Chapter 25
Helena
Estelle had a glow about her when we met her at a café in Midtown the next day, which meant she’d gotten everything she was hoping for with the man she’d abandoned us for last night. I was a little jealous.
Of course, I was the only reason I hadn’t gotten laid. I didn’t doubt Julie would let me if I tried to take her to my bed. But I was trying not to go there, still trying to hold onto my anger.
It was annoying that she was too cute to be mad at.
“So,” Estelle said, dropping down in the seat across from me and Julie. “Are we all on the same team now?”
“Maybe next time,” I said, “you can just tell me instead of trying to set up a surprise reunion.”
“Aw, c’mon, babe. You loved it.”
Julie cleared her throat. “She kinda didn’t.”
“It was your favorite drinks and everything! Hot girl over in the corner holding your favorite drink waiting for you…”
“I drank both of them specifically so Julie couldn’t have her favorite drink,” I said. Estelle’s jaw dropped.
“Babe! Since when were you so petty?”
“It worked out in the end,” Julie said, leaning forward, holding her coffee in both hands.
She’d insisted she didn’t need a drink, and I’d realized she probably never ordered coffee out unless she absolutely had to.
I’d bought her one against her protests.
“We’ve started the project plan. Krysten’s not happy, but I think the pressure is going to work. ”
Estelle beamed at me. “I had a feeling,” she said. “Your eyes are brighter again.”
I rolled my eyes good-naturedly. “Just talk to me normally next time something like this happens.”
“So what’s up next? We’re putting the pressure on Krysten?”
Julie and I exchanged glances, everything exchanged without words. “We’re going ahead without her,” Julie said. “If we make it more frictionless to go ahead with it than to resist, then she’ll fall in line.”
“We’ve already been entrusted with all the actual groundwork,” I said. “So we have an outsized level of influence in this part of the operation.”
“If we reach the right audience,” Julie said, “we’ll have most of the work done already. We just need to get some of the talent agents on board, and then we’ll have an easier time getting the talent in line.”
“Then once we have promises made to everyone,” I laughed, “Krysten won’t dare back out.”
Estelle rolled her eyes, grinning. “Okay, you two.”
“Hey,” Julie said. “I like Krysten. This is all in good fun. She appreciates an audacious approach.”
“I was more talking about how you two are all, you know, finishing each other’s sentences, but sure! That too.”
“Oh, uh.” Julie laughed nervously. I tugged lightly on her shirt collar.
“She’s a very persuasive one,” I said. “Must be the cute face.”
“Ah.” Julie went red, burying her face in her hands. “Listen, Freckles.”
Estelle’s eyes shone. “Aw. She’s so shy when it’s you, Hellie. So, what do you need me for? I’m assuming it’s not as a third wheel.”
“We could use your help with the network,” I said. “You’re friendly with more of the existing Jewel clients than anyone, so if you want to start discussing the new changes and what it means…”
“I’m on it.” She smiled sweetly, eyes crinkling. “See, Cassandra and I… no. Julie. Forget it. Your girl and I knew you’d be good at this kind of thing. It’s good to see you happy and thriving.”
“Ha. Check in at the end of this project and see if you can still say that,” I said, even though I felt like I was glowing. Julie, meanwhile, was mostly just curling up into a little ball at being called my girl, but she was cute like that.
“I’m on it,” Estelle said, reaching out for a fist bump. “I’ll keep you posted. Good luck, team.”
With our meeting concluded, we got right into our work—Julie and I went side-by-side to the studios we’d been in touch with, like nothing had happened between us, and she was right that people were more interested now that we had this event honed down to a specific point, attached to a genuine industry event we could put a name to.
Just a little bit of persuasion from both of us, and people were eating out of the palms of our hands—we were both good at this by now, especially when it came to doing it together.
And we rode that high back to her home-base studio, where she introduced me to her engineer friend Amber who flattered me by blushing and stammering a little when we talked.
I talked more than I usually did, and Julie looked annoyed by the time we got into the studio room to wait for her little star.
“Something on your mind?” I said. She pouted.
“Nothing.”
“You’d better not be hiding things from me again.”
“No, I’m just moody because Amber is up there flirting with you right in front of me when she knows full well that…” She cleared her throat. “That we’ve got a song to work on.”
I laughed, nudging her side. “I’m not interested in Amber. You’re fine.”
“Oh, um. I’m not trying to keep you. I mean, you like to flirt. You’re unbelievably hot, so people are gonna flirt with you.” She put her hands in her pockets, hunching her shoulders. “You’re not? I mean, you seem a little like you’re feeling a rush.”
