Chapter 42
Chapter Forty-Two
Darcy sat at an outside table at a cute café down the street from Copper Canyon.
She’d first stepped into the café, grabbed a drink, and sat in order to read Juliet’s texts, about her mother’s visit.
Apparently, it had gone “actually a lot better than an average visit” with her mother. Juliet had assured her she’d give her more details later.
That was fantastic. She wanted to go right back home and hear all about it now.
Not only because she wanted to know Juliet’s updates, but also because she wasn’t ready to go to the label.
She was supposed to be there in twenty minutes. And when she went there, she was supposed to informally finalize the contract they’d offered her.
Because Juliet and Blythe had been correct; they’d offered her a contract for three albums. Three solo albums. No hesitation.
And the deal was even more financially beneficial than the one they’d signed for Jukebox Calamity.
Ostensibly, she should be thrilled.
The fear she’d had that the career she’d wanted and worked for and thought was within her grasp as We, The Romantics was still within her grasp as Darcy Kincaid.
And yet, she’d been dragging her feet getting to this meeting all day. She’d been dreading it all week, if she was being honest.
She should be happy. She knew that. It was the only reasonable reaction. She should want to walk right into Copper Canyon and agree for the contract to be sent to her lawyer, happy as a clam.
But –
“Well, hello. Fancy running into you here.” Shelby Linwood’s unmistakable voice shook her out of her thoughts.
Darcy sat straight up, surprise working through her. “Shelby!” Would it ever stop being so incredible that Shelby Linwood not only knew her, but stopped while she appeared to have been shopping, to say hello to her? “How are you?”
Shelby’s smile was bright and wide as she stood across from Darcy’s table. “I’m just fine, sweetheart, and yourself? You look like you’re wound tighter than fence wire. If you don’t mind my saying.”
Reaching up, she rubbed her hands over her face, wondering how many people had walked by and observed her stress.
Then again… god, what did she care? She didn’t have the energy to pretend and make her face all impassable, and she didn’t care to learn it.
She was sure she and Juliet would go back and forth on that for a long time.
And that thought, at least, perked her up a little.
“I don’t mind you saying it. Because, ah, I am,” she admitted.
“You mind?” Shelby asked, laying her hand on the seat adjacent to Darcy’s.
Slowly, she shook her head. “Uh… no. You can sit wherever you’d like.”
Shelby chuckled, lowly. “Great.” She promptly settled into the chair. “Now, you gonna tell me what’s got you all wrapped up?”
Darcy hesitated. She didn’t know Shelby, not really, though she’d admired her for literally her entire life. And if there was something she had taken to heart over the last year, it was that there was value in keeping some things to yourself.
“You don’t have to tell me a word, mind you. I was just asking.”
“You… eventually left Copper Canyon,” Darcy said slowly, turning the words over in her mind as she voiced them.
Shelby hadn’t stayed with the label for her entire career, though. They’d given Shelby her big start, and she’d recorded a handful of albums with them. A handful of her best albums, even. But she’d ultimately left, twenty years ago by now.
So maybe Darcy could get her opinion. Should get it, even.
Shelby nodded. “Yes, I did.”
Darcy held her breath for a few seconds, before releasing it in a heavy sigh. What would the big deal be? Was Shelby going to gossip about her? Even if she did, what would it matter? If Darcy did what she was thinking of doing, it wasn’t like it would be a secret.
“And you didn’t regret it?” She asked, studying Shelby.
“You know… it was scary. I’d been with them for my entire career. Decades. Platinum albums,” Shelby listed off, before aiming a serious look across the table. “But, no. I didn’t regret it.”
That – well, that was definitely very affirming. She was still unsettled, uncertain, but it helped. “I think the thing I’m really struggling with is – who walks away from something like this? A sure thing?”
“Well, do you want a sure thing? Do you want the deal they’re offering?” Shelby posed, simply.
