He won’t let me ask for it unless I have a fallback plan.”
“Take what to Bea?”
“The movie I’m filming is about a kid who wound up in the mob at an early age. He’s struggling now that he’s grown. He meets a woman who’s totally good, and he’s falling for her, but he thinks he’s too broken to be with her.” He pauses. “I want their song to be the title track. I’d like to have the two of them do the music for the whole movie, if I’m being honest, because I think they’d nail it, but at least for the opening and closing, I want their song.”
“Why would the investors back out?”
“Because I want the movie to find a label to put it out, at least as a single, and have the release coincide with the movie release. I think it could be synergistic, right? Like, as the movie does well, people will listen to the song, and as it trends. . .”
“That leads people to the movie.”
He nods.
“You’re not as dumb as you look,” I say.
Jake beams. “I knew I’d grow on you.”
“You have, actually,” I say. “I hated you at first, and just last night, I handed you that popcorn bowl, and I didn’t even want to spit in it first.”
“You know, right after you started dating, I tried to break you up.”
I did not expect him to say that.
“Bea’s the smartest person I know. She just laughed, and she told me something I was too dumb to have realized. She told me that I’m her family, and that I wasn’t ever in love with her—I just didn’t want to lose her.”
That’s a lot of information to process.
“She was right, as always, and I just wanted to mention that I’m not going anywhere. Ever. Bea and me, we’re a package deal.”
“I know the entire Fansee family’s pretty close.”
Jake shakes his head. “I mean, yeah, they are, but no. It’s not the same. Bea and me, she’s probably my only real family in the whole world. I’d murder for her. I’d die for her. And what’s more, I will live for her—anything she needs, I’ll do it.”
“Did she tell you that the label offered her a deal?”
Jake frowns. “What? Why would she turn it down?”
“They offered her a deal—not Octavia.”
Jake’s entire face darkens. “You’re kidding.”
I shake my head. “It wasn’t a good moment, and for almost a week, Octavia wouldn’t answer Bea’s calls, because she heard them make the offer.”
Jake swears under his breath. “That’s messed up.”
He’s right. It is. “The two of them are talking again at least, and I think they even wrote a new song last week.”
“That’s good for me,” Jake says. “Look, I have to go out of town again tomorrow, but I’m going to send you some paperwork for the movie. Investment stuff. Is that alright?”
“Whatever you need,” I say. “But I am curious. I thought you might be upset she turned the offer down. That’s why she didn’t tell you. She thought you’d yell.”
Jake’s shoulders droop. “I’ve known Bea for a long time, and she’s been a musical genius that entire time. But I have never, not ever , seen her this excited or this passionate. They may have just met, but she loves that Octavia woman, and she’s good for Bea. She really saw Bea that night, at the jingle thing. It made me angry at the time, but maybe we miss the things the people close to us really need. Nothing else would have fired her up to actually write the songs that consume her. Believe me—I’ve tried everything since that first song she wrote launched my career.”
“You think she did the right thing, turning the label down?”
“I think she did the only thing Bea could ever have done.” Jake shrugs. “It’s who she is—she’s just like her mother.”
“How so?” I ask.
Jake frowns.
“I’ve never met her mother, so I don’t really know what you mean, but I’d like to understand.”
“You’ve met Seren,” Jake says. “Above all else, she’s loyal, and Bea got that from her.”
I’m such an idiot. I was thinking her real mom, but Seren is her real mom, the mom of her heart, anyway. I see it now, what he means. They’re both fierce, and they’re both happier surrounded by loved ones but not in the spotlight themselves.
I think about the story with the knife. When push comes to shove, Bea pushes back. Always.
“You didn’t say ‘our’ mom,” I finally realize. “I thought you meant her birth mom, because you said Bea is like her mom.”
“I don’t have a mom.” Jake’s words are simple. Unemotional, like he really believes it.
“No?” I think he’s wrong, but he’s the only one who can come to grips with that.
“Look, I’ve got to get ready to go, but I’ll be in touch, alright? ”
“Will you tell Bea?”
“I’d rather not tell her you’re even involved if I can help it,” Jake says.
“No?”
He shrugs. “She’ll see it as a pity thing, if we do. She’ll feel like her boyfriend has to come in and pay for her dreams, and that’ll ruin it.”
“But I actually think it would be a good investment.”
Jake’s expression is pained. “You’re an optimist, then.”
“How so?”
“In your heart of hearts, you believe in people. You think they’ll look past their fear, beyond their own baggage, and see something beautiful.”
“I guess I am an optimist,” I say. “Is that bad?”
“It’s cute,” Jake says. “Probably misguided, but cute.”
“So do you think I’m throwing my money away if I invest in this?”
“I told them I’d take half my fee,” Jake says. “And they can use the other half to produce the record.”
“So you’re as stupidly optimistic as I am.”
He shrugs. “They’re the chumps. I’d have given them all of it. For Bea? Gladly.”
“Why?” I ask. “Because she’s your family?”
His brow furrows. “It’s more than that. That song—it’s right. If we want the world to change, if we want it to be better, that’s on us. We have to change it. No one else is going to do it.”
Jake’s not the person I thought he was when we first met, and he’s not even quite the person I thought he was when we really started talking the first time. I understand a little more about why Bea puts up with him.
“Hey, I have a question for you. ”
“Oh, man.” Jake runs a hand through his hair. “You’re going to propose, aren’t you?”
I stare.
“Look, I’m not the best guy, but I’m pretty good at reading people, and you seem like the kind of guy who has been carrying around a ring in his pocket since the first date.”
He’s rude. “I still don’t have a ring, but you’re right that I’ve known for a while.”
“You’ve been holding off because you don’t want to scare her?”
“Maybe.”
“Well, I can’t help you. Bea’s a hard read on that. You know her birth mom has had like a zillion boyfriends, and none of them have been more important than getting high. Certainly Bea has never been more important to her than either a boyfriend or getting high.”
“Does she not want to get married, then?”
Jake shrugs. “I really have no idea.”
“You’ve never talked about it?”
“That’s not the kind of thing we talk about. Maybe with Ardath?”
Ardath and I have never said more than three words to each other, even at family dinners. She’s not the most talkative. Honestly, I’ve never seen her talk to Bea either, or heard them chatting on the phone. “That would be. . .”
“Weird,” Jake says.
I nod. “Yeah, Ardath kind of scares me.”
He chuckles. “Me too.”
“I’ll have to go in blind.”
Jake nods. “I know she cares a lot about you, and I think that, even if she isn’t ready, it’s got to be nice to know you are. ”
“She told you I said I love you first.”
His smirk confirms it.
“I’m not chill,” I say. “I have no coolness, not anywhere inside of me.”
“I mean, you’re a cool guy, but yeah, you’re pretty tightly wound.”
“I don’t even know what kind of ring to get her.”
“Now, there, you have a secret weapon, right?”
I have no idea what he means.
“You have a sister.”
“But not all girls like the same things.”
Jake groans. “This stuff is too hard.”
But I do have an idea, so I decide to run with it. “You said you’d rather I not be involved in the initial presentation, right?”
Jake narrows his eyes. “This is going somewhere interesting, I can tell.”
I hope he’s right.
But most of all, I hope that Bea’s real mom was able to repair the damage her birth mom did. I really hope Bea doesn’t just turn me down flat. I’m not one hundred percent positive that’s something I can recover from—a complete rejection. Which means that proposing carries a real risk, because in my entire life, I’ve never wanted someone to say yes more.