4. Brett
FOUR
brETT
He kissed her. He had actually kissed Effie Bird standing in the middle of Nightowl Studios, the place that he built with her in mind.
He hadn’t shared that before because it was goddamn embarrassing for a grown ass man to pine like that over the woman he left behind one night, but here he was. It felt good to tell her. Nightowl felt as much hers as his. Especially with her standing in the middle of it all.
Endless energy buzzed through his veins. It was like the first time he performed on stage at eighteen with Hoax—electrifying. For a fifty-year-old man, he hadn’t even known anything could feel so exciting anymore. He had to direct it somewhere.
Effie curled up, legs underneath her, on the old floral sofa. She put on a pair of noise-cancelling headphones and stared at her notebook. Having seen the distinct steps of her process, he knew this step meant she was close to finishing a song. She usually wrote the lyrics first, with a couple of chords in mind, but once she got the words down, then she could finish the arrangement.
He really loved watching her work. It was a goddamn honor to watch anyone go through their creative process, but there was something about how Effie respected every single step.
Of course, Brett didn’t want to bother her while she was working, so he moseyed across the studio, checking up on all his babies: his musical instruments.
He’d played bass for Hoax, but he was well-versed in guitar and piano, too, thanks to his musician parents who insisted on a rounded musical education when he was young. He didn’t stop learning and practicing during the band’s active years, soaking up wisdom from anyone who would share during long drives on the tour bus.
Grunge had always been Phoenix’s genre, the one that Brett fell into when the band needed a bassist. It was a merry-go-round he couldn’t get off until that night at the Grammys, all alone on stage facing his industry peers. Holding that Lifetime Achievement Award honoring not his own accomplishments, but that of the band. Looking around, he saw his life clearly, like resurfacing after years underwater.
He’d always considered himself more genre-ambiguous musician, veering toward indie rock—with acts like Tessa Reid, his recent favorite—and contemplative pop, what he considered Effie’s music to be. To the uninitiated, Effie’s music was pure pop deliciousness. But knowing the woman off the stage, the one who agonized over chords and bridges in the recording studio, he knew exactly how much effort went into those Billboard hits. Her lyrics cut right into his soul. Maybe because he’d also let Effie in there, too.
One thing he had experimented with in recent years was making and altering instruments. It wasn’t really that difficult once he understood the mechanics behind it. Now, he picked up a guitar he’d modified, replacing the bridge with a piece of rubber that lent itself to plucky, indie rock melodies. Songs practically wrote themselves when he pulled this one out.
Sitting down on a little white stool, he gazed out the wide windows, over the brick patio and into the forest of white-barked trees. The sun flitted between the leaves, gold and brown and green dancing in the wind. With his guitar cradled to his chest, he took a deep breath and began to strum.
Music always felt like a rush of fresh air, a way for him to give his brain a vacation from the treadmill of his thoughts. The ones that never seem to leave him alone. He’d been in therapy for years—after everything came crashing down with the band—but nothing soothed his chaotic mind quite like when his fingers sorted out a new melody.
“Are you working on something?” Effie asked when he stopped playing. Lost in his own world, she’d pulled up another stool beside him and he hadn’t even noticed.
He blinked, clearing his mind as if coming out of a trance. “I don’t think so.”
“Hmm,” she said, pulling her soft caramel brown hair over her shoulder. “It feels like something.”
“I don’t even know what I was playing.”
Effie stretched out an open palm. “May I?”
“Please.” Smiling softly, he passed the guitar to her. She cradled the small instrument delicately in her capable hands. He must look like a giant while playing it.
She strummed and plucked a whimsical strain as Brett bobbed his head along to the notes. He recognized it as the refrain he had just created, but with the signature Effie Bird pop power chords woven through.
“I changed it a little,” she said as she finished.
“It’s yours, if you want it,” he said, gifting her the melody. “Maybe it’ll fit with something in that little notebook of yours.”
“I think I know the perfect place for it,” Effie mused. She held the guitar out in front of her, inspecting it. “This is a little beauty.”
“Improved it some.” He tapped the bridge. “Songs pretty much write themselves with it.”
“I can feel the magic. It’s well-loved. Do you record your own music anymore?”
“Ah.” He ran a hand over his face. “Not so much. Mostly producing for others. Smaller acts who don’t need that superstar shine. Bigger bands come here with Shay for that. It’s so far away from New York that albums flow like water. At least that’s what everyone says.”
“Shay loves to say things that like. Sometimes I think he’s right.”
“Not always?”
“Well.” Effie pulled her lips between her teeth, thinking. “I trust him with my music, implicitly. I don’t doubt his direction when it comes to pop music. He always seems to know exactly what kind of sound, what kind of mood I’m going for. He’s my best friend and creating with him has been some of my favorite years of my career. But he’s always very woo-woo about the process. He doesn’t like to acknowledge that his innate sense of music comes from a dash of nepotism and growing up entrenched in the music industry.”
Brett laughed at that, a deep guffaw. “Sounds like Shay. I always knew it was my parents’ influence that got Hoax off the ground. They spotted something in Phoenix and pressured me into the band at a young age. I love my parents though. Without them, we would have been just another grunge band playing the local dive bars. Then my parents divorced and my dad had Shay. Our blood basically determined his future.”
Effie nodded along with his words. “My parents didn’t have that music industry background, but they always wanted to be hot shot CEOs. Instead, they became the CEOs of their only daughter’s life.”
“Kinda fucks with your head, doesn’t it?”
“You can say that again,” she sighed, cradling the guitar to her chest. “I mean, I love songwriting, recording, singing, performing, the whole bit, but am I any better than the next fourteen-year-old dreaming in her bedroom? The nineteen-year-old about to release her debut? This is a young woman’s industry and I’m yesterday’s news. Nothing new.”