“I – don’t know,” she whispered, and that made her feel so dumb, saying it aloud. “This – um, this isn’t public news yet. But it’s not not–” She cut herself off, stop. “My sister and best friend didn’t want to do another album. So, the deal is just for me. And… they offered it.” She shrugged.
Simple as that.
“They want me, solo.”
“And you don’t want to be a solo act?” Shelby probed. She had a very specific tone, like she was coaxing Darcy along.
She didn’t dislike it. “I don’t know that I’d hate it,” she hedged.
“And I think I could do it.” Really, she did.
It wasn’t that she lacked the confidence in believing she could produce.
That tipped her scales back to even. “Which, probably, means I should. I mean, what else am I going to do with myself? I should just – get over this hang-up. And get back in the studio.”
That was the most logical thing. Even if she wasn’t sure, it made the most sense.
Shelby studied her, intently. Staring her down with laser focus, before she said, “I’m sure you know where I came from. And I’m sure that after you’ve been to my house, it probably sounds like some little story, detached from my reality. But… I’ve been where you were.”
Shelby wasn’t wrong. Seeing her home was like stepping into a different dimension. A different kind of rich, even from what Darcy had experienced in the last year. Something similar to what Juliet had discussed that time, about Harrison’s wealth.
But she’d read every book on Shelby Linwood; she knew that her background was uncannily similar to Darcy’s own.
Shelby leaned in slightly, lowering her voice to a murmur, ensuring no one else could listen.
“People like us, Darcy… people who never had a safety net or that kind of security – it’s hard to turn that part inside of you off.
So, you work and you work and you work, and even after you find success, you keep going just as hard right at the wall.
Never stopping. Keeping yourself up at night in fear. Even when it doesn’t quite feel right.”
Darcy’s breath caught and held in her lungs, as she stared wide-eyed at Shelby. It was like she’d literally seen into Darcy’s mind, like she’d been able to experience Darcy’s emotions.
Shelby’s look was so very knowing. “Because you have this fear inside. That somehow, just like that,” Shelby snapped her fingers. “It could all be gone. Even when you achieve something monumental, something so many people can only dream of.”
“Yeah,” the word escaped barely above a whisper, her heart pounding against her ribs.
She did not wake up today and expect Shelby Linwood to read her from the inside out, right here on this sidewalk.
“I can’t tell you if you should take the deal, Darcy.
I’ve made a lot of mistakes in my career.
I’ve done a lot of things I’m proud of. Only you’ll be able to look back and decide what choices fall into which category.
” Shelby leaned back in her chair. “All I can tell you is… I wasted a lot of time burning myself out because I felt like I wasn’t able to stop and evaluate what I really wanted. And I definitely don’t recommend that.”
So not what she’d expected.
When she returned back home – to her home, that she shared, with Juliet, in the Hollywood Hills – Juliet was right there, waiting for her.
“Did you watch me come through the gate?” She asked, a pleased smile on her lips.
“Obviously. Tell me how it went. When are they sending it to your lawyer? What, exactly, are the terms?” Juliet demanded to know, her eyes bright.
Darcy worried at her lip as she answered, “Uh… well, it’s not going to the lawyer. There are no terms. There’s no deal.”
She didn’t know if she’d ever seen someone’s eyes turn ablaze in anger before. But she did right now.
“What?!” Juliet actually shouted, startling Darcy back a step. She whirled around, storming across to the living room, making a clear beeline to her phone. “That – they made you an offer. Fine, nothing was signed, but this is fucking ridiculous.”
“Juliet, what are you doing?” She asked, catching up with her and grabbing her wrist. Stopping her where she stood, before she could get her phone and unleash hell on… someone.
Probably multiple someones.
“They don’t want to sign you? You?” Juliet turned back to face her, shaking her head. “I’m not going to let that fly. Sorry.”
“I chose not to take the deal,” she near-yelled, needing to get Juliet’s focus, before she could get any more worked up.
Juliet’s eyebrows furrowed, then she leaned back, staring at Darcy through narrowed, confused eyes. “What? What are you talking about?”
