Prologue #2
I exhale slowly, pressing the heel of my palm against the counter like that might help ground me. The buzz of laughter fades enough to let the ache slip back in—the one I’ve been ignoring since I stepped through the front door. I glance down, count to three, and lift my head.
“I’ve been thinking about Left Turn,” I admit, keeping my voice low. “About what happens to it now.”
Jesse raises an eyebrow. “What do you mean?”
“Rumor has it Bret didn’t leave it in good shape,” I say. “The industry’s evolving. Streaming has changed everything, and Left Turn’s been slow to adapt.”
“You want to buy it?” he asks.
I nod. “Stonewall could use their roster, and their legacy connections. We could modernize it, give it the kind of digital presence it needs, make sure what Bret built doesn’t fade away.”
Jesse stiffens slightly. “That changes the label in a significant way.”
“Of course it does. We’ll get their artists, contacts…we’ll finally be in a position to compete with the bigger record companies like Anthem,” I explain, the excitement building as I articulate the vision that’s been forming in my head for months. “The marketing potential alone—”
“I don’t want to be a product in a machine,” Jesse cuts in.
I nod slowly. “Fair. But look at the reach and the advertising dollars I could put behind you and all the other artists. It’s something we haven’t been able to do because of capital.”
“How do you think Bret’s family is gonna feel about that?”
“I’m not trying to gut what he built. I’m talking about saving it.”
Jesse doesn’t respond. Just sips his soda and stares out the window.
“You’re quiet.” He’s always quiet.
“I don’t know what I want to do yet,” he says.
“What do you mean? You’ve been working on this album all year.”
“It’s complicated.”
“Apparently.”
Jesse crosses his arms over his broad chest.
“Touring is what brings in the fans, and fans bring in sales,” I say, not sure how I feel about where this conversation is going. “Jesse, studio time costs money… producers cost money, and everything else that goes into it.”
He runs his hand through his thick dark hair. “I know.”
“If this is because of Left Turn…”
“It’s not,” he admits. “I don’t know if I can handle it. I’m not like my dad.” He points out the window where Jack is standing, and just his presence commands attention in any room.
“We can minimize your exposure to the press. We do that all the time for artists who can’t handle criticism,” I explain.
“I don’t give a fuck if the critics don’t like the music. We play for ourselves,” he says.
“That’s noble, but that kind of self-righteous attitude doesn’t keep the lights on. And the only reason we get to ‘play for ourselves’ is because fans are willing to buy into it. Without them, you’re just another guy strumming in his garage.”
His jaw tightens, but he doesn’t argue.
“I don’t want the spotlight. I’m not built for it.”
“You’re far too talented to let that go to waste,” I say, running a hand through my hair.
Jesse runs his thumb over the condensation on his glass of soda. “I need time to figure things out.”
I sigh. I’ve given him nothing but time.
“We’re not gonna solve this right now.” I run a hand over my jaw. “But we need a compromise. A win for both of us.”
Maggie breezes in from the hallway like a hurricane dressed in fringe, waving a half-burned marshmallow like it personally offended her.
“Emergency,” she deadpans. “My dad’s tuning an acoustic guitar, and Adam’s digging through the closet for Bret’s old cowbell. We’re one chorus away from a midlife crisis cover band.”
“Are you serious?”
“No, but it’s not like it couldn’t happen.” She rolls her eyes, grabbing Jesse’s arm and pulling him with her.
Joey lingers behind. “You know what they’re like when they get together.”
I laugh and follow them out, but my thoughts stay behind—caught between business and something much more complicated.
And that’s when I see her.
Morgan.
Standing across the room, her hands tucked around a glass she hasn’t taken a single sip from.
Her black dress hugs her curves in a way that manages to be elegant and effortless, but it’s the sadness in her eyes that wrecks me.
She’s in the middle of a conversation with someone offering condolences, nodding politely, listening, but there’s a weariness—grief clinging to her like smoke.
And still, she’s the most stunning thing I’ve ever seen.
My mind flashes to that summer before she left for college—her laugh on the beach in Malibu, the way she’d challenged me to a race along the shore, her fierce competitive streak matching mine stride for stride.
The mortifying moment I’d knocked over my soda onto her sketchbook, ruining the designs she’d been working on all weekend.
How she’d been furious at first, then somehow forgiven me by the next day.
She’d always been the one person who could see right through me, call me on my bullshit, push me to be better. And now here she is, standing in her father’s house, looking like a stranger and the most familiar thing in my world all at once.
I should talk to her. The thought flickers, and lands like a weight in my gut.
But what would I even say?
‘I’m sorry’ feels too small. ‘I’ve missed you’ doesn’t cut it.
And ‘I’m in love with you’—well, that’s a truth that’s been living quietly in the back of my chest since I was fifteen, too loud to ignore and too fragile to say.
Seeing her again after all these years brings it rushing forward—those buried feelings I thought I’d outgrown, especially when she moved to New York after college, more so when I heard she got married.
Now it’s all unraveling inside me like a song I never forgot the words to, and being near her resurrects that forgotten melody.
“Her and Christian divorced,” Jesse says, and my chest squeezes.
“I know.”
I shift my stance, stuff my hands deeper into my pockets, and try to swallow it all down. Her eyes flick up and meet mine.
The air shifts, like something unseen tilting on its axis. A pull I wasn’t ready for. Her green eyes—sharp, familiar, and a little haunted—catch mine with the kind of intensity that makes it hard to breathe. Like the past pulling me under before I have a chance to look away.
It’s not a smile, but there’s something in the tilt of her mouth.
A spark of recognition. Her eyes hold my gaze for a breath too long—and a small blur of motion barrels into her side.
Her daughter, Hazel, in a puffed-sleeve dress and sparkly sneakers, tugs insistently on the hem of Morgan’s skirt.
Her raven curls bounce with every breathless word she whispers up at her mother, demanding attention the way only a four-year-old can with such unfiltered urgency.
The moment disappears, delicate and unfinished, like a chord that never resolves.
I swallow hard.
“She’ll stay long enough to tie up the loose ends at Left Turn,” I say to no one in particular. “Then she’ll be on the first flight back to New York.”