Chapter 5
CHAPTER 5
JACKSON
I’m back at the farmhouse, pacing my bedroom, trying to convince myself that Bella won’t run to the media with news of my most humiliating secret.
I’ve never admitted to anyone that my label owns every popular song I’ve ever created—forever. My agent knows, but he doesn’t talk shop with the media either, so it’s a non-issue. But now, Bella knows half the story, which is half too much.
I’m the only one carrying the burden of the deal I signed at age twenty. I’m on the hook to produce one more album for them, too, which seems like freedom is imminent, but that’s not the case. Once I’m free from the label, I can’t touch my musical catalogue with a ten-foot pole. So what have I worked all these years for?
I jazz myself up to call my agent. I don’t believe he’ll go to bat for me on something like this, but it’s worth asking. Maybe, just maybe, we can sweet talk the label into letting me perform my own hits at the Strawberry Jam. I can already taste the disappointment of the crowd if I don’t play any of the songs they’ve come to love. I’d be booed off the stage. The media speculation alone would drive me nuts. I need to play my hits.
Artie picks up on the second ring. He’s always available for me—I’ll give him that.
“Jackson Bedd!” His voice exists in a perpetual state of hype. “My man! What can I do for you?”
“I need your help.”
“What’s the sitch?”
“My family needs me to perform a show for them in my hometown.” I put the phone on speaker and sink onto my queen-size bed. “There’s a festival in mid-June they’re putting on, and I want to perform.”
“Ooo-kaaay...” He clears his throat. “And what setlist are you planning on using?”
“It’ll be a short set, but I want to use my main catalogue.”
“And your family is down with the appearance fee, right?” He laughs. “Is that why you called? You want a discount? I could probably finagle a friends and family thing.”
“I need more than a discount,” I tell him. “I want it to be free. This is to help my family out. No money’s going in my pocket.”
Artie sighs tersely, and I can imagine him on a sun-drenched patio in Malibu, in the middle of a lunch meeting that’s bled into a drinks meeting. “Jackson, that’s sweet of you. It really is. But the appearance fee is non-negotiable. You know I can’t sign off on you playing those songs without the fee. It doesn’t matter if it’s for your grandma. The label doesn’t give a fuck. They will invoice your grandma tomorrow if they catch wind of this.”
“So let’s not tell them.”
He cackles. “Yeah. That’s gonna work. Jackson, you can barely scratch your ass without it making the news. You think you can headline a festival under the radar?”
My shoulders sag. He’s right. “This is a charity gig. That has to make a difference.”
“I’m afraid it won’t, my man.”
Frustration kicks up to a boil inside me. “There’s gotta be a way to let this one slide. Can’t you find a way?”
“Jackson, they own everything you’ve made. They own you . Or have you forgotten?” Artie’s voice rings through my room. I wince.
“I need you to try,” I tell him through gritted teeth. “Please.”
Artie sighs dramatically. “Okay. I’ll try. But don’t get butthurt when we hear back from them. You can’t say I didn’t warn you.”
Once the call ends, I’m festering in the silence of my bedroom, poring over the interaction. I shouldn’t get my hopes up, but I’m unwilling to believe that the label could be so devoid of humanity.
A creak outside my door snags my attention, and I surge to my feet, pulling open the door.
Bella is in the hallway, wrapped in a towel, creeping away from my door.
“What were you doing out here?” I bark.
“Just heading to my room after a shower. Jeez!”
“Were you eavesdropping on me?” My gaze slides over her bare shoulders and down the pink cotton towel that’s been reserved as one of the “guest towels” since time immemorial. I find droplets of water kissing her toned calves.
She watches me for a moment, looking confused. “No.” Her throat bobs. “But it’s hard not to overhear things in this house. The walls are thin .” She pauses, gnawing on the inside of her lip. “Do they really own you ?”
I expel a frustrated sigh. “So you heard everything.”
“I just don’t see how it’s possible, they can’t own you?—”
“It’s a figure of speech. They don’t own me. But they own every song I’ve created over the past five years, and they’ll own them forever. Which means even once I’m done with the label, I’ll never be able to play those songs without paying them . Now you know. Any questions?”
