Chapter 6
Chapter Six
JC
It’s three p.m. on a sleepy Wednesday in downtown Vancouver.
The Rock and Roll Bride Tour has turned the Trenton Talent Management boardroom into Ground Zero.
It’s all over Sawyer’s face—he wants me to step in.
Not a chance. I sat on the same side of the live-edge cedar table as Gia and the boys for a reason.
Solidarity.
For the next month, I’m one of them.
In the eternal battle between musicians and management, I know where I stand.
Gia recaps for Sawyer: “So let me get this straight. Our flat fee of a grand per show, combined with our share of the net, we’re looking at a hundred grand?”
Sawyer shifts in his chair. Normally, he’s in and out of these meetings within half an hour. Gia’s been a force, grilling him on the finer points of profit sharing. They don’t call it the music business for nothing.
“Demand is high in Hamburg, Madrid, and Barcelona,” he says. “We’re negotiating added dates; these venues can scale.”
“And you get bonuses for the sold-out shows,” Bettina Weber adds in her clipped German accent.
Sawyer dragged his senior agent into this meeting in the hopes that another female would keep the Gia fireworks to a minimum.
Ha! It takes more than Tom Brady-approved shoulder pads and severe bangs to put Gia in a corner.
“We take our cut only if you make the numbers.”
Gia glances at me, and I nudge her once under the table with my foot. Before the meeting, she asked me to signal her if Sawyer was taking them for a ride or playing fair. One nudge means let it slide; two means go for the jugular.
It’s the least I can do after yesterday.
Gia looked shaken right before she logged every inch of my naked torso. I felt an overwhelming urge to take her against the wall. My face flamed at the images that flooded my brain. More confusion, battling with the desire ripping through my veins.
Experiencing a want so powerful, it hurt.
She’s all I can think about.
“But we also need the daily socials,” Bettina continues, her Botoxed brow struggling to animate. “TikTok behind the scenes, sound checks, life on the road. Engage, engage, engage. We’ll monitor metrics and ticket sales.”
“I got that covered,” Brady chimes in. “Just hit half a mil followers.”
Gia rolls her eyes. “Because you’re half naked on every post.”
“Dude. It works.” Brady smiles like he’s a Fortune 500 executive who's turned around an entire company. A CEO who wears toe rings unironically.
In all honesty, I don’t miss this new iteration of the industry. It's not enough to release songs these days. You’ve got to feed every algorithm. And I hate social media.
One thing remains the same, though: if you have talent, everyone wants a piece of you.
Sawyer pivots to engage Shae Lincoln, the tour manager I recommended.
A brawny gal with a heart of gold who loves the New Orleans Saints and owns cowboy boots in every color of the rainbow.
You’d think her job would be straightforward—get the band from point A to point B—but the coordination of promoters, venues, and artists becomes exponentially harder on an international level.
But if the world were ending, she’s the one I’d call to manage it. That’s how good she is.
“Do you want to add anything here?” Sawyer sounds hopeful that Shae can wrap this up.
She’s been munching on chips since the meeting started and brushes Dorito dust down the front of her Christmas sweater. Dachshunds and wreaths. Who would have guessed?
“This isn’t my first rodeo,” she drawls in a Southern accent thicker than gumbo. “Consider it locked down. We have two veterans on this ticket.”
She tips her feathered electric-blue hair in my direction, prompting Gia to side-eye with suspicion.
I’m already behind the eight ball as Gia’s chaperone. Double duty as tour manager assistant?
Hell no.
“This is Gia’s band, and I’m along for the ride,” I clarify. “The buck ends with her.”
“Exactly.” Gia crosses her arms. “I’m the nerve center. Daily updates, cash flow projections, the works. It all flows through me.”
Brady suddenly pipes in with his one important thought. “I’m stoked for the per diem. No one’s ever paid me to eat.”
Tai follows up with, “How soon do we get paid? I’m like, overdue on rent.”
Gia glances over at a yawning Tai. He’s wearing a stained button-down that looks like he pried it out of a dumpster.
Brady’s eyes have been shut behind his mirrored sunglasses for most of the meeting.
I get the sense Gia expected more from her bandmates.
Not rolling over to play dead and letting her handle all the tricky bits.
“We already discussed that,” Gia reminds him, her voice tight with annoyance. “I’ll refresh you later.”
“Oh, cool.” Tai stretches in his seat, muscles snapping and popping. “Any chance we can order in lunch?”
Gia sighs so quietly only I hear it. She looks heartbreakingly young, until I catch her in the sunlight streaming through the wall of windows, her petite, heart-shaped face on the cusp of ferocious womanhood.
A boss babe in her tight, short dress and Converse.
Screw the tour logistics. That one hole in her fishnets is driving me insane.
I desperately want to finger it, widen it, ruin it.
Just to see if she’d let me.
I nudge her under the table again for no real reason other than this is my free ticket to touch her. And a not-so-subtle way of dropping hints.
The guy I've been is not the guy I will be with her.
She feels like the start of everything new for me.
The missing lifeline in my directionless life.
Gia continues to rub her foot against mine, smiling angelically at Sawyer, who never takes his eyes off us. She makes him wait a full five seconds before she says, “Okay. Cool. I think we covered it all.”
