Chapter 18
EIGHTEEN
Travis
Sitting in the driver’s seat of my parked car, I pulled out my phone and texted Finn.
Me: I have good news. Important news. My dick isn’t broken.
Finn: ???
Finn: Oh, I get it. Katie Armstrong?
Me: Right on, my man. You guessed it. It turns out I can still jive.
Finn: That’s good news, I guess? Congratulations. I think.
Me: With Katie, things just started flowing again. If you know what I mean.
Finn: Okay.
Me: It was spectacular. I could write poetry for days. I might start working out.
Finn: I got the picture.
Me: You should see her naked. Incredible.
Finn: Please stop.
I grinned at my phone, because making Finn uncomfortable had been one of my favorite hobbies for years. I meant what I said, though. Katie naked was incredible. And I could still jive.
The phone rang in my hand. Finn. I answered it. “Oh, hey man, what’s up? I haven’t heard from you in a while.”
“Travis,” he said, “aren’t you supposed to be meeting with the Road Kings?”
I adjusted the baseball cap on my head. “Is that today?”
“It’s right now.”
“Oh, man,” I said. “What time is it?”
There was a pause, and then he said, “You’re already there, aren’t you?”
I squinted through the windshield at the RKS studio, which I was parked in front of at eleven o’clock in the morning, because rock stars never had nine a.m. meetings. “Send me the address. I’ll try and make it.”
He sighed. “Are you going to spend all day screwing with me, or are you going to go to the meeting?”
“I know which one is more fun.”
“Travis—”
“Okay, okay. Jeez. I’m here. I might be talking to you so that I can delay going inside. But only for a few minutes. I’ll go.”
“It’s going to be great,” Finn said. “They’re nice guys.”
I was sure they were nice to Finn. Me, not so much. “If they tell me to go fuck myself, it isn’t because I didn’t show up. I just want the record to show that. It’ll be because they hate me, and also because of the music.”
Finn’s voice was annoyed. “I haven’t heard the music, because you refused to send it to me.”
“It sucks,” I said. “I’m a fraud. Remember how I was the lead singer of a band, and they wouldn’t let us write any of the music? Remember how all I had to do was show up and sing because I wasn’t good enough to do anything else? I do.”
“You’re talented,” Finn said.
I had actually believed that for a big part of my life, but now, sitting in this parking lot, I was absolutely convinced of the opposite. Which was funny, because in the years I wasn’t famous, I was sure I was good. It was being in one of the world’s most successful bands that made me feel worthless. How did that make sense?
I frowned, because that idea sounded like something I could use in a song.
“Travis?” Finn said. “I said you’re talented. Now go into the meeting. Please.”
“Fine, here goes,” I said, and hung up. I adjusted my ball cap again and rolled my shoulders. My dick works, I reminded myself. It cheered me up. I got out of the car.
RKS was in Vancouver, over the border from Portland, in Washington. It was a blocky building in an industrial park with only a stencilled sign on the glass door indicating that rock stars worked here. There were a half dozen other cars in the parking lot. A chill wind blew, and I zipped up my hoodie and pulled the hood over my ball cap. If I could have pulled the hood all the way over my face for this meeting, I would have.
I had refused to dress up. Jeans, Chucks, and a sweatshirt were what the Road Kings would get. If I wore anything else, they’d think it was weird, like I was trying to impress them. I was not trying to impress them, even though I was.
The door opened, and a woman stood there, smiling and waving at me. I had a crazy moment when I recognized her but I couldn’t place her face, and then I had it. I felt myself smiling in pleasure as I came toward her.
“Sienna, hi,” I said.
Sienna Maplethorpe was a music journalist. I’d met her years ago, when I was still in Seven Dog Down and she was just starting out. I’d given her an exclusive interview, which she’d sold to an online magazine. Sienna had shoulder-length dark hair, cool tortoiseshell glasses, and the best kind of music-chick vibe. She wore a stylish black dress and lace-up Docs, and when I came though the door, she hugged me as if we were old friends. “It’s so good to see you!” she exclaimed.
I hugged her back hard, mostly because it was good to see a familiar, friendly face. She smelled great. Then I remembered that even though I was out of the loop, I did know some of the industry gossip, and Sienna was dating Stone Zeeland, the Road Kings’ guitarist. Which meant that I was starting this meeting by hugging Stone Zeeland’s girlfriend, and Stone Zeeland was six-four and terrifying.
I let Sienna go and stood politely back, looking around. We were in the studio lobby, and there was no one else here. “It’s great to see you, too,” I said. “I didn’t know you would be here.”
“I wouldn’t miss it.” Sienna clasped her hands together, as if trying not to clap. “New Travis White music? A solo album? It’s the best news I’ve heard all year.” She held up her hands. “Don’t worry, this meeting is off the record. This is personal for me because I’m so excited to hear it.”
