2. Callum
TWO
Callum
The fire ’ s ash, the price we paid
Saturday, February 15
Pinnacle Records Headquarters
1633 Broadway, Midtown Manhattan
10:43 AM
The glass doors of the Art Deco high-rise swing shut behind us as the February air hits me like a slap to the face.
We've been holed up on the forty-second floor with Victor Reeves and his people in Pinnacle's conference rooms since eight this morning. Hammering out tour dates, marketing strategies, and album release plans starts to wear on me after so long. It’s the nitty gritty stuff that's crucial for a big label deal but doesn't exactly get my creative juices flowing.
Rockstars aren't meant for mornings. But as Luke continues to remind me, when Victor Reeves gives you an appointment, you go. Luke determined that we make the most of this meeting. And it was undoubtedly career-defining.
And that’s why he’s my manager. Luke is the only reason I’m here right now and not still stuck playing in some dive bar in Nashville.
Now that we are back on the busy, noisy street, suddenly all I can think about is the taste of the masked woman's lipstick. It was strawberry, I’m sure of it. It helped override the ashtray aftertaste from the smoky drinks.
"Earth to Callum." Luke's voice cuts through my thoughts. "That was the biggest meeting of your career, and you look like you are somewhere else entirely. You alright?"
"I'm good." I adjust my leather jacket against the wind whipping between buildings. Fuck, it’s cold as shit in this city. "Just processing."
Luke snorts, gesturing toward the coffee cart on the corner. "Try again. I've known you since you were playing Lucky’s 3 Star Bar . That wasn't your processing face."
The vendor hands me a coffee and I inhale the comforting smell and the warmth. It's black, like my thoughts this morning.
Last night's whiskey sits heavy in my stomach, along with something else. Oh, yes. Those fucking smokey drinks. I need to just stick with my whiskey straight. Tried and true.
"There was this woman at the gala—" The words slip out before I can stop them.
"Christ." Luke runs a hand through his salt-and-pepper hair. "Tell me you didn't."
"It wasn't like that." But it was. Her body pressed against mine in that dark, back bar left a permanent imprint. The fog swirling around our feet made it feel like a dream. Her fingers tracing my tattoos through my shirt sends a chill through me.
"And, no, I didn’t. Just a kiss. I don't even know who she is, I just can't stop thinking about that kiss."
"Just a kiss," he mimics, steering us toward Bryant Park. "The same way Nashville was just a pit stop? The same way Jake Morrison was just another producer?"
Morrison. The name hits like it always does, a sucker punch straight to my gut, dragging me back to that night at The Royal American in Charleston when he "discovered me."
He painted a picture of a future I couldn’t resist: sold-out shows, hit records, the kind of career I’d dreamed of since I first picked up a guitar. And I believed him. Hell, I was twenty-one and hungry, and he made it sound like he had all the answers.
What I didn’t know then was that Morrison didn’t have the connections or the clout to back up his talk. He didn’t get me anywhere; he just kept taking. Every gig, every dollar I scraped together playing seven nights a week—he’d nickel and dime me for it, no questions asked. While I burned myself out chasing the dream, he was cashing in on my hustle, waiting for me to make it big.
Dickhead. Why does he always have to throw this shit at me? "No, not like that," I say, but the words sound hollow even to me.
"Different how? Because she was wearing a mask? Because you didn't get her name?" Luke stops walking, turning to face me.
"Listen to me. You're about to blow up. The label's talking arena tours and Rolling Stone features. Everything you've worked for since you left Charleston six years ago is finally happening. Don't let some masquerade hookup derail you now."
He's right. I know he's right. But something about her...
The way she moved. The way she felt. It was like… Like Sienna .
Sienna.
I haven't said that name in years.
"Like every other distraction." Luke's voice softens. "Look, I get it. The mystique, the timing, the excitement of signing a record deal. It's a lot of emotion right now, but we have to keep our eye on the prize. Like you tell me every time some crazy hoe tries to fuck things up, none of them are worth the trouble."
"Yeah." I crush my empty coffee cup. "I remember."
Luke flags down a taxi. I sink into the cold back seat and the pleather seeps through my leather pants. My head still throbs from last night's over-indulgence. I knew I shouldn't have mixed my liquors.