And Sawyer practically leaps out of his chair to get the hell out of here, motioning me to join him.
He chatters as we walk down the hall to his office, but I’m only half-listening.
Fully dialed in on the next month of my life.
I know this tour will have its share of bumps; they all do.
And Gia might fawn over the first cute guy with an accent…
if I let him near her. But for the first time in a long time, something is growing inside me with an alarming, piercing clarity.
I hadn’t dared name it before, but now I know.
Hope.
And hope is a dangerous thing to feel in this business—especially when you’ve been burned by it once already.
While Gia and the boys munch on designer pizza in the boardroom, Sawyer steers me into his office, a plush man cave devoted to platinum records and golf memorabilia. Sterile and tame compared to Dad’s scotch-in-the-morning vibes when he ruled the roost.
But the personalities that now run this biz are very different than the swashbuckling moguls who came before them. Peter Trenton was swaggering and wildly charismatic. Sawyer gives new meaning to the term bland suit.
He settles into his overlord chair with a sweeping view of the mountains behind him. “Are you mentally prepared? The press is already circling. The hype machine is full tilt.”
“We talked it through. The boys are psyched. Gia’s taking it in stride.” I sit on the sectional across from Sawyer and try not to think about starlets and casting couches. “Once we hit the road, it’s out of our hands.”
“True,” he agrees, eyes briefly sliding to his monitor. “Thank Christ she’s not your type. One less thing I have to worry about.”
I tilt my head. “What do you mean by your type?”
“I mean…” Both his brows lift skyward. “She’s twenty.”
Interesting that he brings this up today.
And knowing Sawyer, I'm doubtful this is a casual observation. He gathers intel for weeks, then ambushes you with the evidence. Once again, I’m left questioning.
Every time my foot connected with Gia’s under the table, it sent warm tingles through my body. What type is that other than perfect?
“Mom liked her.” I hate how defensive I sound. “Said she was refreshing.”
Sawyer pins me with a look. “A breeze every now and then is refreshing. Living year-round in a cyclone? Not so much.”
“She’s not a ditz,” I counter. “She’s got dimension. And more soul than both of us combined. Twenty going on forty.”
“Yeah, whatever.” Sawyer waves a dismissive hand. “I know the tour bus drill. The party scene and late-night jams. If you need to get it out of your system, do it behind closed doors. And please, don’t drag it out.”
Sage advice from the man whose marriages lasted six and ten months, respectively. He was less of a dick before his first girlfriend, Jasmine King, ditched him and disappeared. I’ve prodded him for all the reasons why, only to hear the same beleaguered response: Don’t ask.
Still, I lose my cool. “Why are you talking to me like I’m a horny teenager?”
“Because every guy is, until the day we die.” He leans back to stack both ankles on his desk.
I don’t know what’s more disturbing—that he speaks the truth or his imported silk knee socks.
“My point is, if her fans start shipping you two, it’ll be a PR minefield.
And if you get cast as the heartbreaker?
Kiss your comeback goodbye.” He pops open a container of Tic Tacs and crunches on a handful.
“Gentle reminder: this is setting the stage for your return. We give Gia the spotlight, make her our rising star. But you stay the anchor, the legacy.”
“But this is her tour,” I remind him. “I’m temporary window dressing.”
“Is that how you view yourself?” Sawyer asks, legitimately concerned, it seems. “You need to be bringing main character energy. Show up in the posts. Rock the house.”
“You know how I feel about social media,” I remind him. “I killed all my accounts for a reason.”
Sawyer raises both hands in surrender. “Now it runs the damn world. That’s why I’m saying, watch your back, because you and Gia will be filmed nonstop. And if it happens,” he adds, “keep it double-wrapped. Do not derail her career.”
I flinch but keep it buried. Too much history packed into that one line.
And to live with Sawyer is to live with a lifelong believer in the power of the patriarchy. Arguing will get me nowhere.
“And if you think the footsie between you two went unnoticed, guess again. Do what you need to do to keep things running smoothly, chaperone the shit out of her, but remember, your allegiance remains in these four walls.”
The finger pointed at me says it all. I’ve forgotten many things from my inebriated teenage hellion years, but thinking Sawyer wouldn’t notice every detail? Stupid.
I can’t play both sides. But Gia expects me to be on hers, and Sawyer will eviscerate me if I crater his hard work.
As he said, Pop My Cherry could explode like Nirvana.
Scoring Gia was a coup for the company, and it all hinged on me.
One messy hookup smeared across the headlines, and we could all go up in flames.
“Are you nervous?” Sawyer asks, pulling my attention back.
I hold his gaze, my stomach tightening a fraction. “I still know how to perform.”
“Your last band blew up on tour in Europe—that’s what I was referring to.” He cracks his knuckles, a sharp, loud pop that makes my teeth clench. “Tell me this won’t be Groundhog Day.”
“It’s cool. We have Shae.” I tuck my hair behind my ears and talk through the knot forming in my throat. “This runs like clockwork.”
Right now, I need Sawyer to believe in me, not look at me like I’m a washed-up idol stranded in the wilds of my thirties, living on a wing and a prayer. I can tell he’s sitting on the fence, unsure if I’ll blow it.
The thing is, he might be right.
And if he is? Then I lose everything.
Including her.