Her face softens, and her mouth turns downward. “God. That sucks.”
“Can you please not say anything? I don’t want this to get out. I don’t need the drama.”
“I would never say anything.” Bella stiffens, tightening the knot of her towel around her. “Why do you think I would?”
“You’ve given me no reason to trust you.”
Silence thumps between us, our gazes fiery as we stare each other down.
“I’ve given you no reason to not trust me,” she snaps.
“You’ve made it very clear what you think of me throughout the years.” I’ve stepped closer to her without choosing to. It’s got to be that damn towel she’s wearing that’s making it hard for me to think straight. Bella is hot—no, she’s smokin’. I’ve thought it since the day I laid eyes on her, but she was always uninterested or already taken. She shrinks slightly as I approach, but I catch the flash of desire in her eyes.
“You’re a cocky guitarist in LA,” she says. “They’re a dime a dozen. Doesn’t mean I’d blab your secrets to the media. I work in this industry, too. I don’t need to burn any bridges—especially when I’m staying in your childhood home.”
She has a point. It placates me for now, at least.
“So what do you plan to do? If you headline the concert and can’t play any of your current songs…”
I rake a hand through my hair as my mind returns to this unsolvable knot. “I’m trying to figure that out.”
Bella shifts in the hallway, bringing my attention back to her near-nakedness. I’ve never spent this much time with Bella before—much less in cramped quarters, and certainly not while a decades-old guest towel is the only thing separating my eyes from her creamy skin.
“Maybe cover songs?” she suggests.
“Or…possibly…” I shrug. “An entirely new album.”
Her brows shoot upward. “You think you could write a totally new album by June?”
“I could write a totally new album by next week if I wanted,” I inform her.
“I’m sure you have the ideas inside you,” she hurries to add. “Probably enough for three more albums. I’m just wondering if…I don’t know. Wouldn’t that be a huge ask? How do you pull something like that off? If you’re recording in LA with your band, would the label own what you make?”
I clench and unclench my fists. “They don’t own my new music going forward unless I submit it to them as part of the contractual albums they’re expecting from me. Which is why I’m thinking of not doing it in the studio, or in conjunction with the label. Just writing something else on the side, for myself, that I’d have the rights to perform.”
“Stay…here?” Now she looks fearful. “In Fork Lick?”
“Yeah.”
“Fork Lick doesn’t seem like it’s very conducive to your…process,” she says.
Her words act like a cheese grater on my composure. “What would you know about my process?”
“There’re no instruments here,” she says, looking around as though trying to remember a list of reasons I shouldn’t stay here. “No amplifiers. No band. No studio. These walls aren’t soundproof…”
All I can hear and see from her is doubt. People trying to shoehorn themselves into my life and make my decisions, decide what they want without any input from me. I step closer again, and she snaps her mouth shut.
I’d intended to make my position clear, but now that we’re inches apart, I suddenly can’t see past her bare collarbone. The sweet gardenia scent of her shampoo reaches me, and some of my irritation dissolves.
“Listen.” I try to remember what I needed to express, but she makes it hard, being so half-naked and here . “You don’t have to believe me. All you have to do is sit back and watch.”
The corner of her mouth turns up in a smirk. “Like just another adoring fan, huh?”
“Depends on how much you adore me.”
Electricity snaps between us. My fingers curl with the urge to tug at her towel, but I restrain myself. The last time I made my intent to seduce her known, everything friendly between us imploded. That was years ago, but I’ll never forget it. She’d been taken at the time—which I hadn’t known—and I’d misjudged the level of attraction between us. Turned out, she’d never been a fan of Jackson Bedd.
Bella all but rolls her eyes, slipping past me and opening her door. “I can never give you the level of adoration you crave,” she says. “It’s not humanly possible.”
The door swings shut, and I’m left staring at the wood. Intrigued, aroused, and feeling a lot like somewhere between her words, she was telling me game on.