The taxi crawls through midtown traffic, and my mind drifts back to The Royal American.
Morrison saw right through me. Saw the hunger in my eyes when I played. The way music lived in my blood. "You've got something special, kid," he'd said with bourbon on his breath. "But you've got to choose. Do you want to end up like a washed- up old man who dreamed of making it big but never went for it? Playing covers in bars while someone else lives your dreams?"
He didn't know it then, at least specifically, but he was talking about my father. He straddled love and dreams, never putting his full heart into either. He half-assed his way through life and died a sad alcoholic.
My brother Ethan and I watched that story play out our whole lives. We watched Robbie Reid chase one more gig, one more chance, while my mother worked doubles at the hospital. They both shriveled into nothing, both of them broken-hearted and alone in the end.
The worst part? They'd been in love once. Real love. But love doesn't mean shit when you're choosing between power bills and guitar strings.
Since Nashville, I've had my share of women. Nameless faces in different cities. But I don't let them in. Can't. Because Morrison was right about one thing—you can't split your soul between the music and someone else. One of them will starve.
So I chose. I chose the music. I chose to be different from my father—to make it instead of just talking about making it. And I chose not to bring the woman I loved down with me.
Last night... that kiss... it was just a moment of weakness. Blame it on the liquor, on signing the deal, on the way her fingers traced my arms through my shirt. But that's all it was. All it can be.
As the taxi pulls up to Electric Lady Studios, I pledge to put it and her out of my mind. It's time to get down to work.
Some ghost in a mask isn't worth risking everything I've built.
Better for both of us if we stay strangers.
Electric Lady Studios
52 West 8th Street, Greenwich Village
12:28 PM
Three cups of black coffee sit on the mixing table, untouched.
I adjust my headphones for the fourth time in an hour. The recording light blinks red.
"From the top, Cal." Mike's voice comes through clearly in my ears. He hunches over the soundboard, his dark hair falling forward as he tweaks levels. Seven years of playing smokey holes in the walls together, and he still treats every take like it matters.
In the corner, Jace taps out a rhythm on his knee. The kid's been with us for six months, but his energy fills the room like he's been here forever. His bleached hair catches the studio lights as he bounces in place.
I close my eyes. Focus. The opening riff of "Midnight Lies" fills my headphones. I wrote this one three years ago, back when we were playing for tips and beer. By then, I’d realized Morrison couldn’t take half of tips and beers, so I started preferring that arrangement. It got us into the hottest discovery bar. And, it was the song that changed things for me.
"You come around like a hurricane..." My voice cracks on the second line. Shit. The same spot every time.
"Cut." Mike's calm draws a sharp contrast to Jace, who's practically vibrating beside him. "Maybe we should break for?—"
"Again." I roll my shoulders back. Two and a half hours of meetings with Pinnacle's marketing team sit heavily in my bones. This should be my release, my gift for going through the suit’s bullshit. "I got it this time."
But three takes later, the song still isn't flowing. The lyrics feel wrong in my mouth. Empty. This morning, we planned album releases and magazine covers. Now I can't even nail the song that got us noticed.
"Take five?" Mike's suggestion sounds more like an order.
I yank off the headphones and push through the booth door. The control room smells like old leather and cigarettes, even though no one's smoked in here for years. Guitars line the walls, each one probably worth more than what we made in our first year of touring.
"Dude." Jace spins in his chair, drumstick twirling between his fingers. "I've never seen you this tense in the studio. Even that time in Boston when the amp caught fire."
"It’s nothing." I grab a water bottle from the mini-fridge. "Just tired."
"Bullshit." Mike's been calling me on my crap since I was playing open mics. "I've seen you nail tracks on no sleep, hungover, even with that chest infection in Memphis. You're always a grumpy asshole, but this is different."
"This is what we've all wanted." Jace's eyes shine with the kind of excitement I used to have. "I mean, Pinnacle Records? That's the big leagues, man. Did you see their trophy room? Grammys for days."
Mike shoots him a look. "Zip it, kid."
I lean against the wall, letting my head fall back. The water bottle crinkles in my grip. "The song's not right."
"The song's fine." Mike grabs his guitar from its stand. "You're the one who's not right. Drink something shady at that fancy pants party last night?"
