Chapter 4
CHAPTER
FOUR
Adam finished putting out the ice-cold cans of soda and frosty bottles of juice. He had a couple of lemonades still in the fridge that he could offer to the men in Country Quad when they arrived. His doorbell had already rung, and he hurried to answer it.
He needed a new house with a big front office where he could conduct his business, but for now, this rental would do. He opened the door to find Bryce and Harry standing there, both wearing big cowboy hats, blue jeans, and windbreakers.
“Howdy, fellas,” Adam said, stepping back and pulling the door with him. “Come on in.”
“Uncle Luke just got here,” Harry said, hooking his thumb over his shoulder. “He had everyone with him.”
“Great,” Adam said. Once Bryce and Harry had gone by, he stepped out onto the front porch to welcome his new team to his house.
He’d met with Country Quad previously, of course, and while technically they employed him and could be called his bosses, Adam never liked thinking of his clients that way.
Tex opened the back door and spilled from the truck, and then more cowboys simply kept coming out of it: Morris, Otis, Luke, and Trace. They all seemed to talk over one another, laughing and joking, even while Tex raised his hand in a welcome to Adam.
They definitely looked like brothers, though some of them had sharper features than others. Otis, in particular, came with a rounder face and shoulders, and Adam could see those same characteristics in his daughter.
You cannot be thinking about her right now, he told himself sternly while pasting a professional-manager smile on his face for her daddy.
Never mind that he and Joey were meeting for coffee in only a few hours.
He expected this meeting to run right up against it, and he hoped someone else would make an excuse to finish things up so that he didn’t have to.
He could probably count on Bryce for that, as his wife was due with their first baby in less than a month now.
He wouldn’t want to be forty minutes from her for very long.
The Young men arrived, and Adam started shaking hands and welcoming them to this, their first official meeting at his home.
He entered last and pushed the door closed behind him, locking it as a habit of living in the city with celebrities.
Country Quad definitely had achieved celebrity status, though they lived in a tiny Wyoming town.
Adam joined them in the back of the house, where the dining room blended seamlessly into the living room on the left and the kitchen on the right. Harry had taken a seat at the table, and that had prompted others to do the same.
“I’ve got sodas and water and juice,” he said. “And there’s some lemonade in the fridge, if anyone wants it.”
“I’ll take a lemonade,” Luke said, and Adam detoured to get it for him. Once everyone had the things that they wanted, he joined everyone at the table, where he had put mini notebooks in the middle. He recorded all of his meetings with his phone and transcribed the notes later.
As he said, “Welcome, everyone,” he tapped on his phone to get to the app that would do that for him.
“Ahhhhh,” Otis said, really making a big show of drinking half his Diet Coke and acting like he loved it.
Trace threw Otis a dirty look, then folded his arms and looked at Adam. “Tell us why we’re here.”
Adam looked around at the men that had gathered there that day.
“Yeah,” Luke said, “I thought we wouldn’t have to have very many meetings.”
“It’s one meeting, Uncle Luke,” Bryce teased. “The man just started working for you.”
“We had three before this,” Luke said. “I thought he would mostly be meeting with Morris.”
“I will be,” Adam said crisply, glancing over to the man who had come to him and offered him this job.
Morris Young looked tired, and Adam didn’t blame him.
He had just moved his large family into a much bigger house, and just because they had a lot of help for the initial transfer of items didn’t mean that everything was settled and going well.
“Yep, we totally are,” Morris said. “In fact, I thought one of the best ways to transition Adam into the role—” He paused, cutting off mid-sentence, and smiled.
“Oh, I don’t think I’m gonna like this,” Tex said, but he wore a jovial smile.
All eyes seemed to volley between Adam and Morris, but it was Bryce who said, “I told Harry here that I thought we should put on a charity concert series at the Rising Sun Ranch.”
“That’s right,” Harry said, as if they had rehearsed this.
“And I went straight to Adam and told him that I thought Country Quad, along with me as a solo artist, as well as Bryce—all six of us—could really raise some money and awareness for the horse rescue operations. Not just Bryce’s, but around the country. ”
Adam smiled at his best friend, so grateful for the day that he had walked into that conference room in Nashville, Tennessee, and met Harry and his daddy.
