YOUNG BLOOD
NATE
The email has been sitting unread in my inbox for twenty minutes before I open it. The sender tells me everything before I click. The subject line tries too hard to sound casual.
An opportunity. A really good one too. But to me it just sounds like another one. They come often enough now that they no longer feel like proof of anything. Just doors that appear, waiting to be opened or left alone.
Produce the opening track for a new film. Some big director with a big budget has specifically asked for me. The kind of job people say yes to without thinking, the kind that reminds the world you're still relevant, still at the top of whatever invisible hierarchy the industry maintains.
You know, in case I'd forgotten that my worth is measured in credits and collaborations. I lean back in my chair and read it twice, then a third time, slower.
There's nothing wrong with it. Nothing that should make my chest tight or my shoulders tense.
Normally, I'd forward it to Nick, ask for his thoughts, let the logistics sort themselves out while I focus on the creative.
But he has enough on his plate with the funeral arrangements.
So I don't respond. Instead, I shut my laptop and stare out through the glass wall of the studio.
The paddocks stretch out beyond it, green and open under the late afternoon sun. The kind of quiet that used to scare me because it meant there was nothing to drown out my thoughts.
Now, it steadies me.
Mostly.
On good days, anyway.
Today's jury is still out.
The door opens behind me but I don't turn around because I already know who it is.
“What’s up?”
One of the perks of running your own label—you can pretend your time is your own, even when it absolutely isn't.
He drops his guitar case by the wall and leans against the console instead of heading for the booth. That alone tells me something's off. Julian usually moves with purpose. Watching him hesitate feels wrong. Like seeing someone fluent suddenly struggle for words.
"How are you holding up?" he asks, cutting straight through the bullshit.
Julian's never been that guy, never wasted time on pleasantries when honesty would serve better. I respect that about him.
“Yes and no,” I say finally. "Just trying to keep it together for my family right now. Alfie's funeral is in a few days."
His face softens immediately, and the shift happens—he sets aside whatever he came in here to work through and makes space for mine instead. An instinct I recognize because I do it too. This prioritizing other people's pain over your own.
"I'm so sorry, man. I know he meant a lot to you."
"Yeah." I nod once, the weight settling again. "He did. But it's been harder on Nick more than anyone. Alfie raised Nick when Nick's actual parents left.”
"Some guy," Julian says quietly.
"He was definitely one of the good ones."
"Rare breed."
Julian's mouth quirks slightly—not quite a smile, but an acknowledgment that humor and grief can coexist in the same breath.
"It's hard, losing someone who saw you when you were still figuring out how to stand," he says.
"You should put that in a song or something."
"Have you listened to my lyrics? I don't just talk shit."
I laugh.
He's twenty-one, still young enough that some people would dismiss him as a kid, but there's an oldness behind his eyes.
A lived-in awareness that doesn't come from age so much as endurance.
From surviving things that should've broken him and somehow coming out the other side with his heart still intact.
I found Julian two years ago at an open mic at Sonder.
The second he opened his mouth and sang into that microphone, everything else in that room disappeared.
Not just talent—though he had that in spades.
It was honesty. The kind of raw, unfiltered truth you can't manufacture or teach, it’s just something you’re born with.
He sang like he had nothing left to lose and everything to say.
I signed him within a week.
Together we built The Row around his vision, his sound, his refusal to compromise what mattered for what would sell.
And somewhere in the years since, in the late-night studio sessions and the conversations that happened in the margins of work, he stopped being just an artist on my label and became something closer to family.
Not a replacement for Jake—no one could ever be that—but someone I could invest in, believe in, steer in the right direction. Though honestly, Julian rarely needed steering. He's one of those annoyingly well-adjusted people who survived hell and came out kinder for it instead of bitter.
I'm still figuring out how he managed that.
He always looked out for others, always made sure his bandmates were okay before worrying about himself. His love for music—the purity of it, the way he approached it like worship instead of transaction—made me see myself in him. Or maybe see who I could've been if things had gone differently.
"Is that all that's got you tied up?" Julian asks gently, pulling me back. "Because you've been somewhere else for days now. And I know losing Alfie would be hard but I don't know, you seem distant."