"Smoke in a glass. One too many." I rub my temples. "That one snuck up on me. Rich people must spike their drinks with something extra."
Jace perks up. "Wait, what party?"
"Label signing celebration." I stretch my neck. "Some masquerade thing at Rosewood Hall, a castle in the middle of nowhere in upstate New York."
"That explains why we were stuck flying coach this morning." Jace spins in his chair. "Could've gotten us in for those spiked drinks."
"You think the guy who discovered Third Echo and Midnight Kings wanted our punk asses at his black-tie charity gala?" Mike sets down his coffee. The cup leaves a ring on his notebook where he's been scratching chord changes. "This was all politics. Right, Cal?"
"Yeah." The water's not helping my headache. "Reeves gave Luke two tickets. Said something about 'presenting the right image' before they announce the signing next week. Guess leather jackets and tattoos don't mix with penguin suits and champagne towers."
"Dope." Jace makes a face. "Did you at least mack down on some of those tiny sandwiches?"
"Wouldn't know. Too busy dodging questions about my 'artistic vision' from guys in thousand-dollar suits who probably think Nirvana is a yoga pose."
"Namaste." Jace spins his drumstick between his fingers. "Bet it beat playing The Exit/In back in Nashvegas."
The mention of Nashville sits like acid in my gut. Five years of playing that stage three nights a week. Morrison, always in the back, watching, counting his percentage. Making sure his investment paid off.
"Enough about that." My voice carries an edge that makes Jace stop spinning his drumstick. "We're here to work."
Mike sets his guitar down. Studies me for a moment. Then he crosses to the far wall where they keep the vintage instruments. His hand finds my old Gibson without looking. The same guitar I played the night Morrison found me in Charleston.
"Here." He hands it to me. "Play it like you wrote it. Before the producers got their hands on it."
The Gibson's weight settles against me. The neck's worn smooth from countless nights of power chords and pain. I close my eyes and find the opening chord without thinking.
"You come around like a hurricane..." The words feel different this time. Raw. Real. The way I wrote them at three a.m. on Folly Beach.
The song spills out, stripped down to its bones. No effects. No production. Just truth and six strings.
"Chasing shadows down Meeting Street where promises don't mean a thing | You come around like a hurricane Leaving nothing but rain..."
When I finish, the control room stays quiet. Even Jace isn't fidgeting. Outside the studio windows, New York traffic honks and screams, but in here, the silence holds.
"That's what Pinnacle signed." Mike's voice breaks through. He leans back, arms crossed. "Not some polished radio hit. They signed you. The guy who wrote that on a small, hippy beach."
"Morrison always said?—"
"Morrison's a hack." Mike's fingers drum against his arm. The same rhythm he tapped out the night I told him I was signing Morrison's contract. "You're not in Nashville anymore. You're not that kid he found in Charleston. You're here because you've got something real to show the world."
The Gibson's strings dig into my fingers. I stare at the collection of platinum records lining the walls. They are filled with names I grew up worshipping. "Hmm. Not sure 'real' sells."
"Real is all you've got." Mike reaches for the soundboard. "One more take. Your way."
Jace nods, unusually serious. "Screw the polish, man. That raw shit just now? That's what made me want to join this band."
I head back to the booth. The foam padding on the walls absorbs everything but doubt.
I adjust the mic, watching Mike through the glass as he sets levels. He's been here since the beginning. Seen every high and every low. Followed me to Nashville when everything went to hell.
The red light glows.
This time, when I close my eyes, I let the walls down. Let everything in. The doubt. The hunger. The fear. Every dirty club and empty tip jar. Every promise Morrison made and broke. Every reason I left Charleston behind.
I take a breath. The Gibson hums against my chest.
You come around like a hurricane...
The take flows like it hasn't all day. When the last chord fades, I open my eyes to find Mike grinning through the glass. Even Jace looks impressed.
"Now that," Mike's voice comes through my headphones, "is going on the album."
I'm about to respond when Luke bursts into the control room. His face is tight. Serious.
"Morrison's threatening to leak your old contract." He holds up his phone. "Says Pinnacle needs to know exactly what they're buying."
The Gibson's strings bite into my fingers. Doesn't matter how far you run or how high you climb.
The past always finds a way to drag you back down.