Chapter 3 #2
“Um, okay.” Nikky sank lower into his chair, uncertain how the conversation had ended up in such a terrifying place already.
At least Albion had been in touch with his manager, Charlotte.
Charlotte was one of the few people he trusted in the industry.
She was incredibly busy, but she would be coming to London the following week to check up on him.
“Now, I’ve got a whole selection of songs that will be perfect for you written by some of the most talented pop composers in the business,” Albion went on, clapping his hands together like he was eager to get started.
“I’ve been sitting on a few of these songs for a while, waiting for the right talent to come along and record them.
The best of them were written by Charlie Darling. ”
“Charlie Darling?” Nikky’s heart sank. “The songwriter who writes for Kitty Faraday and Ollie Sandbourne?”
“That’s the very one,” Albion said, his smile wide and his eyes glittering with enthusiasm.
Kitty Faraday and Ollie Sandbourne were two of the shiniest, most sickly-sweet bubblegum pop stars currently making waves in the music industry. They were the polar opposite of the image and career Nikky wanted for himself.
“To be honest, Mr. Albion—” Nikky began.
“Call me Dean, please.”
There was no way Nikky was going to call the imposing man sitting across from him Dean.
“To be honest,” he tried again, “I’m hoping to take an entirely different path. For one thing, I compose my own music, I always have.”
“Right, right,” Albion said with that sort of carelessness that hinted he wasn’t listening to a word Nikky was saying.
“Also,” Nikky went on, the knot in his gut that always appeared when he needed to say something contradictory forming, “I’m really trying to get away from the golden boy image. I’d like to form my music career around something more authentic, grittier.”
“Gritty?” Albion spoke the single word with a mouth full of doubt.
“Yeah,” Nikky said, smiling and inching forward on his chair as the excitement of the things he imagined for himself took over.
“Maybe not full nineties grunge, but I have a darker sound than people think. I put a lot of passion and pain into my writing. I, well, I come from a sort of difficult background, and I’ve processed a lot of emotion from my early life into my music.
It’s not the stuff of a golden boy image, but it’s who I am, and I’d like a chance to be myself. ”
“Sure, sure.” Once again, Albion seemed to agree on the surface, but Nikky knew he was talking to a brick wall.
“But I think you’ll love these songs Charlie’s written,” Albion said, proving Nikky’s fears true almost immediately.
“Why don’t we shift to one of the studios and you can try them on to see how they fit. ”
“Okay,” Nikky said, deflating.
He stood when Albion did and followed the man out of the office and back down the hall to one of the recording booths, not really listening to the words of enthusiasm for what would almost certainly be terrible songs, wishing he had the balls to say something.
He had to say something. He couldn’t stay silent if he wanted to take charge of his own life and make all his dreams come true.
But how did you naysay a man like Dean Albion?
It had been hard enough for Nikky to tell his foster parents that he didn’t really like tomato sauce on the frequent occasions when they served up spaghetti for dinner because it was an easy dish to make for their large family.
He’d always just eaten the pasta with a smile on his face, somehow choking it down, even though he thought cooked tomatoes were disgusting.
He would do the same thing with Albion and choke down frothy pop songs about falling in love on a summer’s day, because you didn’t say no to the best producer in the business when they thrust sheet music for what they swore would be a career-making hit into your hands.
The song Albion played the demo for and then got Nikky to sing was exactly the sort of catchy tune that would turn into the soundtrack for a perfect teenage summer.
It was upbeat and pretty, and totally wrong for him.
But Nikky sang it anyhow, doing his best to sound good, because he didn’t know what else to do.
The only thing that stopped the whole experience from being completely miserable was when Harry was shown into the room on the other side of the glass from the recording booth where Nikky was singing away his soul.
Harry seemed to know his way around a recording session and stayed near the door, hands in his jeans pockets, a slight frown on his face.
To Nikky’s mind, he looked tense and disapproving, but also gorgeous and powerful.
Harry was the godsend that Nikky needed to make it all the way through the song without falling into complete despair that his career was in danger of flying off in a direction he didn’t want.