“Okay,” I said.
“But once the time comes, I am going to beg you for an exclusive. I give you fair warning. You won’t be able to get rid of me until you say yes.”
I shrugged. “No need for all that. I’ll say yes now.”
She smiled again, because she was actually excited. Were there people this excited to get music from me? Too late, I realized I should have sent Finn the music ahead of time. If it really was bad, he would have told me.
“Sienna, give me the truth,” I said, nodding past her shoulder to the door we were about to go through. “How much do they hate me?”
“Not as much as they think they do,” she said. “They’ve mellowed a bit.”
“With age?” I raised my brows and grinned at her. The Road Kings were forty, and Sienna was closer to my age. Her rock star boyfriend was older than her.
She punched my shoulder. “With wisdom,” she clarified. “Also, I’ve softened them up by telling them about how you’re dating Katie Armstrong. Neal’s wife and daughter both love Katie Armstrong. So do I.”
I blinked. “You know about Katie?”
“I’m on Instagram, obviously,” Sienna said. “It’s part of the job for me. The guys hate social media, but their wives don’t, and Neal’s daughter is a teenager. I really want to ask you about Katie when I interview you. You two are adorable.”
I rubbed my chin. “We are,” I said, trying to sound casual and not like I’d explored Katie’s naked body a few hours ago. “We are adorable.”
“Okay, go in,” Sienna said, taking my arm and pushing me toward the door. “I’ll be in the back of the room, but I won’t say anything unless there’s blood. Then I’ll fake an emergency phone call and get you out of the room.”
“I owe you, babe,” I said.
“I owe you ,” she replied. “You gave me my big break when I was no one. You didn’t have to do that. I’ll never forget it.”
Had I done that? I actually had. I thought back to the day she’d interviewed me, the guy I’d been then. A big deal, a rock star, high on my own supply and on a couple of Adderall I’d taken that morning. What a douchebag that guy was. The profile Sienna had written had been nicer to me than it needed to be.
“I said yes to your pitch because I thought you were cool,” I told her, which was the truth. She blinked and looked so happy, you’d think I’d written her a Shakespearean sonnet.
“Here goes nothing,” I said, and walked through the door.
We were meeting in the studio’s control room, which had a sofa and some chairs among the speakers and sound boards. “Everyone, this is Travis,” Sienna said. She stood behind me and put her hands on my shoulders, which made Stone Zeeland glare at me. Great.
“Travis, this is Stone.” Sienna gestured to Stone Zeeland, ignoring his dangerous glare. “That’s Neal Watts.” She indicated the band’s bass player, a nice-looking guy with brown hair and a cool jacket. “That’s Axel de Vries.” She pointed to the drummer, a blond guy with tats on his arms who gave me a nod. “And Denver Gilchrist.”
Denver Gilchrist, the lead singer of the Road Kings, the man I’d seen onstage when I was eighteen and decided I wanted to be. He was sitting on a chair that was turned backward, his forearms resting across the back. At forty, he still had his long, lean grace and his restless energy. He watched me with an unreadable look, and I could have sworn the corner of his mouth was trying not to smile.
Sienna directed my attention to a man I didn’t know. “That’s Will Hale,” she explained. “He’s the band’s manager and the owner of the studio.”
Will Hale was tall and clean-cut, wearing a crisp button-down shirt with the throat unbuttoned and an immaculate pair of dress pants. He was obviously the businessman of the group. He gave me a polite nod and explained, “I’m the one who knows how to work the sound system in here.”
“Hi,” I said. Sienna’s hands on my shoulders directed me toward an empty chair, and I sat down.
We all looked at each other.
“So, um,” I said to break the ice. “I’m sorry about the glitter bomb.”
Neal Watts crossed his arms. “You’re not sorry at all,” he pointed out.
I raised my gaze to the ceiling. “Well, it was funny, so I’m not sorry about that. But it was also rude, so in the context of the rudeness, yeah, I’m sorry about that part.”
“That’s an interesting apology,” Axel de Vries said. “It was ingenious, I’ll give you that. Hiding a glitter bomb in a bottle of non-alcoholic champagne.”
“It took weeks to set up,” I said. “I put a lot of thought into it. It cost a lot of money, too, if that makes you feel any better.”
“You put so much work into one prank,” Neal said. Stone was still glaring. Denver was watching calmly, quiet.
I lowered my gaze to look at them. “You guys were shit-talking my band,” I explained. “I couldn’t resist.” I remembered I was supposed to be apologizing. “In hindsight, you guys were right. We weren’t a very good band. I didn’t have much impulse control back then.”
“And you do now?”
This was Denver. I pushed down the voice in my head screaming that Denver Gilchrist was talking to me and tried to look unbothered. “I’m improving myself,” I told him.
