CHAPTER TWO
“Partly cloudy but with an eighty-two percent chance of rain over the next few hours. So take those umbrellas, boys and girls, while you wait at your bus stops. Most of L.A. will see heavy rainfall later this morning.”
Hawthorne Webster sat on the side of his bed and looked as the meteorologist gave his forecast that more times than not turned out to be a dud.
But he listened every time anyway. He watched that entire morning show every chance he got, too, even though he hated it with a passion.
All that fake bantering between the hosts as if they were the best of friends when he knew for a fact they couldn’t stand each other, was not his cup of tea ever.
But it was the kind of show that kept him informed about the entertainment spaces in which he traveled.
That show and that weather forecast were as much a part of his morning routine as brushing his teeth and combing his hair.
And getting into the shower. Which he dragged his naked body from the bed to the bathroom, turned on the cold-water tap, and hopped inside.
He leaned his head back as that cold water sprayed every muscle in his muscle-tight, bronzed body, causing them to ache from too much stress.
He knew he needed to slow his ass down. But he wasn’t listening to his body these days.
It was contract season for a full third of his artists.
And seemingly every single one of them wanted to renegotiate their shit to heights they’d never known because of the success they’ve enjoyed with his record label.
As if they didn’t realize that once they signed with him, they were going to blow up bigger than their country asses could have ever dreamed.
But once they tasted success, they wanted even more of it. They wanted a sweetheart deal. But what they didn’t know, but were about to find out, was that The Hawk, as they loved to call him, didn’t fly like that. Being a part of his label was the only sweetheart deal they were getting from him.
But he had to show them better than his reputation could tell them. And that was why he had to ignore his body as it screamed for more rest. There was no rest until Spring.
He got out of the shower, peed for what seemed like forever, and then stood at the vanity as he dried off. He reached over, pressed the button against the wall, and listened to the voice messages on Bluetooth from his phone:
“Come on now, Hawk! Why you doing this to me, man? I wanna stay at Eagle Records, you know I do. But you got to meet me halfway. The terms in this contract are insane. My manager said I can’t sign nothing like this.
He says I got offers. Plenty offers from everybody.
But I’d rather stay with Eagle. Damn man. Call me back.”
“I’m the number one streaming artist in America and you put this shit on the table? This nothing contract? Fuck you, Hawk. Fuck you!”
“You ordered your guys to dump me, Hawk? After all those hits I made for Eagle Records? That’s some cold shit, man. That’s some dirty dog kind of cold shit, man.”
“Yo Hawk? Why you low-ballin’ me like I’m some newbie, bro? Why you doin’ this to me? I been with you since you started Eagle Records. We flew high together. But now you wanna treat me like this? That ain’t right, bro. That ain’t right. I thought we was cool.”
Cool? Hawk couldn’t believe he said that.
On what planet would he be cool with some has-been stoner like Jake-the-Juke who would rather fuck and snort than make good music?
Hawk didn’t know how they did it at other record companies, but everybody knew he didn’t play that shit at Eagle.
And Jake knew it too. He wasn’t thinking about that meth head.
After drying off, he tossed his towel aside and stared at his naked self in the mirror over the vanity. He was considered sexy by every measure, top to bottom, with women supposedly falling at his feet as he picked them up and tossed them in his bed.
But that was another lie the media perpetuated about music moguls like him.
He was no male whore. He had zero respect for men who didn’t know how to keep it in their pants and had to have it no matter where it came from.
And since he didn’t go out like that, he wasn’t about to settle for anybody who did.
He didn’t want a whore. He wanted a wife.
And for him it wasn’t about looks and a great figure or none of that shit.
He wanted a good woman of character. Pure and simple.
But he wasn’t about to get one that was slinging it all around town as if she couldn’t control her urges either.
But in his line of work a good woman like the one he wanted was hard, if not damn near impossible, to find.
Work. That was all he did all the time. He had in his arsenal of recording artists rockers and rappers and old school R&B belchers galore.
All A-listers. Most at the top of their game.
He had as many tats as they had. He had the smooth hairstyle they had too.
He had their vibe, their language, their likes and dislikes down to a science.