“That was great. You can come on through,” Albion called to him through the speaker in the booth and gestured for Nikky to join him once the song finished.
In response, Harry said something that Nikky couldn’t hear as he removed his headphones and headed for the door separating the studio and the booth.
Albion turned to Harry with a jerk, and his face went dark. “—you doing here?” Nikky heard the end of the sharp question as he joined the two other men.
“I’m a friend of Nikky’s,” Harry answered without even a hint of intimidation, scowling at Albion, “and I’m telling you, that song is completely wrong for him.”
Nikky’s eyes went wide. Harry agreed with him, and he’d only heard the tail end of the stupid song.
“That song is a hit, and your friend Nikky is about to be a major star,” Albion snapped back at Harry.
Anxiety raced through Nikky with every fast beat of his heart. He hated conflict. Despised it. It was even worse when the guys fighting were both so important to him and his career.
“Nikky is already a major star,” Harry said, shifting subtly closer to Nikky and touching a hand protectively to the small of his back. Like a boyfriend would.
Albion huffed a laugh. “So now you think you know what makes someone a star?”
The way Harry’s expression darkened hinted Albion wasn’t questioning whether Harry had been following Nikky’s career progression, but rather that he was questioning Harry’s own celebrity.
“I know what you think makes someone a star,” Harry countered, holding his ground in a way that made Nikky green with envy…and hot with desire. “I also know what you tend to do with the stars you make when they decide your way is not the way for them.”
Again, Albion huffed. “Your career went nowhere because you didn’t have the talent to hack it,” he said. “Not because of some nefarious, behind the scenes shenanigans on my part.”
“Really,” Harry said, voice dripping with sarcasm. “That’s not the way I remember things.”
“You know what they say about memories being biased and how people always remember things wrong,” Albion said with a smirk.
“There’s nothing wrong with my memory,” Harry said in the darkest, firmest tone Nikky had ever heard.
Albion didn’t reply. His narrowed eyes and stern expression said everything.
Nikky found himself glancing between the men, desperate to figure out the entire story of the obvious history between the two of them.
Part of him wanted to speak up and share that he loved Harry’s music, all of his music, not just the one hit, but that felt too close to offending Albion.
“What are you doing here, Harry?” Albion asked at last.
“I’ve come to take Nikky to lunch,” Harry answered, in no way intimidated.
Albion frowned. “It’s not lunchtime yet.”
Harry shrugged. “I’ll wait until you’re done here.”
“And if that takes all day?”
“Then I’ll wait all day,” Harry said, crossing his arms.
Honestly, it was thrilling to have Harry standing up for him so strongly. Harry Bayonne, his fake boyfriend, was standing up for him.
“I did say I’d go to lunch with him,” Nikky said, speaking up in a way he never would have dared otherwise, since Harry was sticking his neck out for him. “If you don’t mind,” he had to add at the end.
Albion stared at him for a moment, then shifted to stare at Harry for twice as long before looking at Nikky again. “Who am I to ruin your lunch plans?” he asked with a falsely friendly smile. “Let’s just give another of these songs a try and I’ll let you two kids run off and play.”
The words were plainly designed to try to put Harry in his place. Nikky couldn’t help but be impressed that Harry didn’t look the least bit cowed. In fact, he seemed even tougher and more masculine.
Damn, the man was going to make him fall head over heels for real. Not just because he was hot as sin, but because his very presence made Nikky feel like, for the first time in a long time, someone might be there to protect him.
Shit, that felt good.
“I’d like to play some of my songs for you, too,” he found the strength to say. “I trust you got the demo files I sent to you the other day.”
“Yeah, yeah, I got them,” Albion said, back to smiling indulgently at him. “We’ll give those a try later.”
Nikky wasn’t sure he meant that with any enthusiasm, but it was a start.
All he needed was a little bit of Harry’s confidence backing him up to advocate for his own music.
It had him feeling that maybe there was a chance his whole plan to shift his career and take himself out of the public eye just might work after all.