I huff a breath, almost laugh. "Jesus, you don't miss much, do you?"
He shrugs, but there's a small smile playing at his mouth. "Comes with the territory. You taught me that, actually. When you said a good producer listens to what's not being played as much as what is."
"Remind me to check myself around you."
He smirks. "So what is it?"
I think about brushing it off. Keeping the line clean, mentor on one side, artist on the other. Professional boundaries and all that responsible adult nonsense.
But Julian's earned more than that. He's never asked me to be anything other than honest.
"There's someone I haven't seen in a long time," I say carefully. "And there's a chance she'll be at the funeral and sticking around for some time.”
He tilts his head slightly, processing, connecting dots.
“And you’re not sure how you feel about that?”
“No, I’m not.”
“Well, that doesn't sound like just anyone."
"It's not."
It's the kind of 'someone' who rewires your entire understanding of what you're capable of feeling.
"Her name's Nora," I continue. "We were… well we were a lot of things to each other. Before Jake died. Before I completely derailed myself.”
“So, what actually happened between the two of you, to let so many years go by?”
I search for the right words. My hands rest on my thighs. I press my palms flat.
"I went to rehab. Which meant letting her go. I was in no shape to love anyone, least of all her."
"And now you might see her again and shit's awkward because you haven't spoken in seven years?" Julian says softly.
"Five years actually. I saw her at her brother's wedding. And that didn't go down well."
"Damn."
"Yeah. And now she's engaged. Getting married."
I lean back in my chair.
“Damn.”
"I'm happy for her, really I am. All I ever wanted was for her to get her happily ever after."
Julian studies me for a moment, something thoughtful and careful in his expression.
"Can I tell you something?"
"You mean after I just poured my sob story out to you? No, how dare you."
He laughs then looks down at his hands, flexing his fingers absentmindedly, the way he does when he's working through lyrics in his head.
"I had someone like that too. When I was younger. Before all this."
I don't interrupt. Just wait the way he waited for me.
"We grew up together," he says, voice even but deliberate, choosing each word with precision. "Foster system. Same house for a while. The last one before I aged out."
I know pieces of this already—not because Julian overshares, but because over two years of working together, of late nights and honest conversations, he's let me see glimpses of where he came from.
The cruelty. The instability. The way he learned early how to read a room because his safety depended on it. How music became the only language that felt safe enough to speak.
"There was a girl at my last foster home,” he continues. "They fostered her too. She was younger than me by a couple years. Quiet. Took a lot of hits that weren't hers to take. She absorbed everyone else's anger because she thought it might protect her or someone else."
His jaw tightens slightly, and the set of it—I recognize that look. The way you hold yourself when talking about something that still has teeth. I lean forward slightly, elbows on my knees.
"I did what I could," he says. "Tried to keep her out of the line of fire. Made myself the target when I could. Taught her which rooms to avoid, which moods to watch for."
He pauses.
The parallel between what he's describing and what I tried to do for Jake, for Nora, for everyone I loved while simultaneously destroying myself—it's all too familiar.
The savior complex: available in both martyr and messiah editions, neither of which actually work.
"Something bad happened," Julian says quietly.
"Bad enough that they split us up. Different homes in different cities and there was no way to stay in touch.
The foster system doesn't exactly facilitate those connections.
More of a 'good luck with your lifelong attachment issues' kind of exit strategy. "
The echo of it hits my chest—the helplessness, the rage you swallow because there's nowhere safe to put it, the way losing someone without warning rewires everything you thought you understood about attachment.
"Have you ever tried to find her?" I ask.
He shakes his head slowly.
"I thought about it. A lot, actually. Especially in the first few years after I got out, when I was still figuring out who I was.
" He looks up, meets my eyes. "But then I realized something.
She needed to become whoever she was going to become without me attached to her worst memories.
And I needed to build something that wasn't defined by what we survived together. "
“Are you sure you’re actually twenty-one-years-old?” I joke.
He laughs softly. "Trauma ages you weird. I think you know that better than anyone."