“I immediately texted Morris,” Adam said.
“And we set up this meeting.” He turned to the desk behind him, where he had prepared several folders.
He handed them out as he continued, “Morris, Bryce, Harry, and I thought a five-concert series over the holidays would allow enough time for planning, as well as appeal to people in the giving spirit.”
“You want to do a concert series in the winter?” Luke flipped open his folder without looking at it. His voice sounded like hammering nails out of staples, and Adam glanced at him. He’d been told that Luke was one of the grumpier brothers, but that he usually came around in the end.
Trace wouldn’t say very much, and when he finally did say something, Adam would need to listen. Otis and Tex would talk the most and really hash things out.
Bryce had laughed as he said, “It takes them a while, but they get there—eventually.”
Adam had hedged his bets as much as possible, questioning Harry, Morris, and Bryce relentlessly about whether the band members would go for this idea or not. They had all agreed that they would…eventually, and Adam had taken it as his job to get them to agree.
“A concert on Christmas Eve,” Adam said, handing a folder to Tex, who had taken the seat at the head of the table.
Harry had told him that most of the band members would go along with Tex, and that winning him over first was the smartest move.
“Then Bryce wants to do one on his birthday a few days later.”
“You forgot about OJ,” Bryce said.
“Oh, right.” Adam met Otis’s eyes, and time seemed to stall completely. Images of Joey with her long, pale hair flashed through his mind, immediately followed by Otis’s younger child, OJ.
“Bryce wanted OJ to do a number with him, and maybe you, maybe everyone.” Adam suddenly felt like he was rambling. “On Christmas Eve, because that’s his birthday.”
Otis took the folder with a little too much force and switched his gaze over to Bryce, where he glared.
“What?” Bryce asked. “You don’t want OJ to play the guitar? He’s really good, Uncle Otis.”
“Maybe he doesn’t want to be a country music star,” Otis said.
“Maybe he does,” Harry deadpanned.
“You’re not the boy’s father,” Trace said in a low voice, and Harry looked over to his daddy.
“We know that,” he said. “This is just all a proposal. We’re here to talk about it.”
Adam glanced at the clock and handed the last folder to Morris.
“Three additional concerts,” he continued.
“One on New Year’s Eve, which we can pre-record and set to play as the clock hits midnight around the world.
One on Christmas Day, which again, we can record in advance.
And one on Three Kings Day. It rounds out the concert series and only takes thirteen days of your life. ”
Luke scoffed but said nothing, and Adam didn’t blame him. Thirteen days of live appearances, sure. Thirteen days of massive social media, yes. Thirteen days of everyone talking about the concerts, absolutely.
But Adam knew that if Country Quad was going to play and produce five concerts in only two months’ time, the work would have to start immediately.
He took a seat at the foot of the table and gazed around at everyone as they looked at the single sheet of paper in the folder. Adam knew that sometimes silence was the best motivator to get someone to speak, and he simply waited.
Bryce and Harry exchanged a glance, and Harry drew a breath, as if he would say something. Then he pressed his lips together and looked across the table to the three uncles sitting there.
“Looks like only Harry and Belle are doing a new song,” Trace said, almost in an off-hand way, like he didn’t care at all about anything happening right now.
“That’s too bad,” Otis said. “I’ve got some music in my mind that I think I could write for this.”
Bryce ducked his head as a slow smile curved his mouth, but Adam remained stoic.
“You think you’ve got some music in your mind?” Luke repeated, putting a question mark on it. “Are you kidding me right now?”
Otis looked at him coolly. “Just because we don’t tour anymore doesn’t mean I’ve stopped writing songs.” He looked over to Trace. “We just did three last week that are in negotiation for purchase by Sabrina Roundy.”
“Oh, that’d be a good sale,” Tex said.
Otis switched his gaze to his. “Yeah, it would be.”
“You’ve got a different song for us?” Tex asked.
“Yes,” Otis said. “And I think it would be great for all....” He glanced around the table, his fingers ticking up. “Seven of us.”
Tex, Trace, Otis, Luke, Bryce, Harry, Belle.
“Not eight?” Bryce asked, with a grin, and Adam’s gaze flew back to Otis.
Eight would be OJ.
Otis’s jaw tightened, and he chose not to answer.