I smiled, leaning back against the wall. “I am,” I said. “Actually a little nervous.”
“So… she’s your type, huh?”
“It’s more that I’ve been waiting a while for this song.”
“Oh, you’re—” She laughed nervously, suddenly, bubbling out high-pitched. “Is that what you’re—are you—you mean that you mean it’s you mean you’re but what? No. Hold on. Sorry.”
“Do you need a drink?”
“No, I’m… I am good.”
I touched a hand to her arm. “I’m looking forward to it.”
She looked like she’d never had a problem in her life, standing up taller and beaming. “Well, don’t expect too much,” she said, but she looked like she’d suddenly tripled her self-esteem.
She could have it.
Stephen Shale got in the room before too much longer, wearing a knit sweater vest, and he did a double take when he saw me. “Hey, boss—oh. H-hi, Ms. Warrick.”
“Hello, Stephen,” I said. “I hear you have a special song.”
“Oh, uh, y-yes, ma’am. Well, I don’t know whose song it is, but Ms. Branch says we can use it. It was just sitting there in the studio when I came in the other morning, I told my momma about it, she said it was like kismet, like it was made for me.”
“Oh, was it?” I said, giving a soft smile out of the corner of my eye at Julie.
She wouldn’t look at me, her face flushed pink.
She had stayed overnight in this studio the other night…
so then this song had come out of that. Alone and all out of options, out on the street with nowhere to go, she’d thought of me.
“Well, let’s see what kismet has in store for us. ”
I knew Stephen Shale had a nice singing voice, but frankly, I hadn’t been prepared.
Not only was it a different genre than before, but he belted out this big, beautiful voice that was nothing like what I’d heard from him before, and I felt it like it wrenched something deep inside my chest, a wistful, aching feeling at the sound.
And it was a song for me. A bittersweet goodbye, grateful for everything I’d done for her and for making this time special, steeped in regret for having done me wrong. And even though it was Stephen’s heart-wrenching voice that sang it, I still felt every word of it coming from Julie.
I should perhaps have been embarrassed. I was…
put together. Typically, at least. I was paid to look like I was, if nothing else.
But I stood there with tears shimmering in my eyes as Stephen sang, and when he finished, I had nothing in me except slowly bringing myself to clap, almost…
exhaustedly, like I’d just finished a run.
“What do you think?” he said, turning to me and sitting with his hands folded in his lap, and he went wide-eyed when he saw me. “Oh, gosh, I-I didn’t mean to make you cry.”
“Take the fucking W, dude,” Julie laughed, her voice also thick, as she clapped him on the shoulder. “I hope you’re ready to perform this, because you’re going to be our headliner.”
From the look on his face, you’d think Julie had asked him to land an airplane. “U-uh, y-yeah. Sure I’m ready. I was b-born ready.”
A voice crackled through the room from the speaker, and Stephen Shale jumped with an I’m sorry that was swallowed up by Amber’s voice. “That was fucking tight, bro.”
“You can hear me?” Stephen said, and I heard Amber sigh.
“Dude, I’m in the booth, of course I can hear you.”
“Aw, gee.”
I spoke up, taking a breath to steady the tears out of my voice. “Looks like Miss Boss was right about you, Stephen,” I said. “That was a hell of a performance.”
“You think so?” He stood up, trying to swagger and doing a bad job. “Well, heh, if you think so, Ms. Warrick.” He tried to lean all cool and casual against the piano, pressed the keys by mistake, and jumped at the sound.
A knock came from the door before it swung open, and I saw Julie smile at the door before her expression turned to horror, and I followed her gaze to see exactly the cause of the horror: Amber, in the front, perfectly unremarkable.
And behind her… well. Even though I’d never met the man, I assumed there were only so many men with gold tracksuits and tattoos that said KINGMAKER.
“Dude, what the fuck,” Julie said, and Amber frowned.
“Huh? I thought you two were friends?”
“Yo, yo, Julie,” Kingmaker said, going to dap her up.
She left him hanging, and he awkwardly transitioned into a slap on the shoulder.
“You got the posture of a king. I knew you’d pull it off.
And Stephen Shale, my man,” he said, going to dap him up too and failing this time too, when Stephen seemed confused, and Kingmaker fist-bumped him instead, both of them awkward about it. “I knew you were the real deal.”
“Ms. Branch said you told her I ain’t shit.”