She would get into the Shelby aspect, the whole story, later. When Juliet told her about her mom.
For now, she admitted, “I started having doubts about signing with them again, first and foremost, when I thought about your morality clause.”
“Well, they wouldn’t have that in yours; they already didn’t,” Juliet pointed out.
“No, I know that.” And Darcy, as an adult with all of the information unlike Juliet when she’d signed her contract, wouldn’t sign it if they did.
“But… it makes me livid that you have to abide by it,” she stated, softly.
“I really don’t want to be at a label, for a three-album deal, when they not only are dictating your personal life, but with a morality clause that includes your sexuality? ”
How would that even work? Darcy wouldn’t legally be obligated to that clause, but she definitely didn’t want to be closeted for the years it would take her to make those three albums. And she didn’t want to deal with the execs who obviously wouldn’t be okay with it.
Juliet shook her head at her, seeming exasperated, before she reached out and cupped Darcy’s jaw. Tugging her down, capturing her lips in a searing kiss.
Any other thoughts fled Darcy’s mind, as she grasped Juliet’s hips, tugging her close. Meeting her passion beat for beat.
Far too soon, Juliet abruptly pulled back, breathing heavier. “Okay. That is because you are all morally righteous and I do find it stupidly appealing. But this look,” she gestured at the narrow-eyed, intense stare now on her face. “Is because I do not want you to turn down a deal because of me.”
“And this look,” she returned, her eyes wide and latched onto Juliet’s. Hoping – knowing – that Juliet could see that she was being honest. “Is me telling you that I didn’t just turn it down because of that. It was a factor, but not the whole thing.”
Juliet studied her for a few beats, before slowly nodding. “All right. What else?”
It wasn’t normal, how much she enjoyed it when Juliet used that demanding voice, it really wasn’t.
It made her smile, as she answered, “It’s…
everything. I really don’t know if I’m ready to commit to being a solo act just yet.
And,” she quickly cut in, before Juliet could assure her, the way she had over the last few weeks, “Not because I don’t think I could.
But because I’m not – I loved performing as We, The Romantics.
If I signed this new deal, it would only be because I’m worried I’ll never get another one. ”
And she was worried about that; she couldn’t turn that off like flicking a switch. But she didn’t want that worry to rule her entire life. She didn’t want to live in a scarcity mindset forever, or… what was the point of all of this?
Shelby had told Darcy she couldn’t make the choice for her, but when she’d laid it all out for Darcy, the reality had been so clear. What was the point of spending so much time and energy to become successful, if she never took any time to simply enjoy it?
“I’ve never taken a single break in my life,” she confessed.
It shouldn’t feel like a confession, but it did.
Because – to Shelby’s point – taking a break, a real break where she didn’t have any concrete plans for what happened next, wasn’t a part of her vocabulary.
“Since I was seventeen, I was working two jobs. And even last year… I mean, you saw me, leading up to the album release.”
Juliet slowly nodded, as she reached down and gently ran her thumbs over Darcy’s knuckles. Encouraging her to continue.
“I’m not going to, like, quit music.” The idea alone was silly enough to make her laugh.
Juliet snorted. “You couldn’t even if you tried.”
“But I’m not going to run myself ragged trying to figure out what I’m doing next.
I want to – to go to the children’s hospital, more.
Look into helping other programs, like the foodbank Blythe and I used to go to?
” She shrugged, not knowing for sure, but knowing that it made her feel more invigorated than signing that solo contract did by far.
“Maybe you and Laura can teach me how to fence, properly.”
“Definitely a job for Laura,” Juliet muttered.
Darcy grinned, looking around them, at this new, whole life she’d somehow found her way into. Before she brought her gaze back to Juliet, simply admiring her. “I want to take some time to just enjoy being with you. If you want, working with you on your album.”
That sounded a million times more appealing to her than jumping into something of her own right now.
“Well. You definitely aren’t going to hear me complaining about any of that,” Juliet promised.