“I told you I saw sweetbitter , Ef, that’s not luck, not nepotism. You’re a talented woman.”
“Thanks to years and years of trying.” She shook her head. “I sound like an ungrateful brat.”
“It’s okay—you don’t always have to be grateful and gracious. You’re allowed to reflect on your career with nuance. What do you think I do all day in these woods?”
Effie smiled sweetly, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “You’re the only person I can have these kinds of conversations with, you know? Everyone else is, like, scared of me. They all look at me as their vehicle for what they need or want. I want to mentor the next generation of talent, you know, but it’s just because I—deep down—want to be relevant. I still want that clout. If they see everything else that I’m doing, they won’t notice how I freaking fixate on every single little decision that I make. I don’t let myself stop working because what if they see the woman behind the sparkling bodysuits and the sold-out arenas, the carefully curated public persona?”
“What if?”
He had seen that woman. Years ago, when they constantly slipped away in secret moments, took the backdoors into hotels, and hid in dark corners of dive bars in foreign countries.
That woman was stunning. A sensitive soul, perpetually concerned about public perception and desperately longing for universal adoration.
He saw himself in her. Except instead of becoming a workaholic, he turned to different distractions over the years: the alcohol, the drugs, bringing different people home every night on tour. Brett had been young once, too. He learned the hard way that life didn’t care who he was or who his brother was, no matter how successful Hoax became. They would all end up dead anyway, some earlier than others.
“What do you mean, what if?” Effie asked, playing with the large opal ring on her middle finger.
For a moment, everything seemed to pause, honing in on that piece of jewelry. He noticed it yesterday when she showed up at Nightowl, and he remembered when he gave it to her years ago. It was a gift to commemorate her album Once Bitten , the one she’d written so much of when they were hidden away from the world.
She had this big release party full of execs, bandmates, backing vocalists, dancers, and industry peers on the rooftop of Shay’s studio. Finally, they got some privacy in a back room, and when she opened the leather box, her eyes sparkled with unshed tears. Tears his girl, ever the professional, would never let fall and ruin her pristine makeup.
When they made love that night in his loft, she wore nothing but that ring.
He swallowed down the memories, shifting his focus back to the present.
“I mean, what if you showed them a different side, right? Soften everything else and highlight your beautiful, bleeding heart on the page.” He wasn’t sure if the idea insulted her.
When she didn’t immediately respond, Brett kept going. “Your voice is stunning. When you’re working on your songs, you sing in this low, warm space. Why don’t you ever record in that register?”
She pulled her arms around her stomach. “It’s not a very pop music octave.”
“It’s haunting,” he said. “Imagine it with just a piano. With only Stella.”
Effie’s eyes cut to his when he used her guitar’s name. She chewed on her thumbnail, considering. “Hmm. A stripped down album?”
“It’s what Nightowl does best. I don’t mean to imply that your discography doesn’t already contain bits of your heart. That would be ridiculous, of course it does. But keep it raw, you know? Focus on your art, not on others’ opinions and the awards. Forget about Shay even. We could lay down the tracks here, perfect the arrangements.” Brett gestured around the studio. “I know my name doesn’t have quite the same clout that Shay Blue does, but the Blue name doesn’t mean nothing.”
“Your name doesn’t matter to me, Brett.” Effie reached across the space between them and grasped onto his knee. “I mean, I’m not here because you’re a Blue. I’m here because I trust you, and I trust Shay, and…I’m feeling lost, and I want to find my way.”
“Okay.” He nodded, excitement flooding his nervous system, the first hit of inspiration in the bloodstream. “Okay. I’m here for you, princess. Whatever you need, whatever you want, I want to support you.”
It was the second time that little term of endearment had slipped out of his lips. He hadn’t meant to say it either time, but he couldn’t stop thinking of their time before.
As much as he hated to admit it to himself, he regretted ever leaving her side.
“I don’t know.” Effie shook her head and stood up, pacing back and forth. “It’s just, everyone keeps saying I’m at the pinnacle of my career, my fame. I never thought I’d be relevant after thirty, let alone still putting out massive hit albums.”
He watched her wear small circles into the old, faded rug. Her long legs bending and flexing with each step. The way her toes bent with each step. She was thinking, and hard. Something had piqued her interest, but he wasn’t sure what. Brett didn’t want to sway her creative process, but he wanted to work with her, give her ideas, the same as Shay or any decent collaborator would do.
Collaborator . Could he do that? Could Brett Blue, washed up former bassist of Hoax, partner with Effie Bird, sparkling global star?
Certainly, he could. But would that be a good idea?
“Just think about it is all I’m saying. That’s why you’re here, right? To reassess, take a break, write, create. What do you want?”
She turned around at his last question, her honeyed and highlighted hair flying with her motion. “What do I want?”
He nodded, eyes wide as he watched her and waited for her answer. In that moment, he thought he might wait for her forever.
What a sucker I am , Brett thought.
He had always been a goner for Effie Bird. He’d hoped the years and distance would have cured him of this malady. But her being here, and the kiss they just shared, only confirmed he’d been dead wrong.
“I want… I want so much and so hard that it’s impossible to put into words. I’m always reaching, always thinking, creating, and I don’t know why. I don’t know what I’m trying to prove. I’ve proven everyone wrong already, Brett, just by existing at this age and on this stage. I don’t know what’s next.”
“I know that’s scary for you,” he said. “But we can figure it out together.”
“Together?” She walked away from him, still pacing, until she paused a few feet away.
“If that’s your wish.” He hoped to god that was what she wanted.
“Let’s do it.” Effie turned back toward him, glowing with excitement, sending a jolt straight to his heart.