But it was all about the business for him because he was nothing like those entitled pricks who ran through their fortunes like it was paper money and all they had to do was make another record and print out more money.
And for them to toss around how long they’d been with Eagle and how many hits they had in the past as if that information held any business value for today got under his skin.
What did those motherfuckers think he was running? A record label or a charity?
Besides, it was never about what they did for him yesterday.
All that shit from yesterday didn’t sell no streams today.
Tomorrow didn’t sell any either. What could they do for him today was all he wanted to know.
And if the answer was minimal to nothing, then they were axed.
Pure and simple. How long they’d been with him and all they did in some yesteryear didn’t mean shit to him because it couldn’t.
If it was bad for business, it was bad for him.
He was a Webster. It was engrained in him from babyhood that at the end of the day, everything else be damned. Except for family. Except for business.
But he felt like he was in a rut and going nowhere fast. His best friend nearly died a month ago after some fools had a shootout on a busy city street and Shelton was caught in the crossfire.
He’d already lost four of his A-list artists to competing labels after he refused their outrageous demands.
And negotiations were just getting underway. He stood to lose a lot more.
And on top of all of that, there was that wedding madness back in Brackenridge where his father’s bastard daughter was getting married and he was expected to participate in the ceremony as if that shit didn’t hurt. When it still, all those years later, hurt like hell.
He needed a vacation. But he’d been saying that for twenty years and never took one yet. But he’d never felt so damn tired of it all before either.
After peeing for what felt like forever, he washed his hands, brushed his teeth, and began trimming his mustache with its accompanying thin, pencil beard as he listened to more of his messages. Although they were all more of the same, one came up, from Kemberly, that caught his attention.
Kem was a newer recording artist, although she’d been in the game for over a decade.
But she had a two-year deal with Eagle that was up for renewal.
He found her interesting after his guys signed her up because she seemed so softspoken and kindhearted when he first met her.
Like a woman who didn’t need to be in the limelight and the center of attention all the time.
He even considered asking her out a time or two.
He even wondered if she was wife material.
But he sat and watched. And just like with every woman he’d ever shown any interest in whatsoever, the red flags began to pop up.
The arrogance began to surface. The self-centeredness.
The meanness to her support staff as if they were her slaves.
And that sense of entitlement that he could never abide was something that she could never come back from in his eyes. She was not the one. And that was that.
But her voice mail message, like her, was fire: “You asshole!” she yelled into that phone.
“How dare you do this to me, Hawk? I was making more money with Def before I switched to your sorry-ass label. But you offer me a contract like this? What the hell? I deserve Rhianna money. Hell, I deserve Beyonce money! You and that contract can kiss my ass, Hawthorne Webster. You and that contract can kiss my black ass!”
Hawk laughed out loud and shook his head. At least Kem was keeping it real. But a part of him was disappointed, too, that yet another woman he thought was promising was yet another dead end.
And he wasn’t getting any younger. His ass was pushing forty. Was that part of his life, a family of his own he craved, truly going to pass him by? Was his simple desire to have a woman of substance and character too much to ask???
He’d accomplished everything he set out to accomplish when he left Tennessee over twenty years ago.
He charted his own course. His old man was the richest man in Tennessee.
He was king of that mountain. But Hawk wanted to be his own man and do his own thing and he wanted no parts of his family legacy.
And by all accounts he succeeded. But the one thing he thought would be the easiest to accomplish, getting married and having a family of his own, alluded him still.
But fuck it.
He had work to do.
He finished shaving, left the bathroom, got dressed, hopped into his Corvette, and then sped all the way to his massive twenty-seven-story office building where EAGLE RECORDS was embossed across the front like an actual bald eagle.
Many thought it ironic that he would name his company after an eagle when his nickname was Hawk.
But he knew exactly what he was doing. They both were birds of prey.
But the full-grown eagle was larger than the full-grown hawk.
Business always came first in his eyes. It was always the larger issue, even above his own wants and needs. Which was the Webster way.
But as he drove into his parking lot the way he did every single morning when he was in L.A., he was beginning to wonder if it was really the best way.
He got out of his car, went into his building, and began his day as if the Webster way of work and more work was the only way out for him. He didn’t expect it to be that way. But that was the way it was.