Stone Zeeland leaned forward in his seat on the sofa and leaned his elbows on his knees. “Enough small talk,” he said in a gruff voice, and I tried not to remember how incredibly fucking good he was at guitar, how he made it sing onstage and in every Road Kings record, while I’d had to wrap my hands in tea towels and cry on a sofa after an hour of playing. “You’ve got some music for us to hear, but before we listen, here’s the deal. You might be a shit, but you also got fucked over by your record company, and that’s not what we do. We made our own studio and our own company so that we wouldn’t get fucked over anymore and so that other artists wouldn’t get fucked over, either.”
“Okay,” I said, “but to be honest, that’s hard to believe.”
Will Hale cleared his throat. Denver smiled at me for the first time.
“You don’t believe it because you know the music business,” he said. “If we work with you, we make the best record possible, we promote it, we get you on the road to promote it. But we don’t own you. We do things differently here.”
I shrugged. “If you say so.” I pulled a USB key out of my pocket and held it up. “Who wants this?”
Will Hale took the key from me, plugged it into a slot, and started clicking the mouse on the computer.
“This better be good,” Stone warned me. “We don’t take on a lot of people. You’re here because Juliet tolerates you, Finn Wiley likes you, and Sienna vouches for you. That’s it.”
I forgot how nervous I was and turned my attention to Stone. I gave him a shit-stirring grin that said, Your girlfriend liked me before she met you, and you know it. He narrowed his eyes. Then Will clicked a button, and my music came over the speakers.
I’d recorded four songs. I wrote the first one slowly, but surprisingly, the other three came fast, within a few hours’ time. I’d put the equipment Finn gave me to good use. I’d recorded the guitar parts and the vocals using the microphone, and then I’d composed electronic bass, drums, and key parts and layered them in. Electronic sounds were never as good as live instruments, and a real album would have all live musicians. But for a demo I made by myself with no studio and no instruments besides a guitar, it was the best I would get.
Less than a minute into the first song, my brain unscrambled itself and I remembered: this music was good. I’d made it because I liked it.
It sounded nothing like Seven Dog Down. The music I’d written borrowed heavily from blues, mixed with a catchy riff and a funky beat. It matched well with my singing voice, which had always had a natural smoky roughness to it. I drew out that roughness in the demo vocals, emphasizing it, drawling out some of the words. It was music for a wicked party, music that made you want to bop in your chair, music for spying someone sexy across the room and making a move, music for singing along in your car with your buddy or your girl. It wasn’t music that changed your life, but it was music that reminded you that life was, in fact, a lot of fun sometimes if you let go.
As we spun into the third song, I leaned back in my chair. I tugged my hood off and linked my fingers behind my neck, stretching out my elbows.
When the fourth song finished and silence fell, I looked around the room at the Road Kings. “Admit it,” I said. “You liked it. I’m a genius.”
Will cleared his throat. I pointed at him. “Your boy here likes it. He just doesn’t want to say.”
“I like it,” Will admitted. “The genius comment is a bit much, but I like the music.”
I turned in my chair to look at Sienna, who was standing back, leaning against the wall. She gave me a wide-eyed, excited look and a thumbs up. I winked at her.
“Sienna likes it,” I told the room, turning back around.
“Okay, okay,” Neal Watts said. “Knock it off. It’s good.” He looked at the other band members. “You know it is.”
“It’s passable,” Stone said, still giving me a glare. It seemed to be his usual expression.
“The drums in the second song,” Axel said. “I know exactly what I would do. A real drummer, a good one, would send it to the next level.”
“I know,” I agreed. “I tried it a lot of different ways, and I couldn’t quite get it right. I ran out of time.”
“Denver?” Neal said, and the room went quiet, waiting for their lead singer’s opinion.
Denver scratched his chin, thinking. His dark hair was grown into messy curls, though his beard was neatly trimmed. He had gray eyes and dark lashes. Some women thought Denver was even better looking than me, but they were wrong. Being better looking than me wasn’t possible.
“How much do I hate that it’s actually good?” Denver finally asked the room. “A lot. I hate it a lot.”
I pumped my fist, and the first thought I had was, I can’t wait to tell Katie about this. She was going to be so excited. “I am a genius,” I said.
“You’re not,” Denver replied calmly. “You really are not. But I know good music when I hear it, man, and that’s good stuff. You have a full album of that?”
“No sweat,” I said, even though there would be sweat to come up with ten more songs. A lot of sweat. Maybe another couch crying session. Or two.
“Then I owe Finn Wiley fifty bucks,” Denver said. “He bet me that you’d come up with something good that we’d actually want to record, and I didn’t believe him.”
I gave Denver my most winning smile. “Never bet against me, man,” I told him. “I hope you learned your lesson.”